Comic Con PT - Baby's First Big Artist Alley

Content Warning - Genuine enjoyment of Homestuck (This is a joke warning, but I know some people get weird about HS so that's a headsup haha)

After 4 long tiring days, and some extra days that it took me to write this, I am finally back from tabling at Comic Con PT. I have all sorts of mixed emotions about it all, but the overall experience was positive, I feel :)

A good thing about living in the capital is that most of the country's main conventions happen here, so that's cool at least. And while I've been going to most conventions since around 2012 or so, tabling at Artist Alleys is a recent endeavour if we don't count the years when all cons got cancelled due to Covid.

I've only ever participated in small-scale conventions, because between my budget and how much stuff I actually have for sale, it was unlikely that I'd ever make back the money I invested if I were to participate in a larger con LOL

But after hitting 3 different small-scale cons this year, I figured I had enough stuff to hold my ground on a larger convention like Comic Con PT, (I was way too intimidated by both LGW and IberAnime to participate in them)

I went with SkreeBat, who I met on Twitter through the Deltarune fandom, and to say I was nervous was an understatement. I'm no stranger to meeting with people with whom I've only ever previously had online interactions and I was very nervous about me being way too weird or awkward or anything my anxiety brain thought to use.

But fortunately, none of that took place, and it was so fun to get to sit around, draw, and chat about Deltarune and other fandoms we happened to have in common :)

The con took place from the 8th to 11th of December, so a Thursday to Sunday. I've only ever done 1-day cons, so a jump to a 4-day one was really intimidating at first, but hey, I only drank two Monster Energy drinks to keep the brain fog at bay : ^)

I do admit, I had a vague idea of what to expect. I don't know how it is in other countries, but here, cons peak on Saturdays, the rest of the people go on Sunday, and I have yet to meet anyone who goes out of their way to go to our cons on a Thursday of all days LOL

Comic Con is one of the most overpriced conventions here, and with the Lisbon Games Week convention having just happened a few weeks ago, plus the holiday season being here, it was a very slow start.

I should also mention the terrible rain storms that have been happening in Lisbon. A lot of roads had to be sealed off due to being innavigable due to rain, people were being advised not to leave their homes, and when I asked one of my Artist Alley regulars (Which I never realized I had lol) if it was normal for the con to feel this dead, I was also informed that public transports were dead.

A bunch of subway and train stations were closed due to the floods and how bad it got, so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people ended up having to cancel due to the weather making it impossible to reach the con.

It did worry me regarding the con because the table and merch were expensive, so while I wasn't counting on making back all my money, I'd still hope to make SOME sales regardless LOL

As usual, my pride raccoon stickers are the best-sellers, and I somehow managed to sell out on all the bisexual sticker variants :) I sold some pins and charms as well, and every so often, someone would buy a print.

I think I've slowly learned to figure out what works with stickers and pins (sort of), but I just don't know how to make people interested in prints :') it's probably because I’m not someone who buys prints, so it's hard to put myself in the shoes of someone who would buy them and work from there.

There is also a problem and advantage to the stuff I draw :') It's niche stuff.

Like I'll be much quicker to make charms of unpopular League of Legends champions, or make a ton of fanart of Swatch from Deltarune, or NiGHTS stickers, than I am to draw whatever current fandom is popular nowadays

What are kids into nowadays? Genshin Impact?? I feel bad but I don't like drawing anime stuff :( or human characters in general I guess

Idk, when people walk by your table, say nothing, and then leave, it does make me wonder what I could have made that would appeal to them

I guess I'm going from my own point of view, because I feel like I'm someone who is extremely hard to sell to, unless you draw something that is a very niche interest of mine, I will likely not buy anything :( And I guess I want to appeal to people who are in a similar position as me? That's probably weird to explain :') The line between my stinginess and my pickiness is very blurry

Heck, my con haul was literally just Deltarune stuff I traded with Skree because that's my hyperfixation, as well as a single bird skull sticker from another artist which I thought looked rather pretty. While I like a lot of fandoms, I rarely like things enough to consider buying merch of them and I feel so bad because I want to support my fellow artists but I am so so picky ;--;

But yeah, other than that, the con went well, the slowest day was Friday, but it very quickly picked up on Saturday. I also had friends coming over and keeping us company/using the back of our table as a place to leave their bags while they went to do their own thing in the con LOL (I doubt they'll read this but if they do ily thank you for coming over)

But yeah, I got to meet plenty of nice people! A rather funny interaction that happened was this lady dressed in a Loki cosplay in a gorgeous dress who approached our table, and well...

I have Homestuck brain. There wasn't a day in the con when I didn't bring up Homestuck in some way or the other because of how present it was in my formative years LOL

Either way, I'm blind, and at first sight, I mistook the Loki cosplay for a Kanaya one for a fraction of a second. So I murmured this, and the cosplayer heard me and just sighed, muttering the words:

"You can never escape the Homestuck."

We ended up having a nice conversation about the fandom back then and stuff like that :) Their reaction was really fun!

Speaking of Homestuck, there was also a Jade Harley cosplayer in the con and I was staring so hard LMAO the moment she got close to our table I was just going "JAde HaRLEEEYY" like a nerd trying to get her attention.

She seemed excited and ended up commissioning me to draw her fantroll :) It was overall a really cute interaction and it made me really happy. There were other interactions that happened as well but those two stick out in my mind as really fun and endearing.

Oh yeah there was also a Kris cosplayer walking in the distance and we were just yelling "KRIS DELTARUNE!!!" from our table until they came to meet us hehe
Cons are the place to be a weird nerd tbh

But yeah, the weeks before artist alleys are always so stressful, but then whenever it's over, I'm already feeling so excited about the next cons despite knowing the mountains of stress they always are!

I was recommended a much cheaper sticker supplier located in Europe so at least that will make stickers less inconvenient for me to order :) I plan on continuing to participate in Artist Alleys next year, though it's harder to share it online since only a small portion of my following is located in Portugal

Either way, here are some more photos of our table, taken by SkreeBat!

The blorbos (Swatch plush was handmade by me!)

Note the "NOT FOR SALE" signs on the plushies and 3D Printed Spamton because people kept coming over our table and asking to buy the plushies xD

Gorgeous stuff from Skree's side of the table! :) Go check them out if you have the time!

Thank you for reading!