~ Profits ~ How It Works ~ Want to be an artist? ~
Hello! I am your friendly, neighborhood Retainer Vocate for the shop, Kouya Kaji.
The idea of this shop was posed by our FC leader, Istari Xiomar, some time ago, as something he’d like to see us have in the future to turn the Black Waltz into a thing outside of the game-world of Eorzia. With a lot of work and some free time, I was able to put this together and coordinate with an ever-growing list of our amazing FC artists to make his dream a reality!
As of right now, I am the one running the site, as well as adding products and information. I do the layout of the graphics on pieces, and manage the up-front production costs of the products, as well as hosting the site on my web server, since I pay for secure transactions anyways for my own storefront.
Where do the profits go?
The profits from this shop are paid out to Istari every month, where he keeps them in their own savings account to help pay for things such as the Discord server, prizes for FC events such as mogstation items and mounts, and other things like that. 100% of the profits are given to him, and 100% of that money goes back into things for the FC. In the past, Istari was so kind to pay for all of these things out of his own pocket, but that seemed unfair when we all have such a love for this Free Company and many of us wanted to know how we could help out, too.
His grand goal is to eventually be able to fund a Free Company meet-up, where all of us <<Waltz>> folks can get together and meet in person and have a great time of it!
Until then, though, we’re using the shop to help our artists gain exposure and give our members awesome IRL goods to show their love of the game and The Black Waltz.
How does this work, anyways?
Basically, artists from our Free Company donate their designs to be used for the Free Company on different products. These are exclusive to The Black Waltz shop, and are branded with our FC logo.
That donated art is then laid out and set up to be printed-on-demand. How this works is that we work with a company to print each of these pieces on the different products they offer, such as t-shirts, mugs, stickers… all sorts of cool things!
So our artists submit art, I lay them out and get them all set up, and when someone buys something, the order goes directly to the print company, who prints the design onto whatever you order and then ships it out to you. This way, we don’t have to pre-buy 100 of each shirt, find somewhere to store them, and then have someone who packs them up and ships them out to you. We can focus on doing art for the heck of it, or playing the game! We are all volunteers, after all.
Most of the production is done in the US or the EU, however, some things are printed in Mexico and there is looking to be a Canada fulfillment center set up, too, in the future! We primarily use Printful to do our printing for us, as I’ve had great experience with everything I’ve ordered from them prior to opening this shop. There may be others in the future, too, that offer different things like water bottles or pins, but I’m still waiting for world-wide shipping to get back to normal before ordering samples of most things.
It is due to the fact that most work is done in the US or EU, as well as it being “on demand” that the prices are higher than if you went to a chain store and purchased a t-shirt. Also, for transparencies sake, we really don’t make that much – between $2 and $5 is average for each product – but every little bit adds up to help support the Free Company and all the awesome events our players do (be sure to check the monthly special events, too!)!
Want to be an artist?
First, you need to be a member of the Black Waltz on Jenova server (Aether Datacenter) for at least 2 weeks, and a member in good standing who upholds our Charter. Second, you need to be on the Black Waltz Discord server, as that is how we do most of the communication.
☆ Currently, we are only doing visual arts – illustrations, drawings, design work – basically things that can be printed on a t-shirt. In the future, we’re looking to expand this into so many other forms of artwork — please look forward to it!
Things you need to know about being an artist:
- You still own all the rights to your art
You control the rights to your art. You can post it wherever you want (Tumblr, twitter, IG, DeviantArt, etc). You can also sell the art on your own shop (RedBubble, TeeFury, personal shop, Etsy, etc). You are just allowing this store to sell it as well.- It will be branded with the Waltz Free Company logo/text/etc when being sold on this site, so members get works of art from other members and show their FC love.
- You won’t make any money off of the sale of your art
As I said above, all of the profits go to Istari for supporting the Free Company. Artists don’t get a percentage of the sale or a commission or anything, the artwork is all donated. - You can remove your artwork from the shop at any time by your request
It might take me a little bit to do it, but I will remove it if you request me to, no worries!
Sound like something you want to join?
If so, send a message on the Waltz Discord to either @Kouya Kaji or @Kellin Silverwillow, and we’ll talk!
Realistically, we can only add 1 artist a month, as putting art on the products can take a long time, especially if there is more than one or two things to put up, so if we can’t add you right away, don’t fret! We’ll also be doing a few contests in the Discord focused around art, such as a line-art drawing contest followed by a coloring contest, or seasonal illustrations, or whatever other ideas someone comes up with!
Also be sure to stop by #introductions and #personal-art on the Discord and post so we get to know you, too! This is one big family of friends, after all!