After waiting for about 10 to 20 minutes just standing there looking around (not looking weird to other people at all) my brother and friend arrived at my location with our convention passes. Because the weekend passes had been sold out we were given three individual passes for each day; one for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Sorry I don’t have a picture of the singular and colored weekend pass. Although…

If I remember correctly, this was the image used. If you look at the bottom of the magazine you will notice that the con is Macross based. Well… at least the title was…

Anyway, after attaching the passes to my pants we headed to the location where the art show would take place. We went in and I noticed that they had grid-like walls that were already holding artwork. There were still plenty of walls empty though. After talking a bit with the hosts about what to do, I quickly went about looking for a space for my artwork. After looking around and talking with my brother I decided to put my art in the back most corner area and took two of those wall structures. After much debate I really didn’t want to take more than two walls, so I decided to just space out my artwork enough to fit them all in and to also add the tags that contained information regarding the piece, such as who made it, title and what materials/medium was used to create it. On top of that, this also worked to give a final price and starting bid price. The tag also contained three lines that were there for bids. Why three? Well they have a system of when a piece receives three bids it goes to the live auction.

As we were setting up, my friend took the time to look around at the artwork around us and noticed that my prices were much higher than theirs. Let me be clear right now, my artwork is truthfully very underpaid. If my time on each artwork was compared to a normal job, I would be paid around 1$ per hour, sometimes less. So despite what my brother and friend said, I wouldn’t budge on the prices. But I won’t deny that it did make me feel rather uneasy. I seriously couldn’t believe that artist were willing to pretty much give their art away for 5-15 dollars (many of the starting bids).

Although a bid shaken up by the comments of my brother and friend, I went ahead and set it all up with their help. I was nervous, and I won’t deny that I was shaking a little as I was finishing up. Here are some pictures I took right after finishing up:

I apologize to my brother who I stepped on his foot to try and get this shot (twice, the last one even after he told me I stepped on him), I’m really sorry!.

So kind of funny story, if you see the frame that contains the Godzilla vs Gypsy Danger piece, you will notice that it is being held my two small ropes. When I was setting up I noticed that I hadn’t moved the “hanger” (you know that small piece of metal that holds the frame when you hang it), so it was still on the side of the frame, ready to be hanged in the portrait orientation. I didn’t have my tools and nails to fix it, so I had to improvise using two of their hook hangers to sit it on top and then tied it with my rope so that it wouldn’t slip off. SAFE!

After doing some final adjustments such as adding arrows pointing to the artwork that each tag corresponded to, I decided to finally look around at what the other artists had put up.

That’s when I made an irritating discovery… people were using prints of their works, and it wasn’t just digital artist either. Many traditional artist were selling pieces that were prints.

I was under the impression that they wanted the original artwork only since the Artist Alley is specifically for digital artists that sell prints.

This are the rules posted on their website.

“Accepted Mediums: Drawing and Sketches; Paintings; CGI or digital; hand-created items including Needle Point, Knitting, Sculpture, Paper Craft, Casting, etc. Photography may be reviewed on a case-by-case basis

Previous Pieces: Artists are encouraged to submit new pieces each year. As such, there may be a 2 piece restriction for the number of entries displayed or sold at previous NDK Art Shows depending on space and availability.”

Of course looking at the rules, there was no mention that one couldn’t sell prints. The only real rule is that you could only sell it once.

This would explain why all the artist had such low prices, they weren’t selling the originals. I won’t deny it, I was feeling the pressure. Maybe I had made a big mistake. Not only did I bring the original pieces, but I also went and bought frames for them. The other artists (well most of them) not only not bring their originals, but they also just backed their pieces with foam board. This of course also lowers the cost on the artist, allowing them to sell their artwork for such low prices.

So this is the difference between experienced artists and people like me…

Of course I wasn’t the only one that brought the original artwork and selling them for at the very least reasonable prices. So I at least wasn’t the only one selling my artwork for prices far above the average prices.

In the end, there wasn’t much I could do. I set up a couple of card holders for my business cards, finished all the paperwork with the art show people and decided to just leave things be and enjoy the convention.

Before I forget here is my business card, I wanted to make a post for it so that will happen soon.

I wrote quite a bit so here are some pictures of some cosplay I saw during the day, but will hold the best for the next post.

It’s funny I was taking a picture of this Nami cosplayer when suddenly…

This guy appeared, I’m guessing it’s her boyfriend.

Will post some more of day one next time.

Hasta la próxima,

-Nube