Blaugust 14: Vending at Slutfest

Wrote a lil review on going to Slutfest yesterday:

https://wiki.scumsuck.com/events:2025_slutfest_aug

👆 Read that before you read the rest of my post if you want to understand my ramblings. I think I can keep my reviews in the events more concise, and then blog more about them here.

Doing more events got me thinking more about my layout.

I am always complaining about the typical anime convention grid cube layouts that are covered in a bunch of shit and the artist is only visible through a peephole. They make me sad.

I feel like the giant grid cubes actively hinder human conversation and thus connection. It's hard enough to hear in a loud artist alley, let alone try to talk someone whos behind 3 feet of plastic cubes. I also just don't like them in a design sense. They're maximalist in a way that does not please me, especially the Wall Of Prints because each individual piece becomes unreadable in the forest of everything screaming to be the loudest. This is exacerbated by EVERYONE in the artist alley doing the same set-up. It does not help the artists stand out from each other, and does not make me want to browse the table. It's the Bootstrap and Tailwind of digital lmao.

I know my layout looks janky (it's just a table with some racks and shelves lol compared to people who get their signs printed professionally for $100 each but eh. I'm glad my “”“brand”“” is more diy and janky so I don't feel compelled to compete with other people trying to look professional. I personally feel a lot less anxious looking at table layouts at non-pop-culture conventions, whether it's mom soap craft fairs or DIY zine fests held in a gym. They're easy to read because they have a better curated selection of stuff.

It's the equivalent of say.. someone with 5000 images in their one page portfolio because they're worried people won't flip through their stuff if they have to click, cuz the general internet audience has no attention span VERSUS 10 thoughtfully curated images on one page, with the option to click to different sections. There are just patterns that I can recognize as being part of a conSOOMer culture brain, and they are patterns that I would personally like to resist.

• I would like to continue painting hand-made signs on reinforced cardboard or other stiff materials. I cut little holes into them with an exacto knife, then use velcro strips to attach them to the canopy. I can also attach them to my tablecloth, or my bamboo mat that I've been bringing.
• I would like to continue using thrifted display shelves that are multipurpose, cuz I can use them at home to store our stock too. Hell we even thrifted our canopy for $50. It's amazing what you can find at a thrift store even in our backwoods country towns.
• I would MAYBE eventually like to have one large printed backdrop of my favorite piece or something (I could pin our dakimakura onto that lol [but then i could also get some metal fishnets and chains to pin our stuff as a backdrop too…]). Ok two fishnet curtains, wide nets, so we can hang stuff from them
• I would REALLY love to get on making that “online catalog” as a binder with sheet protectors that I can add to. So people can see our full stock without us having to bring the whole thing. I'll even put in a coupon code in there so people can order online if we don't have something in person.
• I would love to have an 8.5×11 print binder, a 4×6 print binder, and a sticker binder full of stock. We will display the most relevant stock to the theme (i.e more slut and metal stuff for Slutfest, more anime and cartoons for more pop culture stuff) for people to touch and pick up and feel. And people can browse the binders if they really are interested.

We also sold some print sets of our friend spilling's art, which was really nice! Since we help them print a lot of paper goods and have some extras, and cuz they really need help paying for their mom's surgery.

You should support them if you can! https://ko-fi.com/kirakirakira

And maybe we'll put bundles up on our shop if spilling consents, or they can put up the listings on our shop and we'll fufill them?

I know a lot gets eaten up by payment processor fees and such, but I always want to find ways to collaborate and mutual aid y'know? I really don't like when zines say they don't want to pay their contributors because “$10 per person is nothing”. I endeavored to pay people out of my own pocket for our gore zine and girl scout zine. Maybe I'll talk more about my plans for art collabs/direct mutual aid/doujin circles in another post. Something about how the circle needs to be small for my own comfort and ability to focus. The larger circles have power in other ways!

Since I focused on caricatures this time, that's what sold the most. What a shock, right? I feel like a good 75% of the sales were the live drawings, and that's equivalent to how much space my caricature setup took vs the table with paper goods. I'd say that's a good way to design/layout your booth - devote % of your space to what % you want to emphasize and sell more.

My caricature layout was just my drawing easel, and the chairs we let people sit in. I didn't sit in my chair and let people use it, or Shane use it. The easel's too tall to draw in while sitting, though I'm sure I could make it shorter. We NEEDED to devote so much space to me to make it easy for people to walk in and sit! I did not want any risk of us knocking over table stuff. And I wanted a lot of space for people to stand around and watch. Cuz I've found that people do like watching live drawings for whatever reason :P

And indeed they did start crowding near the end of the event. Which I found to be a fun ego boost! But it made me sad that some people didn't get to get drawn because I was so busy.. especially people who may not have been able to stand for very long for whatever reason (disability, heat, boredom). We should have waiting chairs next time HAHA. Naw not enough room…

But that does give me some ideas for caricature options for next time:

• $5 tiny drawings, like I did for 2025_gsozinefest. Very quick, I can do them with my brush pen better! Budget-friendly, good for kids. Can fit in smaller bags instead of big heavy bags.
• increase Big Paper sizes to $15 for one person, $25 for two people, +$10 each person after that.. That's about the prices I charged at the wharf.
• OR full body drawings for $15-20? So i can capture the whole fit. I may need to take a picture for that one, then ask them to sit.
• SIGH figure out what kind of coloring I can do? I don't need to do this. It's not conductive to my ““brand”” where like half my prints are black and white detailed inks :P
• Use a big like.. crayon? Graphite stick? Covers large areas easier, can draw faster, cleaner and won't get ink all over my face. But less permanent than ink, and I think my inking makes me more unique than the standard caricature crayon artist.
• Get some damn rubber bands to roll up the paper!!! So they'll fit better in smaller bags.
• Push the “draw you with your waifu” thing more, or heck, just draw your waifu :P That can work well if we manage to bring a body pillow to put a dakimakura on, and let people hold them while sitting.
• Add to the sign saying yes I can work from photos. And yes I can draw your fursona. LOL.
• Get a caricature, get a free sticker or something? Something to make people browse the booth after I'm done, and push them to Shane for checkout!
• Waiting list sign-up? I will text ppl as their time comes up, or email them after the show to get them their art if they missed it lol

I have lots of ideas as usual, just need help editing them and pinning down a couple things to focus on. I think the main like financial issue is I am limited by how fast I can draw. I probably can't draw faster than I already can LOL. But we can try to push the side booth to look cuter so people will want to browse it more and get a caricature WITH a thing from the booth.

I'm still dealing with the sadness of losing Baby Bear. I'm glad to have temporary distractions to try and keep myself and Shane going. It's really important for my mental health to have something exterior to look forward to. It's not ignoring my grief, I have all the time in the world to grieve, hell I can't sleep at night cuz I'm thinking 5000 thoughts and crying. I just need 1. Something exterior to acknowledge our grief.

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