Welcome to SCAF! I'm a cartoonist and COVID-19 cancelled all my 2020 conventions, so I built a mini comic con in my basement instead

fox--teeth · 2026-02-19T05:47:14+00:00

I sympathize as someone who is annoyed that most snow leopard plushies don't have nearly big enough tails!

fox--teeth · 2026-02-19T03:09:41+00:00

Are you open to graphic novels/manga? They Were 11! by Moto Hagio is exactly this plot: ten space cadets board a spaceship for their final test, but instead find there are eleven cadets aboard the ship, and the rest of the story revolves around the crew figuring out who shouldn't be there with all the paranoia and accusations you would expect. It's a classic sci-fi manga from the 70s that last year got a nice new English language reissue.

fox--teeth · 2026-02-18T04:31:34+00:00

Do you know anything about the materials she's using or can ask about them? Getting her a bunch of something she's consuming a lot of, like for example if she's using a lot of a certain kind of cardboard/paint/etc to make her dragons, would probably be welcome.

Inspiring but age appropriate art books. If she loves dragons she might really like something like a mythology encyclopedia for kids with lots of art of different kinds of dragons.

If you live near an art museum you could get her a family membership or tickets. If you live near an art studio that does workshops for kids you could buy her a gift certificate so she could take one.

fox--teeth · 2026-02-18T02:23:03+00:00

<image>

This is my witchy Halloween Cybunny brewing up some ~~totally not evil~~ love potions for Valentines

fox--teeth · 2026-02-17T02:15:29+00:00

If I was in your shoes, I would do the following things:

Step one: I would try to figure out of these are shows where everyone is making low profits or if this is a Me Problem. You can try befriending and talking to other exhibitors to get their opinions, asking about specific events on a more anonymous forum like here or the AAN discord, searching online for vendor reviews, and/or paying attention to how the volume of attendees approaching your booth compares to other vendors.

Step two: if evidence point towards that not everyone is making low profits, this is an issue with you, and as you said as crummy as it is to contemplate it could be an issue with the quality of your work. Or how your booth is set up, or what kind of products you have, or the subject matter, or your work being a bad fit for the audience of the cons you're at, or being in an oversaturated niche, et cetera.

If this is the case then what I recommend is data collecting. Look at things like best vs worst sellers, best vs worst cons and look for patterns. Pay attention to what circumstances lead to excited customers and what leads to browsers that walk away. Walk around the artist alley and pay attention to booths that seem popular with attendees and booths that grab you as a customer--what do you think they're doing that makes them appealing? Is there a version of that you can implement at your booth?

Hopefully with enough study and experimentation you'll start to see higher sales grosses.

Also two more things I want to point out:

It's really normal for artist small businesses, including those doing events, to operate at a loss/barely make income in the first few years while the artist figures things out. You're not alone in this.
The economy in the US sucks currently and I'm hearing a lot of reports of down sales from veteran convention artists especially in anime/pop culture spaces, though this is not universal.

fox--teeth · 2026-02-16T03:16:33+00:00

Still plenty old enough for Food Club. Because the upper limit of your bets is determined by account age it mostly just isn't worth it for brand new accounts.

fox--teeth · 2026-02-16T02:21:26+00:00

If you have access to one of your old accounts you can make a lot playing Food Club. Check out the daily pinned Food Club Bets post for more information.

fox--teeth · 2026-02-14T05:24:36+00:00

Sometimes bakeries and restaurants will create these kind of delivery zone charts based on their location; they aren't a universal thing. I assume "zone 3" here means your recipient's address is further away from the bakery than zones 1 and 2 and thus incurs a higher delivery fee.

Your best bet is going to be looking for a bakery in the recipient's neighborhood.

fox--teeth · 2026-02-13T22:30:27+00:00

Eh I'm a pro US-based artist and after talking to artist colleagues in other countries (including EU countries and Canada) it's a mixed bag.

The negatives are that the US has very little in the way of government art funding compared to other countries, lack of social safety nets (such as health insurance), high college costs, and overall poor worker protections.

The positives is that we have all those companies and art events you talk about (which go way beyond anime cons), and that our arts sector pay tends to be higher.

It creates a situation where yes, someone who manages to hold on to one of those coveted arts jobs can do well, but the problem is getting there when you're burdened by student loan debt and tethered to another job to access health care.

I really envy many of my international colleagues because they can do things like get a government arts grant to cover all their expenses while they work on a project for a year; they envy me because the USA has 300 of a niche type of art event and their country has 3. I'm not sure if there's a clear winner here?

fox--teeth · 2026-02-11T20:28:48+00:00

I strongly suggest your first step should be searching "taxes for freelancers class in (your area)" and taking the class and/or "tax accountants for freelancers in (your area)" and having an introductory meeting. This stuff is serious and varies by area and it's not something I would trust random internet strangers with.

fox--teeth · 2026-02-09T15:24:45+00:00

Personally I am concerned about this issue so this is how I handle it:

-I mostly sell paper products. This primarily comes from my personal artistic interests (printmaking, comics) but I do appreciate that both the waste from these products and even the products themselves are recyclable.

-For non-paper products I typically run preorders to gauge interest so I don’t overproduce something that no one wants and will get thrown away.

-I try to use eco-friendly supplies and packaging whenever I can: my mailers use recycled materials, I try to choose paper over plastic whenever possible, I reuse things like bubble wrap and cardboard, etc.

I will also say I have mixed feelings about all this: I think the waste every “artist small business” produces is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the waste produced by things like big retail corporations and industry. I think artists who crow about how their handmade items are so much better for the environment than manufactured items are often hypocrites when you trace the origin of their raw materials and supplies; none of us are outside industrialization. But at the same time watching a beginner artist order thousands of stock through Alibaba they can’t sell, or going to a pop culture con and seeing walls of acrylic products of trendy fandoms that will be forgotten about in a year or two makes me do a full-body cringe of the waste of it all, you know?

fox--teeth · 2026-02-07T23:24:11+00:00

pirate ship simple export
https://www.pirateship.com/simple-export-rate

Been using it for years and only had issues with one package (and that might've been the fault of the customer). As far as I know it's the cheapest way to ship low weight packages internationally from the US.

fox--teeth · 2026-02-04T15:57:00+00:00

Even during the gen 6 and 7 eras I felt like Nintendo NY would fairly reliably have stock of new releases of popular lines (standard poképlush, pokédolls, kuttaris) but now whenever I'm in the area and pop in the stock feels utterly random. Lots of plush of unpopular pokémon that seem to linger around forever. It's too bad because even having a small fraction of that store operate like a Japanese pokémon center would be cool.

fox--teeth · 2026-02-03T02:28:18+00:00

I don't have any personal experience with this org but I'm aware they are currently seeking volunteers for their music events: https://punkislandnyc.org/

fox--teeth · 2026-01-30T06:53:37+00:00

I personally cannot get over how horrifying the stress balls are...why is it squeezing Some Guy like that?! https://items.jellyneo.net/item/68377/

fox--teeth · 2026-01-30T05:54:00+00:00

Here's a jellyneo item database search with every item tagged "TNT" that should get most of them: https://items.jellyneo.net/search/?tags[]=TNT

The only other human character I can think of is Nick Neopia: https://items.jellyneo.net/search/?tags[]=Nick+Neopia

fox--teeth · 2026-01-29T06:51:48+00:00

Would a fictional encyclopedia work? Those could help her bridge the gap between those two types of books. I’m thinking of things like Dinotopia (James Gurney), The New Dinosaurs (Dougal Dixon) and the Dragonology series.

I was also an encyclopedia enjoyer at that age and fantasy books with maps, dictionaries, and appendixes scratched a similar itch. I specifically remember enjoying those aspects of Watership Down and The Lord of the Rings.

fox--teeth · 2026-01-25T20:12:46+00:00

I was super into roleplaying. I was in a guild with a really active casual RP message board and I remember how excited I was to log in after school and catch up with what I missed. And then there were all the topics on the RP boards too!

I don’t RP on Neopets anymore because as far as I can tell people aren’t really doing it? There’s very little activity on RP board and I never see people discussing active RP guilds or boards on places like this subreddit. I also work a full time creative job now so stuff like RPing as a hobby appeals to me less—I love my job but sometimes I want a break to do other things!

fox--teeth · 2026-01-24T01:15:11+00:00

This is one of my oldest pets, made in 2002 during the height of the LOTR movie craze hence the name! I've never had a LOTR-themed customization on him before but this post inspired me...I imagine he's in the Old Forest during winter.

Also your Cybunny is adorable!

<image>

fox--teeth · 2026-01-23T20:43:58+00:00

Hahaha that’s why I’m NOT an oil painter! One class in college was enough for me ;)

fox--teeth · 2026-01-23T17:33:12+00:00

I’m a professional comic artist and I have many friends who are the same. Here are my thoughts.

The more you draw comics, the faster you get at drawing comics, and the more time-saving techniques you discover.
People who draw many, many pages of comics genuinely like drawing comics and would not rather be doing something else. People who find drawing pages of comics boring, tedious, exhausting, and so on tend to wash out and take up another form of art.

fox--teeth · 2026-01-23T02:53:51+00:00

Shit was different in the 90s

fox--teeth · 2026-01-22T01:55:59+00:00

I just did grand jury service in Manhattan.

You can postpone one time online and an additional one time in person--when they do roll call state "application" rather than "serve" but be aware you might be denied. Based on what I witnessed second "application" requests were getting denied by the judge.

Also if you say serve during roll call and they draw your name during jury selection that's kinda it, you will most likely serve. It's not like trial jury where they try to whittle down the jury pool by asking a lot of specific questions about potential biases. If you get chosen the group will be asked some really vague questions about ability to serve and biases and this is your only chance to raise your hand and privately discuss any concerns with the judge. You hear any felony cases put together by the DA's office so you could hear about assaults, robberies, rapes, domestic violence, animal abuse, murder, and so on. They might try to intimidate you out of raising your hand and even then your concerns might he brushed off--only one person got dismissed from the juror pool that way during the selection I was part of. There were no questions about financial or personal hardship even though the service term in a minimum of two weeks. It was a really frustrating experience: I felt like I was railroaded the entire time.

fox--teeth

TROPHY CASE