Forum - View topicDesigning and Selling Anime T-Shirts
|
|
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Wolverine Princess
 Posts: 1100 |
|
||
|
I have a friend (who's not a dumb teenager who has no idea what she's talking about, but a full-grown adult woman), who's toying with the idea of designing her own T-Shirts with original anime-style characters. She used to want to make a "global manga," but after getting it critiqued by people outside her friends and family she ditched the idea. (It was about vampires and mermaids and angels and wearwolves, you get the drift). Now she wants to design shirts with her characters, and mabey somehow get them into Hot Topic stores. She's got some really intersting characters, like "Satan," who as a child actually consumed jolly ol' Saint Nick and took his name, switching around the letters. She can draw *really* well, her stuff is just amazing. (She's been thinking of starting up a website to showcase her art, I'll post the link here if she ever gets it one.)
How could I support my friend, and what advice would you give to help her accomplish her goal? |
|||
|
|||
Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
|
||
|
A friend of mine (who is also an adult woman with a degree in animation) made a few original anime style shirts at cafepress.com. They looked great, although I don't think anyone bought them except her friends. My roommate also made a bunch of shirts at the same site promoting his independent comic. They do shirts to order so they can make very small print runs. I also worked at a place that did silk screen shirts back in the 80s. It was hard work and some of those solvents are really nasty, so I would recommend using an online company to do the dirty work.
|
|||
|
|||
jaybug39
 Posts: 552 Location: Oregon, Is it FOOTBALL yet? |
|
||
|
An old classmate grew up to become a graphic artist for Nike. In other words he designed T-shirts, and such. He just went out and started making T-shirts on his own. Sold them to his friends. I don't know if he got more serious about it, we both moved to different areas in town and lost touch.
So, I would tell your friend to find T-shirt printers around, and find their prices. Then make a few designs, and show them to friends, and ask if they would buy any. Then either open a stall at a farmer's market venue, or go around to stores and see if they will buy any. Also, having friends post to Internet forums isn't a bad idea either, maybe friends of frineds will buy. |
|||
|
|||
prettygirl
 Posts: 127 Location: too far from home... |
|
||
|
I think it's great that you want to support your friend.
In terms of your friends' idea, it's a plausable idea. However, I personally would not buy the t-shirt because if it has an anime-styled character on it, I might as well buy a t-shirt with my favourite anime character on it instead. I mean, why buy one of something I've never heard of or seen? If I'm going to spend money on an anime shirt, I'd be of something I love. At the same time, this "Satan" discription of yours doesn't sound too "anime" to me so maybe it'd appeal to... erm... Satan worshippers? Dunno. |
|||
|
|||
|
Wolverine Princess
Posts: 1100 |
|
||
Many people who own Hello Kitty clothing and merchandise haven't seen the anime, but they buy the stuff anyways because she's so cute. And the Satan character is just one of her more creative ideas for characters. She also has a cute cannibal girl named Gehenna, Frank, a man who wanted to be a priest but wasn't allowed to because he was gay, so he became a transvestite hooker, and a lot of other really cool characters. (Those are just her best ones, she also has the usual generic catpeople and vampires) She understands that Hot Topic is a really popular store and it will take a lot of hard work to get her cloths stocked there, but she think her ideas will appeal to the kids that visit the store. I know this other woman who's Hawaiian-print washrags used to be really popular, but she gave up the buisness after she had kids. They were sold in popular stores (well, where i live anyways) like Hilo Hatti (it's a place where you can buy a lot of Hawaiian-print stuff, but i don't think they have them on the mainland). |
|||
|
|||
patch
 Posts: 677 Location: New York, NY |
|
||
|
I would recommend Threadless T-Shirts and see if you can get something going first.
|
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group