Becky's Digital Art is now on Redbubble and Quick Comparison of the Various Print on Demand Sites

     I have been wanting to get on more POD stores for a while. My main store of course is Fine Art America and my website directs to them. FAA is a great platform and there focus is mostly fine art prints of which have all been stellar and spot on color reproductions. I wanted to be able to print on more items though, and while FAA does have items like tote bags and throw pillows, it is still hard to get a following there. There are so many artists on FAA, that newcomers get lost in the crowd. I have done searches using my tags and still don't pop up in the searches, so I know it is going to be difficult to get found by the random buyer there. I do promote my site quite a bit and I attribute those random sales to that. Most of my sales there are custom commissions which I have printed through them because of the quality of the end product. That quality though comes at a price though and FAA isn't cheap. In fact their pricing may even deter some potential customers and their shipping is pretty expensive I find. I do like that I can have my own website through them and they have a lot of tools for marketing. Another nice thing about FAA is the uploading process is simple and efficient and I rarely have trouble with the website itself. Here is a link to my website that is linked to my FAA profile,  www.beckysdigitalart.com. One unique item that FAA has that the other PODs don't is the weekender tote bag, http://beckysdigitalart.com/products/zentangle-inspired-art-wolf-colored-becky-herrera-weekender-totebag.html. It is a really cool larger tote bag that could double as a beach bag or overnight bag. 

    Moving on, the next POD I have been on for awhile is Society6. Society6 caters to the younger crowd and has ton of different options for their product lines. While you can get your typical fine art prints at Society6, they really shine in the unique products that can have art printed on. They have t-shirts, hoodies, iPad, Phone and laptop cases and skins, mugs, tote bags, pillows throw blankets and more. They are also a bit cheaper, so it is easier on the budget. They have sales very frequently and also offer free shipping occasionally, which is a huge bonus. The profit margins are decent, but not spectacular. I do like that they recently revamped their uploading process because it used to be a huge pain uploading various resized and cropped images to fit the various products for sale. That being said, I have had huge issues with their site being randomly down, displaying incorrect pricing, not being able to upload or having all my tags and info disappear. I attribute this to the introduction of the new uploader, but I have had issues with incorrect pricing and not showing new items in the past. I still like Society6 and will continue to use them. I took a long time for me to get my first sale on their site, but it finally happened! Hopefully as I get more items up I will be found more easily in the searches.

Mug

A Line Dress

Drawstring Bag

     Now on to the newest POD site I am on, Red Bubble! I just set up an account with them a few days ago and have only uploaded a handful of images, but in that time, I have already had a sale! That is already a bonus for this site. I have also done searches for my items using the tags that I put on the art and low and behold, I come up in the searches and pretty high too on some products. That there is a huge bonus and hopefully will help sales. They have a ton of products available, such as hoodies, t-shirts bags and even dresses. Below are some samples of the products available already on my store. I will be uploading all my old artwork as well as new items in the coming weeks. It is so easy to upload and customize the different products and I have had pretty much no trouble at all with their site unlike Society6. There are many more products available and I will make the effort to have my art represented on each product the best I can. I already have a link to my Red Bubble store here on my blog, up in the menu bar next to Society6. There you can click on the various links to all the different products available. Pricing is good and they also offer frequent sales and free shipping. I have not yet purchased an actual product from them yet, but I will soon to test the quality and buyer experience. They do get good reviews and have a money back guarantee, so I am confident that the experience and quality will be great. Let me know what you think?

Hoodie

Women's Scoop Neck Tee

In the future, I have my eyes set on Zazzle, Imagekind, Cafepress, Threadless and a few other sites, but it will take time. I will update my experiences as I go. For now check out my Redbubble, Society6 and Fine Art America sites and let me know what you think.

Thanks for stopping by!



--Becky Herrera
 www.beckysdigitalart.com

www.pixelpaintcreations.blogspot.com

Society6 Store

Redbubble Store

My Art Studio

     While most artists have a dedicated art studio or at least a dedicated portion of a room devoted to their art, I don't. Another reason I love digital art. When I used to work traditionally, I used to take over the kitchen table with all my colored pencils. I had a whole closet dedicated to art supplies like pencils, papers and a portfolio to store completed works. Living in smaller apartments, and wanting to go even smaller, this storage and accumulation of art supplies is not appealing. In fact, I would go weeks without drawing or painting because I hated lugging the supplies out and putting them away when done.
   
     Well now my art studio is small and portable and can be set up and put away in less than 3 minutes. It only takes up one laptop bag to store everything I need. The ultimate in portability! Another major plus is I never run out of supplies which is huge when there are no art store nearby.

     So what do I use and where do I set up? I mostly set up at either the kitchen table or my computer desk, but the key is being able to put everything away so quickly so it is out of the way when I am done.

     My main device, and where most of the work occurs is my iPad Air 2. I got it last year in June so it is a little less than a year old. I really want a, iPad Pro, but will wait until I get a little more use out of this one. I have the iPad in a slim case so it fits nicely in my purse or laptop bag. This allows me to paint and draw anywhere.

     My main program that I use on my iPad is Procreate. I use it 95% of the time, even though I have several other art programs loaded as well. Procreate is very intuitive unlike Photoshop. It is also a steal at only $5.99. in the app store. I will do a more in depth review on it as well as other art programs in the future.
   
     As for styluses, I've tried many. I have settled for a "dumb" stylus over the bluetooth ones as I've never really liked any of those. The one I use is a Wacom Bamboo stylus. You can replace the nibs when they are worn and it is very solidly built. It has a great feel that I haven't found in any other stylus. It is $14.99 on Amazon. It also comes in different colors but I just have the basic black one. I also have a Sensu Brush, but I don't use it nearly as much as the bamboo stylus.

     Last but not least, I use a Macbook Air 13 inch laptop. I came from a huge 17 inch PC laptop that was really a desktop replacement and not very portable. This new laptop is great. It is small but still has a decent sized screen. Since it is a Mac it works more naturally with all my other idevices. I love the amazing battery life and it does everything I need it to. I use the Mac to do final color corrections to my paintings. I use a program called Photoscape that is $30.00 in the Mac app store. I also use it to show my reference photos so I can zoom in to the details when needed. I store all my completed paintings on the Mac and on an external drive. I recommend the 13 inch Macbook Air to the smaller 11 inch one because of the SD card slot that the 13 incher has. I use a jetbook lite SD card to expand the storage of my Macbook by an extra 256 gigs, which is awesome, especially in the more limited harddrive space of these smaller laptops. This macbook starts up blazingly quick due to the SSD drive. It starts up as fast as my iPad. This machine completes my art flow as I will upload my completed paintings to my various online stores, color correct as needed and add any final touches that may be necessary.

     All in all, this is my art studio. It works great, is extremely portable, and I never run out of supplies. I still have all my traditional art supplies stored in that closet, but maybe I will one day free up that space by getting rid of the supplies I no longer use.

     What are your digital art studio setups? Feel free to comment below!

--Becky Herrera
www.beckysdigitalart.com
www.pixelpaintcreations.blogspot.com