What helps an artist keep at this!

Howdy, I realize that it's now been 13 years since I first came to an artists alley or a booth, I've managed to show off work I can do across the continent. Most of the time I consider the experience positive and it's been a lead to some temporary gigs, even the odd time I published for someone other than myself. I'd like to talk about what made an event great for me. I'm not a big name, I consider myself a person that spent a lot of time learning to be a better artist and when I worked a regular job with this interest, it's always been a balancing act. Here are some of the reasons why I'm still doing it:

1) I like drawing. I would like few things more. Through the good times and the bad, I had this. Showing the public this thing I do is a hard gig. I once attended an event (15 years ago) and showed my portfolio to a comic pro and was told I drew like a child; I had to work really hard to show far more understanding of backgrounds, perspective and anatomy or else I may as well quit. And instead of getting upset, I heard his reason why he is the professional he is. He was only being hard on me because he is hard on his own work. I never took his criticism personally and when I saw him 2 years later he told me that I was on my way to being a good artist, which meant the world to me.

2) What do you want out of the experience? Originally I may not have had a real grasp on what I wanted, but in time it became clearer. I wanted to show I could create work that made me visible to the public and the industry. After that, I wanted the public that saw my work online and at events I attended to talk about it any way that seems generally positive (though I'm sure it can't always be). If I am at any event, I realize if I'm not having fun, in all the times I drove to places, flew, took a train or even walked, and about the only thing I have not yet done is go somewhere on a boat: I am generally always having a good time, connecting with people also wanting to have a good time makes it worth it.

3) Can you stay in a budget? That's a tricky one. I read on a site from a show I really do not want to go back to again that if you can't make money on their table, why don't you spend more money like on a booth? That's not how this works. I've done well at some events that cost me nothing, I've done well at events that were expensive and I've also done terribly at other events that were the same way. Work hard at this and spend time learning as much as you can in your downtime. But in the mean time, after you went to an event to promote yourself, paid for your art supplies, made your work printed, promoted yourself, and paid for your table, you need to make sure you budgeted for it, you found a way to recover the cost involved, and it's tricky because this is showing anyone interested that your stuff is worthy of sitting in their homes (and not yours). For me, if I can barely make a $100 event or I don't, I usually will not go back. After all this time, if people are not getting told there are artists there, it's not in this very limited budget to exhibit. You can pay a fortune to be at an event that is popular (or not) and if the event hides the artistic folks in a broom closet and the public never knew they were there, why should you ever go? Losing money sucks. I hate it and I don't recommend it to anyone. Learning a budget is difficult, after a few years of throwing money away just to show people you got this, you should eventually recover costs. If by then you still can't, you are not running a business, you are running a hobby. Hobbies can be expensive ways to piss your money away and not be cost effective. If you treat this like a business, then you better make sure this is worth it financially because a lot of the time people quit this within a few years because it can be incredibly difficult to manage. If this is not cost effective, look at your budget and cut out the reasons this could be happening. Adapting is also going to keep happening, so get used to it.

4) Your responsibilities are to be polite to the public, being decent to your convention (and other exhibitors), working on your unique material to create a portfolio people appreciate, reminding an audience you're there, creating value in your work, and to keep a bottom line of what makes it worth it. If a convention decides not to tell their crowd what your work entails or shows attendees how to find everyone with staff, maps, and using the internet to show you are there (with samples), then maybe being there is not worth it. Most of the time customers I have ever met are pretty decent people. I have at this point only one time in 13 years ever told someone to leave my table. I'll tell you, it was 2 kids that wanted my work for nothing. My drawings I do at tables are not expensive, one kid kept demanding work on the table and was unwilling to pay the cost. Then he commanded I draw his friend with Iron Man. I told him I'd do it for a cheap price and he kept refusing. I had a bottom line and he was just wasting time when I could talk to someone that would pay. I then asked the kids to please leave my table. I was not rude, I'm just saying if I did nothing but free work I would not be able to pay my bills. Have a heart people, I can't sing and dance for you for nothing. You don't have to blow big money on me (but I won't refuse millions), but come on, be willing to work a deal out we can agree on and I'd be glad to do the work.

5. Gigs do not come often. People the more they see your stuff will make you offers. And a lot of them are just not worth it. A long time ago a company offered me work and the compensation was when they get paid, I get paid. And I ultimately got paid zero, the company went under, and my published work is now published somewhere in eastern europe and I have yet to see a dime (and probably never will). I also worked for a company in more recent years that told me to work on a 22 page comic. Contracts were signed, the deal was payment for a page at a time and all they would do is tell me if there was a problem and when there were no issues, approve each page. The contract never stated the publisher could decide at any whim that they were no longer happy with work completed in the past (when they had previously approved and told me to keep up the good work) and would demand for nothing I redraw everything, which was a huge waste of time and stressful for myself while holding down another job working for someone else while I worked for this publisher for what was ultimately almost nothing. I eventually showed the contract never stipulated that clause and my refusal to work for nothing over and over again, which led to me contacting a lawyer that showed me they were making things up as they went along, I had legal reason to leave and nothing years later became of my departing. If you get a gig, don't sign anything. Get a contract and go over it with a professional lawyer, or else you're probably going to run into some of the dipshits I have. Which brings me back to point 4. If your bottom line is you don't want to get work demanded of you for nothing, make sure that bottom line always gets respected from the other party. But if you agree to their terms, you had better respect them or you could end up in huge legal trouble.

6. If you made it this far in the rambling, conventions are not as a general rule terribly aware of civil law. We live in a world of copyright law, Disney does not want anyone making money off Mickey Mouse unless it's them, they have every right to argue that point and same as Warner or anyone else to tell you to stop selling their likeness of product or there are consequences. Do not mass sell copyrighted characters. I've known of Denver Comic Con for a few years and they just changed their name because the name "Comic Convention" is legal copyright of the San Diego Comic Convention so they are now going by a different name. What you can do is respect the reason, not mass manufacture copyrighted work, and if you want to make lots of printed stuff to sell, stick to making stuff like parodying, public domain, or stuff that really has never been done before. It's a tricky area where the rules are hard to define, but trying to follow the civil law is a better way to go than to ignore it. If you want to know what public domain is and parodies, look them up sometime. I can tell you I brought work I did out of my own interest based loosely on artistic designs I have seen of Heracles at cons (the public domain figure, not the same as Disney's versions or any other brand) and so far I do pretty good showing them off. If you wanted to make a book to make fun of someone named Mike Jones (just an example, there's no one I want to make fun of by that name) do not call him Mike Jones, call him Phil Malone, or anything but the real guy's name, you actually can't make fun of anyone directly in published work or you could also face a lawsuit from Mike. If you get a cease and desist letter from Mike, definitely stop calling your character that name!

Anyhow. that's my two cents. Take it easy.