💥Anime Expo catalogue is up! I'll be at table F20 in the artist alley💥 first time vending and attending ax .. so excited !!
Fandoms: HnK, Evangelion, Witch Hat Atelier, Love Bullet, HxH, Monster, Mob Psycho and more~
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#AX2026#AXArtistAlley2026#animeexpo2026
@bearsockz (2/2) way better quality and their designs are more interesting and well-considered, esp when it comes to stuff with how ink transparencies interact with the base shirt color. it’s sad that to jurors, a screenprinter and an artist who outsources dtf shirts are on the same level
@bearsockz I totally get what you mean, i couldnt include it cause of word count/length but stuff like artists screenprinting their own stuff is included in the whole “juries dgaf about handmade” thing sadly .. the shirts I own that were screenprinted by the artists themselves are (1/2)
@saiyanhajime yeah ;; and cons with those rules will often have an entirely separate section for crafters that almost always ends up having worse foot traffic/sales - the previous time I did dokomi as a crafter, my ceramicist neighbor and I made literally 1/6 what we did at other large cons
artist alley manufacturing discourse back on the menu.. aside from the usual issues like time investment and high prices, a big reason you don’t see much interesting handcrafted stuff in aa is cause jurors don’t give a shit about it. (1/?)
@miatashorti I agree, mid-small cons like zenkai tend to be better with this! it feels like larger cons have a much stronger preference for booths to look extremely “polished/professional” which makes them dismiss handcraft things by default
@Bri_Bree_ it really sucks :( I’ve seen so many juries state that a big thing they look for is artists who offer a wide variety of different product types. doing that w handcrafted stuff is just impossible
(3/3) of what “good” handcrafted merch is, or what types of handcrafted stuff con attendees want to see. it’s super frustrating and it’s caused me to focus on stuff that I know will give me a better chance of getting into cons, like apparel and other 2d illustrated goods.
as an aside though i do believe that artists need to be more mindful and deliberate with what they do decide to get manufactured, and not thoughtlessly make a ton of designs for the fotm. like idk less is more, you do not need to be selling literally 100+ diff charm designs
@hvjkr (2/2) few token ”crafters” while the vast majority is outsourced stuff. my sculpture work still does well because it’s unusual, despite being expensive. but i’ve been forced to move away from it and focus on 2d illustration mainly because of jurors, to just get into cons
@hvjkr@CAFFSTRINK as someone who does sell handcrafted stuff in aa, it’s a mix of having to price each item comparatively very high ($25+ for a single keychain) but I would say that the bigger issue is that jurors for most big cons don’t really value *quality* handcrafted stuff. its always a (1/2)