Yoenai

Oh wow, Polymanga's approaching ! Only 10 days before it starts and I'm really eager to be there to meet pop-culture fans and fellow artists. This year, it's going to take place in Lausanne, from the 29th of March till the 1st of April.

I'm super happy to share the booth with Tatty Draws, and we'll have new items to sell, like :

• notepads

• weekly planners

• washi tapes

• forex posters

Of course, we'll have our usual illustrations as well as new ones printed on :

• cards

• posters

• bookmarks

• stickers

Now, I need to get back to printing the rest ! ^^

See you there soon !

Back in 2020, I've created my first online shop on Redbubble, one of the most famous print on demand platform for artists. At that time, I thought this was a good place to sell art, but my opinion about it gradually changed, and I'm planning to close at least one of my two shops there.

THE NEW FEE

A few days ago, Redbubble announced that they would introduce a new fee for artists on the 1st of May, on top of the production costs and the already existing fees. And guess what : this new fee will only concern the artists who already don't earn much on the platform, cutting their artist margin up to a half.

In other words, Redbubble wants to get rid of small artists.

Read more on their blog : https://blog.redbubble.com/2023/04/how-account-fees-may-apply-to-you/

HARD TO STAND OUT

As an unknown artist, I've already felt quite overwhelmed by all the other art pieces sold on Redbubble. It is a very popular platform, and it might be a victim of its own success. If you don't already have an existing community, it's going to be very hard for you to make sales there, especially if you don't have many different designs to sell.

PRODUCTION COSTS AND QUALITY

The production costs of the products (especially the ones made with fabric) are really high, and the print quality is not that impressive. Having ordered different products there, from tote-bags to notebooks, I've been disappointed quite a few times, even though I had uploaded high-resolution designs on the platform.

CONCLUSION

Nowadays, it's already hard enough for artists to earn their living with their creations, and this new decision from Redbubble is really not helping. Besides, it is well known that they don't do much about art-theft, and we can guess AI will make things even worse.

As you can imagine, I wouldn't recommend Redbubble for artists, especially if they don't have a huge fanbase yet. I'm thinking about finding an other POD platform, and I already have a few hints. Don't hesitate to share your thoughts and experience about this topic. ;) Take care Yoenaï

Hi,

I'll be at Polymanga (Montreux, CH) from the 7th till the 10th of April 2023 ! Can't wait to be there !

I'm really glad they've been very clear about their no-AI policy : AI-generated images will not be allowed te be sold in the artist alley. Let's hope every exhibitor will play fair with this rule.

In the last convention I went to, there have been artists with real talent who, sadly, sold AI-generated images or illustrations partly made with AI. The organisers were, of course, shocked and felt cheated, as well as the people who've been buying merch from these exhibitors.

AI images generation is very new to most people, and as artists, we need to tell them about it and the copyright infringments it's guilty of. The founder of Midjourney himself asks his users not to sell AI-generated images, and a class-action lawsuit is ongoing against Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt (https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/lawsuits-accuse-ai-content-creators-misusing-copyrighted-work-2023-01-17/).

A crowdfunding launched by the Concept Art Association is also close to reaching the funding target, with the goal to create ethic laws about AI-generated images : https://www.gofundme.com/f/protecting-artists-from-ai-technologies

Like many artists, I think these AI image-generators are just the biggest copyright fraud in history. And it's not only the artists who have been stolen, it's everyone who has posted something on the web.

Everyone is concerned by this.

Even though DA has been flooded with AI-generated pieces since the beginning of the year, there's still hope : the comic cons and festivals start to be aware of the problem and more and more of them update their policy to ban AI-generated content.

So let's go on with creating original paintings and keep up the resistance.

This weekend I'll be at Japan Impact (Lausanne, CH), booth CO 2.13. ^^

Don't hesitate to pass by and chat a little !

I'll have a few new original illustrations there and my usual cards, posters, bookmarks and so on.

Have a nice day

Yoenaï

Hi everyone, I hope you're all fine and that I'll be able to meet some of you at some of the next swiss art conventions. ^^ This year, I'm participating to Polymanga's art contest, MaBulle. If you'd like to support me, you can vote for my drawing here until the 14th of March 2022 : FB: https://www.facebook.com/Polymanga/photos/10160039354165956

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/p/CareErsqXtg/

Many many thanks, likes are always appreciated ^^ Take care and see you next time