Creating a Sprite / Art Shop

Running an art / sprite shop isn't as easy as many people think. Before you jump the gun and run off to make your own shop, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do I have enough time to dedicate to my shop?
• How long does it take me to make a sprite / piece of art? Am I willing and able to make at least one piece a day?
• Is my artwork unique? How will I set myself apart from the other shops?
• What are my strengths and weaknesses? What do I need to work on so that I can fill any order requested of me?
• Am I an active user? Can I get online for at least half an hour each day?
• Do I have the right tools to make my art (paper, pencils, a tablet, an art program)?
• Overall, why do I want to run a shop? Is it for practicing skills, experiencing shop ownership, or trying to gain "fame"?
• Is my sprite work actually any good, or could a computer program do the same thing in half a second?*

*Thanks to Niet for the suggestion All of the above are imperative questions to ask oneself before hitting that "Create New Thread" button. If you skip over any of these points, you may find yourself struggling to complete orders, if you even get any. Based off my own experience, here's what (I believe) it takes to own each type of shop: ⇒ For a SPRITER: Must have at least 1 hour each day to spend on requests, must be able to fill basic requests (recolors, fusions, etc), must be able to scratch (i.e. draw part a of the sprite by hand) when necessary, must be able to make transparent images, must know how to upload an image, should know some basic BBCode ⇒ For an ARTIST: Must have at least 1 - 2 hours each day to spend on requests, must be able to draw a variety of subjects in different poses / settings / expressions, must have a functional art program installed (if working digitally) or must have a functional scanner or camera (if working on paper), must know how to upload an image, should know some basic BBCode Of course, these are just what I think each shop should have. You're always free to do your own thing if you'd rather not abide by these requirements, but be aware that these are the basic elements that most people look for when selecting a shop to commission pieces from.

So you're ready to get the ball rolling - great! Congratulations! Here's where it starts getting fun. :] Unfortunately, creating a truly awesome shop involves more work than just spriting and drawing. You have to make sure your shop is easy to navigate and use. This involves some level of organizational skill, so think of it as a bit of a brain workout. Here's a checklist of the basic elements your first post should include (not necessarily in this order):

• A short written description of what you can do (and any preferences, e.g. "I'm better at drawing manga", "I don't draw animals", etc)
• A set of rules or disclaimers
• Some examples of your artwork
• A method for ordering (most people use forms)

Some other things you might choose to include, either in the first post or in a separate post, are:

• Past orders
• Advertisement banners
• Prices and Tips (if you prefer not to work for free)

Really, the possibilities are endless. You can divide up your shop into different posts or you can keep it all in the first post. You can choose to use a post template or you can keep it plain. It's all up to you! Just remember to keep your first post as neat as possible, as people will generally ignore messy or overcomplicated threads.

Now that you've got your shop set up, you need to make sure you keep a steady flow of customers coming into your shop. Many shops rely on "regulars", which are a small group of users that repeatedly order from the same shop. While that's a perfectly acceptable way of getting orders, you should also seek out fresh customers to add diversity to orders and to make your shop better known. There are a number of ways you can attract new customers, so try one or more of the following strategies (or come up with your own!):

• Make advertisement banners and place them in your signature and/or About Me
• Come up with an interesting, creative title for your shop (try to avoid banal titles such as "X's Sprite Shop")
• (For spriters) make original artwork!! There are literally HUNDREDS of sprite shops that offer the same things over and over again: recolors, outlines, 2-Pokemon fusions, etc... If you're opening a sprite shop, one of the hardest things for you will be making your shop unique. You need to offer something besides what they teach you in sprite schools. This may mean going offsite to learn how to scratch your own original sprites, or it may mean developing a truly unique product. Be creative!
• Don't get lazy with commissions; take pride in your work and do your very best on each order. People like to know that you tried hard for them.
• Post non-commission work when orders are slow -- it'll keep your thread out of the "inactivity-death zone", and it'll also give viewers a better look at your skills and preferences. If you make a random sketch or sprite, feel free to plop it onto your shop (just try not to do it more than once a day)

With luck and a bit of creative conduct, customers should start rolling in a few days after you create the thread. The most important things to remember are to do your best, have fun with your shop, and try to cater to your customers' wishes. Good luck!

Advice that doesn't really fit in the above tutorial, but deserves mentioning:

• Be patient after you create your shop -- it usually takes a few days before people notice your shop and start ordering. Don't feel like you're not good enough just because people aren't ordering; Pokefarm has slow business days as well.
• Consider using a post template for your first post; it adds color and is more fun to look at than the default forum colors. However, if you're using a post background, make sure the text color is defined in the coding. Remember, not everyone uses the default skin. I'm currently using a skin with white text instead of the usual dark green, so I can hardly see text on light post backgrounds
• Maintain some degree of professionalism, but still be friendly to customers. Running a shop is not good cause to be distant or robotic.
• ...With that in mind, do try to avoid spam. Shop threads are not chat threads :p

Pokemon sprites Pokestadium (for all sprites up to Gen V, includes static Gen VI models) PkParaíso (for animated Gen VI models. Shiny sprites can be found here and back models can be found here. Not all Pokemon models have been ripped yet) Image hosting sites Tinypic -- Note: this is the preferred site by most spriters and some artists. It tends to convert large images to .jpg, so be aware if you're uploading anything larger than about 500x500 Cubeupload -- Note: the server cuts out sometimes, so every now and then your images may not display Imgur.com -- Note: I didn't link it because the front page does include user-submitted images that may not be appropriate. However it is a reliable image host. BBCode formatting help A Somewhat Extensive Guide to BBCodes PF Wiki - BBCode -- Note: This is the guide for the original Pokefarm site. Some tags may not work on PFQ. Free Art Programs GIMP download -- Note: GIMP is an art program similar to Adobe Photoshop. If you're a beginning artist who is used to MS Paint, using GIMP will be a huge learning curve for you. There are some nice beginning tutorials here, here (video playlist), and here (more videos) FireAlpaca -- Note: This is also a more advanced art program that may require a bit of instruction to use, and it is not as widely used as GIMP so there are notably fewer tutorials. I wouldn't recommend this program to beginners; instead, if you have some experience with GIMP / Photoshop / Painttool SAI / etc and also own a drawing tablet you might be interested in trying it out. Here (video) is a walkthrough of the basics. Sumopaint -- Note: Sumopaint is an online image editor, also somewhat similar to GIMP. It does not support tablet drivers, unfortunately. However, it is relatively simple and easy to use and does not require a download. Miscellaneous Resources (mostly for artists) Color Scheme Designer (for creating color palettes) Color Blender (for blending two or more colors; requires a hex / RGB / color code) MS Paint tricks (helpful to those who use MS Paint)

Thanks to Terubii for the suggestion! Template shops are more of a side-note to me -- not because they're any less important, don't get me wrong -- but because I tend to group them along with art shops as they both have similar requirements. However, a big reason why templates are so much different than 'regular' art is because they require much more knowledge of coding, post-background restrictions, and graphic design (in terms of balance and legibility). It's especially important for template artists to know their color palettes well, as a haphazard color scheme might be too hard on the eye and could result in a mod disallowing the use your template. As such, my expectations would be: ⇒ For a TEMPLATE ARTIST: Must have at least 1 - 2 hours each day to spend on requests, must have a functional art program installed, must know how to upload an image, must be fluent in BBCode, should have reasonable knowledge of CSS, should have a basic knowledge of color scheme creation If you have trouble with that last requirement, there's a nice little online tool for that (it's also listed in the Helpful Resources tab), though it would be a really good idea for you to gain some knowledge of your own so you wouldn't have to rely on it constantly. Other than that I don't think there's too much else you'd need in order to run a basic template shop, but seeing as I've never personally run a template-only shop before I could certainly be wrong (which is why I always appreciate suggestions, hint hint :} )

Note: This section of the guide pertains mostly to sprite shops. Art shops' prices are more widely ranged, usually based on the artist's preference, so I can't effectively write about it (but I can certainly talk about it if you want my opinion :3 ). Thanks to KikiTheCat for the suggestion! ⇒ Something to keep in mind: Prepaying is against site rules. It is a punishable offense to ask for, receive, or offer payment for a product before it is completed. Before I start babbling about prices, let me make this clear: you need skill to be a spriter (I mean, you need skill to be ANYTHING, but spriters have it tough). Why might this be? ...Generally, it's because of the multitude of spriters and the availability of education (just look at all the sprite schools in the Pokemon Art forum). Everybody and their uncle is a spriter, at least, that's what it feels like. And since sprites aren't constantly in demand the way art (usually) is, you gotta show some real skill just to get people to look at your shop, let alone attract paying customers. Let's demonstrate this through a real-life example (yay! pictures!): The above sprite is one of the oldest files I still have; it's a fusion I'd made roughly three years ago (does anyone remember custom sprite submissions on PF1? Yeah, I'm still embarrassed about this). It's not the worst spriting job, in fact, it's not half bad (pardon my flatulent self-appraisal). By most shop standards, this might be considered "average". Now what's this ugly creature doing here?? It's not a real Pokemon, the style is wrong, the colors look worse together than comic sans in an obituary, the shading is terribly ignorant... and yet, I'm still more likely to be paid for this than for my fusion sprite. Why is that? Basically, it's because it's original. I mean, any spriter that has gone through a spriting academy can slap two sprites together and recolor a couple body parts... that's no big deal. You'd be lucky to get a box for a fusion like that. But when you figure out a way to make your art truly special (whether it's by combining a multitude of Pokemon, scratching completely new sprites, animating custom edits, or whatever), most people would be delighted to pay for something they know will be a unique creation. So really it's less of a question of how much you should charge, and more of how much are people willing to pay. A safe price limit to stay under would be roughly 1 box / 100 GP / 5k Credits / 1 - 2 Pokemon / 1 - 2 evolution stones per sprite. Sorry I can't be of much help as far as exact numbers go, but hopefully this gives you something to think about. As always, take my advice with a grain of salt and feel free to make your own judgments :>