Overall though my first event was a huge success ! I really hope I'll be able to make more merch and share it with others in future, I already have a bunch of ideas. Won't say them yet though to avoid pressure on myself if they don't work out ;w;

- I made too much of some stock (prints, beaded keychains) and too little of others (silver tags)
- Big Man was by far the most popular idol for merch, this may have been because the other vendors didn't have his merch
- The lower down on the rack, the more likely customers will just miss an item

badge process photos!

originally I wanted more designs but I narrowed it down to just those as the minimum stock, because I'm vending at a Splatoon focused event so it's important to me to have all the idols and also at least 1 Splatoon themed sticker

the guillotine from the last post really was not fit for the task so the cards are in hold until I can find something more fitting. I basically have just over a week to get everything sorted... scary...

...with that, the card prototypes are complete! I have a few points I've learned here that I'll use to make modifications for the next batch I make.

here is one of my cards in a prototype of my original acrylic card holder also inspired by Splatoon :)

After cutting out the cards the final step is to round out the corners. It makes more of a difference than you'd think, they look much better with the rounded corners in my opinion...

CW: blade

Using an old school guillotine (borrowed) to cut the cards! Unfortunately this was quite difficult because the machine was designed for thicker materials, got a bunch of wrong sized cards because the initial cuts gave frayed edges :(

but the machine is super cool!

Speaking of the spray adhesive! Basically I'm printing on card, then gluing a second layer of card onto the back. You really cannot tell the cards are made of 3 layers. This is going pretty high on my adhesive ranking list. (Acrylic cement, on the other hand... maybe I'm using it wrong)

I am currently having an epic battle with the printer

I also probably made the margins between each copy too big. I don't really want to waste that much paper.

The *next* thing to figure out after this is the ol mythical Double Sided Printing

I'm a bit behind on drawing all the files, I'm on a bit of a time crunch to get all the characters done for Splat Vibes... basically I'm making photocards for all the Splatoon idols, ideally, to go with a custom card holder (which I'll discuss in a later thread)