Selling Fanart at Conventions! ✰ BunBun's Art Community News 

Agree! Should definitely have added to the video but I hope most people also understand that this is a bigger discussion, with AX and Viz media only being the most recent example! (Definitely depends on country, IP holder, venue, AA or Vendor agreements etc.) Thank you for adding to this ❤️

@@thebunbunshop oh absolutely! it's more a note than anything, the rest of the video definitely gets that across well! Even with AA being a grey area it's scary to think that it just takes one strict license holder/company could decide at any time to not look the other way 😔

Already address and mentioned under pinned comment. (Copy/Paste from original comment: Agree! Should definitely have added to the video but I hope most people also understand that this is a bigger discussion, with AX and Viz media only being the most recent example! (Definitely depends on country, IP holder, venue, AA or Vendor agreements etc.) Thank you for adding to this ❤️)

I’ve definitely seen A LOT of different takes on this over the years and yes, there are actually people and artists who really dislike other artists for selling fanart. I don’t know how this comes together though because I think most of us, in this space, started out by drawing fanart. Sometimes it feels like it’s young people who get jealous of another artist doing better then them, sometimes it’s because “fanart sells better than original art and that feels like cheating”, sometimes it’s “this is illegal, so I’ll report you”… I’ve seen it all. I think it’s sad when ppl go after others in their own community. I think there is space for all of us and we’d all do good by staying in our own lane. Idk, I personally don’t buy fanart (but that’s because I don’t know a lot of the newer stuff e.g. Genshin, JJK, etc) but I think fanart is fun and I love how different artists express themselves and what fun products they come up with!

If it weren't for fanart artists at conventions, I would have exactly zero small merchandise of my favorite characters or fandoms, because the companies simply don't care enough to provide proper products or sell them only in China and Japan (so out of reasonable reach for anyone else, unless your pockets are deep). None of the fanart I brought at my last convention would be available from the original companies. No prints, no keychains, no pins. And lets not kid ourselves here: There is no way any "small business" would be able to afford a popular license, if they would even be able to get it in the first place... and could still make the art like they want them to, because their creative freedom would be heavily restricted.

If artists could, they'd rather get a license. It would be much less stressful for them. But the truth is, it's very hard to get, and particularly costly. What's more, this type of license isn't designed for individuals selling on a small scale, but rather for large corporations. Often, companies that own licenses are not comparable to artists. You'll see that the majority of companies that own licenses are companies like Funko pop for example and who can promise a substantial number of sales. To get a license, you have to prove that you can sell a lot, which an artist can't, because sales can fluctuate enormously and, in general, none of them do mass production.

Or you are not stealing from anyone and just making a better product. The only one who loses in this scenario is the licensing holders. Why don’t companies just make better product.