What Is Artists’ Alley?
A marketplace for artists attending the convention.
At in-person conventions, it’s a room or corridor of tables, where you can meet fanartists and buy what they’ve made.
We want to try and capture the Artists Alley experience at our digital convention!
What will Artists’ Alley be like at Barricades?
Barricades Con is being hosted via Discord. We will have a dedicated Arts channel.
Artists will also get an “Artist” role during the con, displayed on their profile.
- Artist Tables
Every registered artist will have a personal forum channel. This will allow them to create multiple posts and thus show off their portfolio, have a space for discussion with con goers as well as one for commissions/sales.
- Arts Chat
Open discussion text channel, with an arts theme. Drop in any time and discuss what you do, and what you love. Share your favourite fanartists, swap skills and tutorials, discuss promoting arts on social media, meet other fanartists.
Scheduled Arts Events
We will be contacting all registered artists with an optional invite to participate in a timetabled session during the con. Want to livestream an art demo? Teach a tutorial? Run a crafting roundtable for fans to chill out on chat and craft together? Have a Zoom meetup with fans or other artists? We’ll add it to the schedule!
And of course, you can submit regular programming ideas as well, on any topic related to the book, the musical, or the fandom. Fan track submissions are open through December 1, and we’d love to see more suggestions for presentations, panels, workshops, and more on arts-related topics, from historical fashion to your favorite fanart tropes.
What do I have to do, if I am a registered artist?
- Submit your information through the registration form while signing up: A description of the kind of work you do, a link to your art (Instagram, Etsy, your own website—wherever!), and an affirmation that you’ll follow the con’s rules about posting and linking to NSFW art (see next section).
- Set up your channel in the Artists’ Alley category.
- That’s it, you’re done!
You can optionally hang out in Arts Chat, discuss your art with people, and participate in a scheduled session on an art theme (or any theme!)
But you can just list your art and spend the rest of the time enjoying the con. It’s up to you!
What kinds of fanart are OK?
(Almost) anything goes! Any sort of visual or tangible art or craft, made by you—fibrecrafts, comics, chapbooks, zines, digital artwork, knitted hats, hand-made waistcoats…
Items such as fanfiction commissions and signed collectables do not qualify. It’s fine to link to a site that sells those things if that’s where your artwork is! But the Artists’ Alley, is for discussing your own artwork.
We are not permitting NSFW art to be displayed in Artists’ Alley (just to keep things simple). However, if you are a fanartist who does both NSFW and SFW works, you are welcome to become a registered artist.
If your portfolio is a mix of SFW & NSFW—
- please do not share your NSFW art in the convention discord
- please add an (18+) warning to any links to your portfolio, so people can opt out of viewing it
- ensure that any links you share in the discord do not auto-embed NSFW images as thumbnails without also spoiling them.
Buying and Selling
Barricades is providing a space for fanartists to share and promote their work.
Barricades is a not-for-profit convention, with all our proceeds after expenses going to Black and Pink.
- All attendees at the convention must buy a membership – including registered artists.
- There are no additional fees for a virtual table in Artists Alley.
- We do not require a cut of sales, or anything similar. Sales you make are all yours.
All sales are done outside of Barricades, by your usual process (for example, through your etsy account) – and we have no involvement in this. We are not responsible for problems that may arise (for example, buyers who don’t pay or fanart that arrives broken).
