AndyBennett.tk

Website, is complete and online using the dropbox hosting technique. I have also used Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter posts to advertise my site and so far the response has been pretty nice.

So without further delay I present my website.

www.andybennett.tk

More Market research.

To be able to ensure clients, i felt it necessary to conduct a survey using my prototypes to gauge my prices for my commissions. Here are the results.

The Social Networking Bust:

Outcome: £5.00

The Sketch:
Outcome: £8.00

The Coloured Character Commission:
Outcome: £12.00

The Works:
Outcome: £25.00

I found this to be the most beneficial research so far. It's all well and good looking at others work and gauging a price from their commissions. But the information that I NEEDED was to find out how much people were willing to pay for my art. With this information I can now move on and complete my site, and hopefully open up for commissions.

Market Research

I have been looking into pricing my prototypes, in order to offer desirable prices for my commissions. To do this ive looked at similar artists looking at commissions, and companies offering the same social networking commissions as myself.

After looking into companies such as cartoonize.net, befunky.com, zwinky.com and cartoonyourworld.com it's clear that most of these sites, advertised through mini ad's on facebook don't actually offer custom caricatures of clients. But rather they use programs and effects available through software similar to photoshop to edit a clients photo and achieve a drawn effect.

These sites have not helped me achieve a pricing guide in the slightest, as they aren't really offering the service that I am. So i decided to look into online illustrators to see what they price their services at.

Drew Green an american freelance artist over at deviantart.com prices his busts at $25 with additional costs for backgrounds. This converts to about £15. However I do not believe this is a desirable price for such a commission, especially from myself, a relatively unknown artist. He also offers full body character images with flat colours for $45 (£27). More info can be found here.

Another online artist, Luigi Lucarelli is offering similar commisions as myself, He created an Price Guide image which can be found below.

With this done and dusted, I can roughly gauge where abouts I want my prices.

Hosting.

With my website almost complete, it's time to think about hosting.

Yes, i know that you can host with iWeb for about $90 a year, but as this is E&E, I imagine, i get more points if I can avoid start up costs and host this site for free.

Well I hate to say it, but I do believe I've found my answer.

There is a program called dropbox, which is basically software that allows you to share files from your mac online, by placing them in a public folder and uploading to their servers. Using this software you can actually host small sites. You do however end up with a horrible URL but using websites such as www.dot.tk which allows you to register a free .tk domain and set it up with a site, means an ugly URL is nothing to worry about.

A proper tutorial of what I've just done can be found below!

iWeb

So after deciding that online commissions were the best idea for this project, ive decided that it is time to finally bite the bullet and create my own website. Not only will this benefit sales for this project, but creating an online portfolio helps me in the immediate future also.

Now i'm going to really cut this short, I wasted rughly 2 days with Adobe Dreamweaver. Calling that program a What You See Is What You Get web program, is similar to calling a duck a spoon. It makes you look silly.

It was at this point, amongst blood sweat and tears that I discovered a hidden jewel preinstalled on my beautiful 3 yr old mac. It's called iWeb and now all my dreams are coming true.

Thanks Again Steve Jobs. (He's a babe.)

Convention Research.

Over the Easter break I actually attended a comic convention named Kapow Comic Con based in London, whilst there I stopped by several artists tables to check out their work, and a few of which, i managed to steal a few business cards.

I decided to hunt them out and see if I can contact them about the pro's and con's of hiring an art table at a convention. I also managed to get my hands on some of the Pricing information for art tables at conventions. The above image is actually a Art table registration form I managed to get hold of, as you can see it has price information on it, and after a bit of investigation, most conventions charge similar amounts.

I only managed to get a reply from one convention seller, an artist named Jack Lawrence, whom was at Kapow Con selling the first issue of his creator owned comic Tinpot Hobo. He basically told me, that the best thing to do, is to produce prints of your sketchbooks, publish little 10 page art books or small comics to sell at cons. As they seem to be what sells best there. In relation to selling commissions at cons, Lawrence said that it's literally pen, paper and markers. You complete the commissions then and there, and your competing for sales with the best in the industry.

With the above comments in mind, I think it's best to leave the convention idea behind. I havn't the time to create several art books to sell, nor the start up money to be able to print such things, alongside the table cost. £120 - £140, seems a little steep for an initial investment and without any confirmed sales and no reassurance to making sales, it seems like a very bad business decision.

I think that I am going to go with online commissions.

Final Prototype

This is actually an image that I just finished for one of the 3rd year films im working on. However, whilst creating this image I was thinking heavily about my E & E project, and how I could provide this type of image as a commission type. If I was to offer it, I would probably call it something along the lines of "The Works" as it include lots of aspects (Full Colour, Background, Shading and some text).

The image itself took about 4 hours, so I would have to take that amount of time into consideration when pricing.

More Prototypes

This is the 2nd Prototype for my Illustration Commissions. It's a simple full body sketch cleaned up in photoshop. I will also offer additional characters to the images for a set additional fee.
...annnnnd my 3rd prototype, a flat coloured character sketch, which will also include a set additional character price as well as additional background cost.

Prototype 001

This is my first prototype for my commissions. It is a Social Networking Profile picture. It was nice and quick to do, and didn't take me much longer than an hour to complete. I now have to consider what sort of prices I would offer for a service of this type. Perhaps i should conduct some market research once the other prototypes are completed.

Andi Bennett Illustration

So after a lot of thought, and brainstorming, I eventually came to the conclusion that my business venture would revolve around illustration. I enjoy drawing and after a lovely email from our tutor Jared, he provided one of the most interesting ideas for the project yet. He mentioned that some of us should offer illustrated profile pictures for clients to use on their facebook, twitter or other social networking profiles. Along with this service i've decided it would be a good idea to offer commissions of images, so that I am not only boxed into one type of service. It also gives me the opportunity to charge different prices, depending on the type of service.

As for the delivery of my services, I have a couple of ideas. The easiest being online, I could set up a website, and take commissions via email with payment through paypal. I can also use social networking such as twitter or facebook to promote my services and hopefully encourage more clients.

My other idea is to perhaps attend one of the many summer conventions held in various venues around london. They tend to include an artist area, where you can rent a table and sell prints of your work. However, I would have to look into the pricing, and look into which conventions to attend, as some are aim at niche audiences and my artwork may not appeal to that target audience.

Lots and lots to ponder, and I also have to create prototypes for my work.

The Brief.

Below is a basic summary of the project and what is expected of us.

Last year, you came up with a 'pretend' business plan that you pitched in a 'Dragons' Den' type set up. In level 3 you will instead do something very hands-on. Again, you will look at trends and do market research but this time you will use these insights to design and produce actual products and services.Your task is to create something that will bring you revenue, an enterprise related to your discipline or interests.

Whatever enterprise you decide to work on, it:
- Should potentially bring revenue (or a confirmed purchase order) before the end of the course (so no abstract businesses)
- Be approved at Formative Assessments
- Be presented in a professional manner and be representative of you as a creative professional: ideally it will be a useful addition to your portfolio or CV so don't waste the opportunity.

After giving the brief a lot of thought, and paying special attention to the last bullet point. I have tried to keep in mind that this project has to be beneficial for myself and portfolio. As I would like to pursue a career in concept art and visual development, it seemed clear that I was to embark on a project based around illustration.

However what this project is to be... i haven't a clue.

E&E

Well its the final term of 3rd year, and heres my last blog for E & E, i'll try and keep it neat and professional and void from any frustration related swearing.

The main goal of the project seems to be to actually provide goods/a service and make money. I shall post the brief up shortly, and in the mean time brainstorm my skills and how to best make a profit utilizing them.

(EDIT: Moved from main blog in order to keep each blog neat.)