shooting in RAW format for greater flexibility when editing your photos in Photoshop. Snap a bunch of photos and then shift the position of the toy to show off all of its aspects. You want people to see the piece from every angle, not just the front. If you’d like, you can tweak your photos in editing software. Once you’re done shooting, bring your best pictures into Photoshop. Remember to keep any adjustments faithful to reality. You don’t want to mislead anyone who’s viewing your work. Punch up the colors to make them more representative of the toy’s color palette, add a vignette, desaturate the background, and remove any dust or pet hairs that might be floating about. Export your work to a web-friendly format and resolution. Now that you have a bunch of photos, it’s time to get them in front of some eyes. Don’t be intimidated by showing your work to the designer toy scene. “When I first started out with zero confidence and low expectations, I was shyly showing pictures to bloggers, expecting a pretty embarrassing reception,” says Loz Boz. “But once you dip your toe into this community, you’re already among really encouraging, enthusiastic friends right away.” Social media is a great place to start. In fact, once you build a fan base, they may help you out with the promotion process. “The love of toys has created such a great community, everybody shares everything with everyone all over the world. Toy fans naturally gravitate to what they love, and promote it,” says Loz. “Hashtags have been my friend since the beginning,” she says. “They help me enormously, despite the sarcastic teasing from my brother.”
Sekure D knows that social media isn’t just about keeping in touch with friends. “Instagram and Facebook are my main promotional tools,” he says. WuzOne takes a holistic approach to social media and uses a multitude of publishing channels: “[I promote my work] through Facebook, Instagram, Behance, Flickr, and the Kidrobot forum,” he says. JPK staggers his promoting schedule. “I post out pictures and a description to a few blogs, and after they’ve started to post those up I take to social media and share the photography there myself,” he says.
be: “Consistently put out work and be reliable. Everyone is sick of the flaky, difficult artist routine.” WuzOne shares his mentality. “Have a good reputation, and meet deadlines,” he says. This is all too relevant, as Kidrobot forum members have recently started a thread to document which customizers have met expectations, which have been late or incommunicative, and which have completely bailed after being paid for work. “Be polite, be professional, be honest, keep to your deadlines, and keep your standards high,” advises Loz.
The Bots sum up online promotion well. “We do our best to share our work anywhere and everywhere we possibly can. The more exposure, the more opportunities we have to work with and meet new people. The toy blogs and the Kidrobot forums are there for a reason and serve as a great venue for beginners and veterans alike.” In fact, emailing blogs with your photos and a quick description of the work can do wonders. The most time-intensive part of being an art toy blogger is finding great material to post. If you send your photos to a blogger, you’ve already helped them do most of the work required to create a post.
Say the Bots: “We go out of our way to always keep our clients up to date with what is going on. Communication is key and a great way to build trust and become friends with the collectors. In turn, this often leads to more work, as our friends and clients start to recommend us to their friends. Being nice, being part of the community, and keeping an open dialogue with your clients is the best way to keep your business going.”
This might seem like a lot of work, but it can certainly pay off. “Generally, [new clients] approach me after seeing my work online, at a show, or getting a recommendation from somebody who has had some work already done by me,” says JPK. The Rotobox brothers get new work “through online visibility. When clients see the work, they will contact you.” Sekure D makes a great point of how important a solid reputation can
Hearing feedback from the community and gaining new followers will boost your confidence and fuel future work. Don’t just put your hard work up on a shelf for a handful of people to see. Get it online and feel the love.
That’s all for this month, but if you’ve been following along, send us photos of your custom toy’s progress to marc@cluttermagazine.com. Next month, we’ll hear some final words of wisdom from our team of customizers and just might feature work from some of our readers!
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