r/artbusiness

I know best is subjective , but sales is a metric I can process, is 11x17 or 16x24 too small to print out ? 24 x 36 too large or just right. I’m looking at printing out some of my digital art pieces and also scans of my OG artwork. Just wondering which sizes have the most success for you all. In all honesty I’m not trying to make money at this , I’m on disability and just want to make a token amount to be able to afford art supplies monthly. Thanks for any advice

I am thinking to open a separate bank account as a sole proprietor. I havent sold anything yet but there is a potential customer.

And I dont think i'm will be able to sell my artworks regularly, so I wasnt sure if it is still necessary to open a business bank account or just a new personal checking account would be okay.

I’m curious how other artists and small art businesses handle printing when they have new designs or updated files coming out regularly. Keeping a big inventory doesn’t always make sense when you’re still figuring out which pieces will actually sell.

For those selling prints, promotional materials, or other physical products, what has worked best for keeping print orders flexible?

I'm relatively new to the whole selling your art stuff and I have vended at a few places already, notably Winthrop Popup and Gob Market, but given that I'm not always guaranteed to get spots there and because I'm trying to slowly build a brand and product line while I'm dirt poor, I'd like to try and cast a wider net across more (ideally cheap) places to set up as I'm aiming to try and participate in atleast one space a month. Most of my art I feel fits convention spaces and artist alley type crowds better hence why I'm using the artist alley tag, but I am open to trying pretty much any type of market that allows art and photography. Google has given me mixed results and of course not every site is going to list everything so I thought I'd see what actual artists have to recommend.

85/100 — that's honestly where I landed after digging into what Trello's free tier actually does for commission work, instead of going by what usually gets repeated about it.

Free boards, and lists you can shape into whatever your workflow looks like — to-do, deadline, in progress, whatever fits.

Here's where the other 15 points went — the free tier keeps circling back to the same wall no matter which way you turn.

Add clients as actual Workspace members and you're capped at 10 total, Workspace-wide, not per board. Atlassian tightened this in 2024 — people got hit mid-project with every board going read-only, including their own.

Make the board public instead and you dodge that cap, but everyone's name, price, and place in queue ends up on the same board, visible to anyone with the link.

You could sidestep both by giving each client their own board, and some people do exactly that. But free Workspaces also cap out at 10 boards total, so that hits the same number from a different angle.

Which is probably why plenty of people just dump everyone onto one shared board instead and live with the clutter — clients digging through cards that aren't theirs. Saw someone on the Toyhouse forums who split into two boards just to keep the client-facing one readable. Works, but it's a workaround, not something the free tier hands you.

None of that drops it much in my book, still one of the more flexible free options out there. Just means going in knowing which tradeoff you're picking.

What would you score it, and what are you scoring instead of Trello?

Hi, I will try to keep this as brief as possible!! New to this community so I apologize if this doesn’t belong here.

Long story short, my girlfriend and l are ready to be fiancés. We have always loved museums and art more than anything, and it’s only fitting her proposal happens in one (with permission, of course).

I’m going to rent out a space in a local museum and, in an ideal world, I want hand painted pieces that encapsulate different moments of our relationship, whether that is a landscape, an object of meaning, or something more abstract.

I wanted to reach out to local universities (we are in a college town with several art schools) but don’t know how I’d even start. Honestly, I’d love to just start by knowing the price that people charge for this type of commissioned work.

Ideally it would be 6-8, anywhere from 11x14 to 20x20 for the dimensions, and ideally it would be acrylic paintings, but that is very open to negotiation. I know it’s a lot, but please any advice will be taken!! I’m not worried about money, but I wish I was talented enough to do this myself!

So far I might have around 3 keychains that I might make 5-10 each, 5 art prints, maybe a live portrait sketch thingy, 2 (17 pages) comic/manga book, some stickers, and I’m gonna share the booth with a friend. Can anyone please help give me some advices for booth? I watch a few videos already but I’m not sure what else should I do, I feel like I don’t have enough stuff to sell and not much to offer ? I just take too long to finish a piece or a project 😅

Back then I’ve never made enough profit to even pay the booth rent, I used to have 1 comic and a few art prints and stickers and a keychain in my booth

I just recently bought a huge shelf for putting my art stuff

I’ve been thinking about testing a small service for independent artists, creators, and small brands who want to manufacture custom merch in China, but I’m not sure if this is actually something people would find useful.

I’m a native Mandarin speaker based in Canada, so the idea would be to help with things like finding manufacturers, comparing MOQ and pricing, communicating custom requirements, asking about samples, and helping with the back-and-forth with suppliers.

I’m thinking mostly about small-batch products like acrylic charms, keychains, pins, plushies, stationery, packaging, bags, and similar custom merch.

I know there are already platforms like Alibaba and companies like Vograce, so I’m trying to figure out whether the real problem is actually finding manufacturers, or if the bigger pain points are things like communication, MOQ, samples, quality, production timelines, or figuring out which supplier is actually reliable.

If you already make merch, I’d really love to hear your experience.

What has been the hardest part of the manufacturing process for you?

Would having someone bilingual help with sourcing and supplier communication actually be useful, or do you feel like the current options already work well enough?

And if you would use something like this, what kind of help would actually be worth paying for?

I’m still very early in thinking about this, so I’m genuinely looking for honest feedback, including if you think there isn’t much of a market for it.

Also, if anyone here is actually trying to make custom merch right now, I’d be happy to help 2 or 3 people for free as a small test. I can help with the initial supplier search and communication, and I’d mainly use it to see whether this is actually useful in real life.

Hi fellow artists, I’ve gotten a couple of inquiries on a few original pieces and it’s bringing up some interesting feelings.

I do art on the side and don’t intend to make a living out of it because I don’t want to put pressure on something I love to sustain me; I’ve monetized hobbies in the past which ended up burning me out.

I do however want to make a little bit of a name for myself. Having a few exhibitions, selling a few originals, selling prints, connecting with other fellow humans over the themes I like to explore in my paintings. Nothing too grand.

I have gotten inquiries on selling original pieces. I do want to sell some, but I notice an emotional attachment to a lot of them.

I think it makes sense because I’m early in my art career (I’ve drawn/painted for a long time but only got serious about it a year ago).

However, a big chunk of my paintings are part of a 10+ part series and I’m worried that I’d be unable to do an exhibition if they’re sold off to different buyers (although I will have prints made of them).

Also I’m trying to be very careful with the pricing of my originals. I’m heeding the advice “how much $ would parting with this piece make you feel good about it?”

If you’ve been in my shoes, is there any advice you could provide?

I want to get into selling my art again, mostly stickers, some prints and washi tapes (maybe pins later down the road), but I’m not sure whether to invest in keychains.

From what I’ve seen online, keychains are quite hit and miss. Most are character art and comparing artists who sell them, there’s not much variety in what stands out unless it’s a niche fandom or a plush which obviously not everyone can afford to invest in.

Personally, I have only bought 5 keychains from small artists and probably won’t get more anytime soon, especially not having anywhere to put them.

Having said that, would it hurt my business not having them as an option?

Hi, first of all, I want to apologise if this is a commonly asked question. I’ve had this confusion for a while now because I’ve had friends who do well marketing themselves and when I ask, I get the same answer all the time, which is to post religiously and you’ll get a customer someday. I’ve tried that before, posting daily to get my art out there but after a while, I stopped because of burnout. I wasn’t getting any kind of attention on my art and I couldn’t get any commissions compared to my friends.

For context, I do 3D sculpts in Zbrush. A lot of my friends do 2D art and do pretty well for themselves as far as I’ve seen. I’ve tried to adapt what they have done for their art and themselves to get commissions but it doesn’t work for me. I am quite confused and burnt out because I’ve heard a decent chunk of advice and they’re all the same hashings of “put yourself out there, you’ll get clients eventually”.

I kinda just want advice on how to market better, even if it’s a little unhinged because I’ve been doing commissions on and off for other stuff, like adjusting vroid parameters in unity but so far, I’ve only sold two sculpting commissions in the span of 2-3 years.

EDIT: I've added my carrd to the social link in my bio. In hindsight, I should have done this earlier but I genuinely forgot.

Hey everyone!

As the title suggests, I'm really curious whether it's actually possible to make a living drawing NSFW art.

I'm honestly getting tired of working my ass off at my current job for very little money, and I'd love to make a living doing something I actually enjoy.

Why NSFW instead of SFW? From what I've seen, there's a pretty big demand for NSFW art, and a lot of people seem willing to pay good money for it.

So, for those of you who are already doing this: is it realistically possible to turn NSFW art commissions into a full-time income? How long did it take you to get there, and what would you recommend to someone starting from scratch?

I'd really appreciate hearing your experiences and opinions!

so i have just started selling commissions, literally only 2. Paypal has now limited my account and wont let me proceed unless i write in 300 words or less a description of my items, where i keep my stock + adress and where do i sell said items. as far as i know my account isnt set up as a business account?? and i dont really know WHAT to write in those boxes because,,, theres no stock and 0 shipping. anyone know why this is? or any advice on what to write in these boxes?

Hello everyone,

I'm in a bit of a situation and could really use some experienced opinions!

I'm starting a small business, so I've been commissioning artwork for my brand and mascot. One thing I've been really careful about is avoiding AI-generated final artwork. Partly for ethical and environmental reasons, but also because I need a consistent character that I'll be using and i don't think AI is able to achieve that at this point tbh

I hired an artist after they created a few mascot illustrations that absolutely nailed the vibe I wanted. Those first pieces looked great, and when I opened the PSD files there were lots of layers, separate elements, and just seemed like a human worked on it, you know? (i don't know how else to describe it)

Because I was so happy with those, I commissioned a much larger set of pieces; a storybook-style map for my brand's world, and images of the character doing things (so i can put him in different places and not have to re-commission each time!)
not that it matters but it cost £330 ($400 USD), And as a small business, that was/is a sizeable investment and because of that? I want to ensure the art is legit hand drawn by a human..

I've opened several of the PSDs, and instead of lots of editable layers, they're often just a flattened background with one or two additional layers. The mascot is also slightly different colours between illustrations, which seems odd if it's meant to be the same character.

Then I started looking closely at the map itself and noticed things that feel... off. For example:

• The waterwheel doesn't appear to have any water feeding it—it sits on the opposite side of the building from the stream.
• Some bridges and paths don't seem to connect logically.
• Trees and bushes look unusually repetitive.
• Small details become a bit inconsistent when zoomed in.

I'm aware none of these things individually prove AI, and I'm not trying to falsely accuse the artist. I know some artists flatten PSDs before delivery, paint on very few layers, or merge everything at the end. it's even just little things like the fact the character (he is a duck) is VERY different shades of yellow in different images,

So I wanted to ask people who are more experienced than me:

• Does delivering PSDs with only 1–2 layers raise any red flags, or is that completely normal?
• if you were working on an image, regardless of anything else, you'd use the same yellow/make a colour palette?
• Are the inconsistencies I'm noticing typical of AI-artwork, or could they just be stylistic choices?
• If you were in my position, how would you approach the conversation professionally without making an unfair accusation?

For context, this was sold to me as a custom hand-drawn illustration, so I just want to make sure I'm getting what I paid for before I invest even more into this brand.

thank you for reading! any help will be really appreciated!

[Contracts]

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for advice and feedback on a copyright issue I’m currently dealing with.

One of my drawing has been published in a magazine based in France, without my know and my copyright.

What happened:

1. I was commissioned by a collective to create custom masks. Before creating the mask i send them preparatory drawings.

2. A few months later, the collective reached me out asking tonsend them again thé drawing for a potential feature in a print/digital magazine

I sent the files to the collective via email with my credit/name on the drawing. After sending them, I received no update of them.

3. Fast forward, i went to a magazine launch event, i was casually flipping through the issue and find my drawing cropped in the double page dedicated to the work of the collective, without knowing it was there and with any copyright. My drawing is mixed with other picture/photo as a moodboard of their work

The issues (500 copies printed, retailing around 35–50€/copy).

The collective received a fee (200e) for their magazine feature.

4. I contacted the editor-in-chief and the collective regarding the copyright and moral rights infringement (cropping the artwork without consent + removing my name).

5. Only the person in charge of the magazine answer me:

Shifted the blame to the graphic designers for "forgetting" the layout guidelines. But i don't understand, the collective must have checked the layout before publication.

>>>My questions to you:

Since the print run is already out and distribute internationally, what are the most reasonable and effective solutions I can propose to the editor and the collective?

1. Print Edition Correction:

How can missing credits realistically be corrected on a paper edition that is already printed and distributed?

An erratum insert/sticker was suggested to me, but I feel like this will be very complicated to execute.

How do publishers actually manage this?

2. Online :

Can I demand a dedicated online post or story on the magazine's official accounts acknowledging the missing credit and tagging me?

3. Financial Compensation:

How do you calculate a fair retroactive licensing fee and compensation for moral rights damages (cropping + uncredited work) for a 500-copy print run?

Thankyou so much for your time and your help!

Have a good day!

I'm having a hard time finding manufacturers who will print NSFW artworks.

(Sorry if the flair i put is "wrong", i dont exactly know what this would fall under lol)

Basically what the title says 😭, I'm thinking about ordering a poster or two of my art for myself but I'm unsure what company would have the best quality. I know of vograce and wooacry, but i'm still unsure about the quality of the posters itself since it's kinda hard finding non-paid reviews lol

I want somewhere that will be cheap, but also decent quality (i know it's a hard ask since the two don't exactly correlate 🥹). Any help is appreciated!!

Hi all! I got accepted into some local juried art fairs this fall and am trying to figure out the best way to get my booth set up. I'm a landscape photographer and originally want to show a mix of sizes of my work, with a few really big pieces to "lure" people in. However, I'm starting to price out how much it would be to get all my pieces printed on metal and it's going to be too much. I'm looking at printing a mix of metal and framed paper, but what I was thinking was also reducing the amount of prints I'm showing and maybe have a digital display gallery for people to browse. Like on an ipad or my laptop. My husband is saying to get a small flatscreen tv and show it on there.

Has anyone done something like this before? I guess I'd be concerned about someone stealing my ipad or laptop while I'm talking to someone. Would appreciate any advice and input! Thanks in advance!

hey all, i recently have been wanting to sell art prints involving anime and gaming characters using official art in a graphic design style instead of illustrative, as i don’t have experience with illustration. would this even be allowed? i know every time i go to an artist alley it’s always artists hand drawn work and i never see any design based prints for sale. just need a better perspective on this from those who are more experienced than me, thanks 😁

I have made a lot of commissioned artwork ove the past few yrs.. now I think I wanna expand and start the art gallery stuff.. just idk where to start or how this whole thing works.. also I am not rich enough to travel to other countries for exhibition and my country isn't big on art..

So can I get some help ❤️

Thank you kind people ✨