Art Merchandise

[cstdenis]

I am thinking of setting up something where art on this site could be sold on t-shirts and stuff.

This would be an opt in program for artists who want it, so no need to freak out over it.
Most of the money would go to the artist (site keeps a small transaction fee)

From my research, the price for such things would be US$20-25

So vote in the poll.
Artists, would you sell your work?
Art viewers, would you buy it?


Due to copyright reasons this would be available only to original art.
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You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears.

[DG-sama]

I think this is a great idea.
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God damn you signature WORK!

[fallenangel]

Well...I'm in the process of setting up 2 stores of my own, but if you were gonna do the work...

A great idea, but I think the big problem is the age group and their lack of ability to have a credit card and such. I don't have the cash/card/paypal to buy, though. Unless I get a job.

Do be prepared for an enormous hassle in getting printable versions from some people. A lot of CG art on the site, unless it was originally worked bigger and saved, won't print well.
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"I care about people as much as I care about lawn furniture" - Dexter/Michael C. Hall

[cstdenis]

I am aware of various problems. Thats why i'm not going to anymore work 'till I get enough posative responses to make it worth doing.
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You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears.

[Badspot]

Theres a huge infrastructure obstacle to this sort of thing. You really need an established company to do everything for you and of course, they're going to take a cut too so the original artist is gonna get like 25 cents. I dont even know how you'd get this working since the only company I know of that does this sort of thing is cafepress and I dont think they support having more than one recipient of the profits.

Also, theres only a handful of artwork on here thats worthy of printing and I'm having trouble finding it. We'd really need some kind of rating system to find the good stuff. But once money is involved, people would use lame exploits on the voting.. hmm.

[BAMFManiac]

i think this is a great idea! obviously there'd be some problems, but there is a good amount of amazing artwork on this site that would make cool merchandise, so i think it would be worth it.
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i fought the war, but the war won

[fallenangel]

Oh on the contrary, the process isn't nearly as difficult as one might think, and cafepress is far from the only company. In fact, they're quite possibly the worst of them because of their policies and limited product selection when it comes to color, quality, etc. Zazzle is decent, but their printing methods aren't the best. I prefer http://www.99dogs.com The process for designing and having pictures approved for print on colored shirts is a bit of a pain (still waiting on a couple approvals for a week now), but their products are nice. They do the neopets store.

And the amount of money the artist receives far surpasses 25 cents. 99dogs has base prices, and you get whatever you set above the base price as your profit, unlike other sites that have the printing price, and then you get a percentage of whatever's over that (the same way DA does payment). No one will get rich, nor should anyone expect to. It's a neat feature and gives one the chance to see their work on a shirt, and profit should be the least of their concerns.

However, I'm sure there's other ways to do it besides using an established program like that, and I imagine Denis has already thought of such things before even asking. I'm really not sure how using any of those sites and getting the money to the artist would work, anyway. All he wants is to know would you use it. Yes or no. There are difficulties, yes, and there are things that would take a great deal of effort to sort out. Thus answer his question.

As for what should be allowed on the shirts, I really dislike the idea of voting or anything like that. In my opinion, quality guidelines should be set and various people assigned to approve or reject submissions. It would have to be done, anyway, to make sure images are printable.
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"I care about people as much as I care about lawn furniture" - Dexter/Michael C. Hall

[Boss_Man7089]

Yay sounds like a cool idea. Id proabably buy some if i had the choice Thats all i have to say really...

[lucien_aristis]

Yea I'd buy and sell stuff. Im broke thou so I don't know how much I'd buy. I like mugs... never can have enough mugs. I'd probably buy my own mug with one of my own pics on it and run over n show my mom. hahahahaha... I get overly excited over trivial stuff. I thinks it an excellent idea. Cheers,
-Lucien

[fallenangel]

And maybe there could be various Fanart Central shirts, too? Like DeviantART, Neopets, METAL SLUDGE and a billion other websites do? *hope hope*
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"I care about people as much as I care about lawn furniture" - Dexter/Michael C. Hall

[tamashii]

Fanart Central shirts would be really cool!

Haha. I probably wouldn't sell, because my art isn't THAT good, and I probably wouldn't buy, because I don't have the cash, or any kind of credit account, nor do I like to do transactions over the web.

So there's my answer, for what little it's worth.

But FC tshirts? That would be AWESOME. ^_^ And then proceeds could maybe go towards the running of the site? (Unless it used someone's art, then the artist might want a cut, whatever whatever..)



~Earthstar

[Chisato_Shidou]

i'd buy stuff!! it would be really cool!

[Allia]

I would love to buy and sell my work. Even if others did not buy stuff with my art on it off this site, I think I might buy it myself and then sell it at conventions when I'm in artist alley. Because I have been wanting to do this with my art but have not found a nice place to do it.

Also I know there are a lot of people I would buy thing with their artwork on.

When others talked about quality (which what I thought they ment by it was that people could not draw) I think if it's printable it should be allowed to be made into something if someone wants to buy it, even if its the same artist of the piece. If they want to spend the money on it let them. I just think this is a really great oppertunity to put others and my art onto a different canvas than traditional paper.

I support this idea with yes please try this at least.

Thanks ^_^

[layzcarter]

For sure. It's a great idea. I would buy and sell. I've got my card ready
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