Hei suomi-tumblrin Challengers-fanit. Etsitkö sinä 🫵 cossi-kaveria? Koska mä rakennan parhaillaan Patrick-cossia ja olisi superia, jos löytyy joku Artin tai Tashin cossaaja, joka haluaisi treffata coneissa 👀 (treffaamisella tarkoitan hengausta, kuvien ottamista, challengersista huutamista, olen hyvin varattu)
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At the start of the month I had my very first experience as a seller at an artist alley, and thought to share how it went. An ancient tome’s worth of text ahead.
ALTI’ve entertained the thought of trying my hand at selling stuff at cons for so very long, but mostly it’s been just a thought without actual action put into it. I’ve had taken test prints and small batches of pins now and then.
During this year I gathered the resolve to take time to concentrate on art, and also decided to apply for an artist alley spot - Tracon as so happens to have this ‘artist trail’ choice, which favors first-timers and the spots are just for a day. I was delighted to have gotten in!
Right from the start I narrowed down the series I’d offer stuff from to FFXIV, Digimon and Arknights. There was to be an FFXIV meetup the day prior, and majority of my current drawings and such are about it, so.. natural choice! Pokemon is always popular among sellers, but I rarely see Digimon stuff around so I decided to jump onto that (and I’m just personally pleased by the Seadramon drawings I had done). Threw in some Arknights stuff in case any of the ten fans residing in Finland happen to pass by.
[[MORE]]Products ended up being fairly commonplace items at alleys, prints, stickers, pins… I’ve heard people being rather reluctant in getting prints due to lack of display space, so I didn’t want to have too big pile of those. I thought about getting trading card size prints, but dropped that idea for now due to not having very fitting art for those and other reasons.
I also really wanted to try make a little FFXIV comic collection, and after some talks about specs I settled on a 40-page booklet concentrating on my Dawntrail and fishing related comics and illustrations. Initial plan was double the pages, but apparently the staple binding might not have been optimal for such thickness. The booklet and prints were rather teaching about setting the files up for printing, I would bet the people working on the field would be horrified about the setup I did with GIMP :’D
Years ago I made a poll asking if people prefer charms or pin badges, and the winning vote was charms. Yet, I’ve only made pins :D I tested these all myself to see which might have some looseness in them, and put those up for sale cheaper. They’ll stay all safe in an ita-bag after all!
The wooden material in pins and standees got a lot of admiration. I personally wanted to avoid plastic, and first and foremost tried to utilise local businesses in production. Might have to give acrylic a go if I decide to make charms, but at least there are recycled options for those as well.
On the event day I got precious help from my sister in setting up the table and peeling the protective films off the pins and standees. I had earlier done a little mockup display to see how much space the structure will take, which left some dozen centimetres free - not anymore, it was all quite tightly packed!
I’m not the most socially fluid type so I was definitely feeling a bit like fish outta water, fearing that my payment terminal absolutely terminates, not trusting my counting skills and so forth.
Then the doors opened and the first customer was a friend who had promised to come buy the booklet, and with that the payment terminal was also proved working. Then on I had a steady stream of visitors, not any big queue or bunch that some other tables had, but just enough to my liking that I could exchange words with people be it about the items, franchises, or my Godzilla shirt.
The sales period lasted for six hours, and time just flew! I stood through the whole duration, attempted to sit at one point but it just felt bit off to me. Still, might’ve been good to rest legs some more :’D The payment terminal only had problems once, but little restart of the phone app solved that.
So how did sales go?
I was torn between my sceptical anticipation and friends’ threats over selling out with that amount of items, truth turned out to be something in between. The items on itself don’t seem to amount much, but looking at the cash app’s display had me wonder, “am I really making this much?” xD All in all the income didn’t quite cover the expenses of production and additional fees such as table spot, payment terminal and power supply, but I’m almost certain they would have were this a two-day ordeal.
Pin badges were doing well, but definitely learnt to get more designs per batch. Gonna have work to do to get rid of the Haze pins :’D
Sticker sheets might be a better investment than these separate ones I had. Standees got a lot of admiration, but in the end weren’t quite a selling point. Comic booklets did a lot better than I thought, given I’m constantly worrying if any of my scribbly style and weird ideas are understandable xD
Prints did a-okay, didn’t run out of any designs, the closest being Lunipyati and Nidhogg. Out of A5-sized prints the surprising seller was my FFXIV art contest entry, which warmed my heart.
If you looked at the photos closely, I also had two ancient postcard designs from like maybe ten years ago, One Piece and Monster Hunter themed. Those sold really well, and I even got asked if I had any more One Piece stuff available, unfortunately no :c Monster Hunter might’ve had more demand too.
And in the end, what did I learn?
- Don’t bother with Arknights stuff, sadly :’D At least here.
- Some different Digimon might’ve done better, and better range of items than just prints and stickers.
- Some original stuff for random passerbys since this particular area didn’t require a ticket. Shoutout to that lady who bought a Sylph pin after being reassured they’re “good guys”!
- Out of FFXIV, fellas are craving more Zenos, Erenville and Koana.
- Put a content warning on Phoinix (jokingly)
- Gonna try my hand at more sculpting, some Fat Cats found new homes!
- Postcards, get them.
- Charms might be good as well.
- A5-prints might’ve done better if they were displayed along the A4 ones on the wall. This was mostly because I didn’t want to carry that many of the shelf pieces (no car gang).
- Make more business cards. I had tools at hand to make more on the fly, and that was some good preparation :D
- Put some prints inside the clear files beforehand to avoid those embarrassing minutes trying to slide one in in front of a customer.
- Stashing bubble wrap and whatever package materials that come your way is good.
- Any longer event would demand some adjustments, and perhaps it’d be fun to share the table with another artist as well!
- Artist trail (Taidepolku) was a great place to have the first experience, I can vouch for it!
I’ll try to setup my Ko-fi to have leftover items for sale, after I stop fretting over the shipping costs :D
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I am literally the coolest person alive. Sorry if you asked me for a photo at the con and I had to say no, I was so busy with the Hall Cosplay and just had to sprint everywhere.
Anyway my fucking tail isnt visible cause i was too exhausted and disoriented to come up with more than one pose
Photography: Jasu
Photography: Jasu
Photo by my sister in the hotel room before the con LMAO
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Brave Bocchi on stage ♡
Cosplay by Reta, photo by Emilmeemu
Tracon 2025
I participated in a performance competition with a Bocchi the Rock! skit, which was super fun in itself. Winning the Best Technical award for my skit was icing on the cake!! ♥
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Got plentiful of stickers from Tracon’s WoLtrade, and nearly ran out of both my last year’s and new stickers.
I also demo’d Untamed zine’s Triple Triad gameplay, and we used our stickers to indicate which card was under whose control. Seemed to work fine from the feedback!
Had some pleasant chats with other players too, and got to spread ancient knowledge about tank stance’s reduced damage and how you were supposed to turn it on and off as needed :D
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Tracon 2025
(part 1)
pictured: yours truly, pondering the orb
my orb #myorb
thanks to @fairandcruel, @rinkamari and @takapuolikuu for photography and @oinanibakamite for inspiring this by agreeing to cosplay gandalf big naturals
bonus: pondering the orb while orbiting the pond
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Such a fun Tracon weekend! Here’s me as Toralei, photos taken by my incredible sister who did not see shit out of her Mandalorian helmet without her glasses on and still slayed with the photos this hard
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I’m at the conventions free area rn.
It’s wilder this year. There’s convention police around this time. Aand well.. someone thought it was a good time to bring out the SS replicas like that’s not banned and incredible suspect.
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Tracon has started! You can find my booth in the vendor’s hall!
We’re open from 10am to 7pm on Saturday and 10am to 5pm on Sunday.
Come say hi!
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Tämmösiäkin voi vaan olla taidepolun myyntipöydällä sunnuntaina :D
It was fun to come up with the cover, of course it couldn’t have been anything else than Yuweywata Field Station -related. Selling these at Tracon artist path on Sunday!
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bruh mä heräsin tällei aamuyöllä enkä saa enää unta ku oon nii pirtee ja herätys 3,5h päästä??? jos nukahdan conis johonki portaisiin ni let me sleep
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Tracon is right behind the corner! You can find me and my art at the vendor’s hall the whole weekend! I will be bringing as many goodies as I can fit as well as a couple new prints.
Please note that there is no entry to the vendor’s hall 15 minutes before closing time!
See you at Tracon!
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Tracon lähestyy ja tänäkin vuonna luennoimassa. Tämä ohjelma idea kytenyt jo viime syksystä. :D #Tracon #Tracon2025