might get better...if I have time before I have to quit art
So it's time to confess. I'm kind of bummed by how AX2019 artist alley turned out.
Sure, I didn't get into the red, I was able to have a good time, and nothing traumatic happened. But I was really disappointed in my sales. They defied YEARS of trends! And I thought I was finally going to be able to justify this artist life of mine...But now it seems to be reaffirming my growing hunch to quit. ;_;
Though granted, last year set a pretty high bar. Those sales were awesome, and primarily driven by my Wayfinders and having finally made an excessive amount of Wayfinder stock. For years, I've depended primarily on my Wayfinder fan-crafts for sales. Every year, they sell-out...except for last year when I miraculously managed to make 21 Wayfinders stock and actually have leftovers after the con. O.O But this year, AX2019, I think I only sold 2 Wayfinders. 2 out of 15. ;_; I thought that if I just keep making more of them or finally make enough to meet customer demand, then I could finally dictate a reasonable amount of sales. Maybe enough to justify making a living as an artist. I really needed more income in my life, and I thought that if I just kept making more Wayfinders in excessive stocks, then I could get more financial security. And AX2018 seemed to prove that. So I studied my past sales trends, predicted how much stock I would need, and virtually met those goals. But this year, they not only didn't get sold-out, but they were BARELY selling.
Maybe it was my lack of marketing. Last year I went in hard with posting to my art studio blog. I posted progress, almost daily, and constantly reminded people what I was making. But I found out a little while after AX2018 that someone found one of my Wayfinders too fragile and they were very dissatisfied. I was so ashamed that I ran away from my art studio blog from then on. I stopped trying to make that type of Wayfinder. I stopped posting daily progress about my other projects. I couldn't just replace their item or repair it through the mail because I don't have a mailing system or online shop set up. And now I was even more reluctant to try any onlie interactions or store. Maybe if people were better reminded that I was going to be in AX2019 artist alley, where I was, or what I was offering, I could have gotten more sales.
Suddenly being in ailse G didn't help either. For the past 2 years, I had been in ailse K. I don't know why. I don't know why I was suddenly in ailse G for AX2019 either. Maybe I was later than usual in filling my Artist Alley Form? Probably. But I got one passing customer's comment being surprised to find me in ailse G. Maybe they had become accustomed to looking for me in K? Maybe they just assumed I wasn't at AX2019, when they didn't see me in K? I wouldn't put it past the customer base. I remember memorizing booths' placements in San Diego Comic Con. And I've had customers prove that attendees have a very askewed memory of time when it comes to what's in artist alley. Maybe my table location change was too much for them. (I mean, I may personally go up and down the aisles, systematically checking every table's stock for that one artist who I don't even know if they're here---and I found her too! Under a DIFFERENT name!---but not everyone is as obsessive as me. First rule of design is to accomodate human tendency to go for what's easy. And considering how overwhelming an anime convention is, I can't blame anyone. In fact, I willing and welcome to assist through that.)
My AX2019 Wayfinders were barely selling, especially in proportion to how much time I wasted to make them. ;_; I wasted so much time making those Wayfinders, that I've honestly long-since lost a lot of excitement over. There are so many other things I want to make instead.
So it's fortunate that this year, I impusively sacrificed a lot of my Wayfinder time in exchange for several new projects. ^.^ And 4 of those projects either sold-out or sold-out a large portion of stock: Joker-Kirby figurine charms, Smash Bros invitations, pompom Wooloo charms. Sure, no one bought any Ryuji (birthday) charms, and the Persona 5 x Neko Atsume bookmarkers barely sold, regardless of how much time and love I had for both of those also-impulsive, last-minute projects. But still, the Smash invitations, Wooloos, and Joker-Kirby figurines were VERY well received. ^-^ And I loved watching people squee over them---Actually, I found that these demographics don't really "squee". The Wayfinder fangirls "squee"'ed. The Smash Bros and Pokemon fans are more like "Duuuude! Look at that! Oh man!". LOL Still great enthusiasm. ^___^
And they were less physically and mentally harrowing to make than Wayfinders. For years now, I had gotten sick of Wayfinder-making eating up ALL my time, only to come out with one completed item per day---or every TWO DAYS. It was DEVASTATING to screw up a sculpt or blend and need even more hours to fix---that I couldn't really get paid for because no one wants to pay more than $70 (except for the Sora Wayfinders, but those had proven too delicate to make more of without a new packaging strategy that I haven't figured out how to source economically yet). Additionally, there's all the physical strain to make those Skinner Blends. I'm no longer that 20-something who did 39 push-ups every day and swordswings and ballet exercises and had such full-body athleticism that I was visibly fit! My arms get TIRED now. x_x; Plus the frustration with how bad I am at Skinner Blends...It takes me at least 2 hours to make them. Meanwhile, YouTube crafters are doing them in 12 minutes. x___x;;;;; I can make excuses about how they're not making slabs as thick as mine, or their clay must be better/expensive brands, or they're using motorized pasta machines and I couldn't even properly clean mine before it broke. I was in a constant battle of perfecting a blend or a sculpt, and always being disappointed in myself for not being faster or getting too tired to work for 7 more hours. ;_; And even more, I was sad that Wayfinders left me so exhausted that I didn't have the time to make anything new. I was tired of Wayfinders. They still looked pretty enough for me to take pride in and I had perfected my process enough by now to bolster my confidence. But I wanted to make more things, damnit!
I had been waiting for years, for someone else in Anime Expo artist alley to give me competition in Wayfinders, so I could have an excuse to focus on other things. So I wouldn't feel obligated anymore to be the only provider. Yes, I depended on Wayfinders for the bulk of my sales, but that was the reason why I wished for competition to give me an excuse to branch away from them. But now that even my Wayfinder sales are waning, maybe this is excuse enough.
The good sales on my new products actually made me feel better about working on new projects and making less Wayfindersfrom now on. And people really liked my new, crazy, weird ideas! ;U; They really liked them! ;u; And what's more, they liked my figurine sculptures. I feel really encouraged now to make more figurines, more 3-dimensional characters in clay. Every year I make all these charms from abstract symbols, representing characters. And _I_ feel very good about them, but they never sell. Whether it's my Joker mask charms or Ryuji ZOMG/Skull mask charms, or any other past ideas I've had. I was so excited for fans of those characters, like me, to also have such things...Only to find that no one cared. No one cares about representatives of their favorite characters. This year I finally learned that people want their actual favorite characters. ...Well, I had known that for a while, but I had no confidence in my character sculptures. That's why I stuck to just sculpting symbols representing favorite characters. It was subtle, and I thought some people would go for more abstract badges of fandom. The symbolic items just don't sell, and I think it's time for me to branch out into actually sculpting characters. I was always afraid because I'm terrible with human anatomy, but sculpting Kirby proved that I don't have to stay away from character sculpting just because of that. And maybe I can work on my human sculpting and actually make competent human character figurines for my next artist alley. *o* AX2019 proved they care about my figurine sculptures! *O*! And my Super Smash Bros invitations! And my pompom Wooloos! ;U;
Actually, the good sales on these less physically strenuous projects like the Smash invitation and the pompom Wooloo, reminded me: my paopu fruit plushies and pompom Moogles also sell well. Every year, I have to stock up as much as I can, because those are reliable sellers. I just don't have to think about them as much as my Wayfinders because they don't become these complex, harrowing projects, eating all my time for so little. Maybe I should make more simple projects. I should stop making items that take 7 hours or 2 days to complete just 1 project. I should focus more on the little $10 thing that don't take more than 3 hours to make...Because people actually buy those more! o_O Maybe it's just the $30 cut-off price point or maybe it's because even short projects like those are cute enough to sell... But I should focus more on that, if they've already proven effective for sales. In addition to being better for my physical and mental health.








