Is it worth making face tokens or am I setting myself up for failure?

Hi all, I just got the email indicating that my art was good enough to sell in the marketplace. I joined because people were recommending me sell face tokens because I already do D&D commissions and I've been wanting to keep pushing in that direction with my art. I also feel like my art style has the potential to stand out and sits in a good place, not being overly cartoony or realistic.  I'm really excited to make my first pack- but I'm noticing not very many people pay for these kinds of tokens because people can just take stuff off google and makes their own. So I'm a bit discouraged in that aspect and I'm wondering if there even Is a market for these types of tokens? Or do I just need to be really good? I'm kinda bummed because I want to make these unique character and monster tokens, but I don't know if people care enough for that particular type of token because it's easy yoink something off of google. The goal is to make a variety of designs in hopes to be able to differentiate the different types of a creature(such as an elite goblin vs regular vs Shaman..stuff like that) and even eventually make art of less popular races and even down to some specifics so when people buy a pack, it'll feel like getting a lego pack to specifc themes or locations in hopes that everything you need for that 'thing' is all bundled up in one place for you without even having to make your own. Maybe someday I'll add maps to the mix but I don't feel like my environmental art stands up to the majority of the map content and I'm kinda a newb lol.

If you had people pushing you toward it, chances are you have at least a few customers already lined up.  I started doing it when one of my friends mentioned that he would be willing to actually PAY for my art if I started selling.  He was my first customer.  What surprised me was that he wasn't my SOLE customer.  It's true that I'm not making "quit your day job" type money off the three packs I've thrown out so far, but it's a lot more than the nothing I expected going in.  People do buy packs on the Marketplace because it's more convenient than having to google multiple images and upload them, and because they get a chance to support artists.  If you have people already buying commissions off of you, chances are you'll do pretty well, even with modest advertising work on your part.  Just tell people who have bought from you in the past and word of mouth may do the rest. Now, I will tell you that so far that the map tile set I released in February has been selling at a better rate than either of the portrait sets I put out in May last year.  It's outsold my second pack already and is currently on its way to doing in three months what my first pack did in nine.  It may be that there is more demand for maps than portraits, or that portrait have a more saturated market, so the demand is met more easily.  It could be that my portraits aren't what more people are looking for, or that the map set I put out was exactly what a lot of people were looking for.  Who knows?  It's an interesting data point for me.  Your results, of course, may be different.  If what you sell is anything like your avatar, you'll probably do pretty well regardless.

Congratulations on being a marketplace contributor! I tend to find art, contact artist for permissions when I can, and then make tokens from them myself.  I also have two groups I DM for which contain artists, so much of the character art is given to me.  That said, having a stock of face art tokens (I dislike the top down views as they are not easily distinguishable from one another) would be of interest.  As with everything in the market, it comes down to a price/value decision on whether to buy a set vs making one from available art which can be found.  I will say that a lot of time the available artwork is very much lacking or repetitive. Regardless, I will be looking forward to seeing what you have to offer.  My last piece of advice, from years of doing farmers markets, is to solicit and listen to feedback on what people are looking for.  I can understand that this may not be exciting or inspiring at times, but if you give people what they want, they will come back for the "good stuff." 

Wordforger said: ...If what you sell is anything like your avatar, you'll probably do pretty well regardless. I hope so! Yeah the drawing I have as my avatar is something I drew a couple years ago, except I'm hoping to make the portraits for these to have at least some light shading(obviously not overboard in details so you can still make them out)  I was already taking commissions for something similiar so it's not like it's going to be much different than what I already do.

Oginme said: ....My last piece of advice, from years of doing farmers markets, is to solicit and listen to feedback on what people are looking for.  I can understand that this may not be exciting or inspiring at times, but if you give people what they want, they will come back for the "good stuff."   Thank you, fingers crossed that the FB communities I'm in will be able to provide some decent feedback, cause of course I don't want to spend all this time making 25+ tokens and find out they're not worth it lol.

I have been looking for face tokens and I have bought a few sets and I will probably buy more. I'm going to run some paid games and I want to have assets that are paid for. The only thing that I would ask for is that you have a diverse range of people represented. I scour the marketplace looking for portrait tokens that I can use for PCs or NPCs that people who belong to racialized groups can identify with or be inspired by, but these are hard to find. There is at least one set on here where the only non-white faces are associated with some harmful stereotypes.

Alyssa R. said: Oginme said: ....My last piece of advice, from years of doing farmers markets, is to solicit and listen to feedback on what people are looking for.  I can understand that this may not be exciting or inspiring at times, but if you give people what they want, they will come back for the "good stuff."   Thank you, fingers crossed that the FB communities I'm in will be able to provide some decent feedback, cause of course I don't want to spend all this time making 25+ tokens and find out they're not worth it lol. AHA!  If you've got a bit of a presence on Facebook already, then you'll probably do even better, depending on how many people you get on there.  I wouldn't post all completed works on there, but a few might make people curious.  My "advertising" has basically consisted of making a post in this forum, telling my 4 buddies in my gaming group about my latest release, making sure I've got a many different tags as possible leading back to my packs, adding a link between my profile and my seller page, and ensuring my cover art didn't look like it was mashed together in MS Paint.  My friends have been an invaluable help during the process by giving feedback on what I've shown them.  I went through at least 10-20 versions of my first ad page until I was making changes so minor my "market research assistant" didn't even notice anymore and was sick of me asking.  I've not done much in the way of social media advertising because, well, I'm not really that big into the whole "social" thing.  I've heard it's worked well for a lot of people, though.

AHA!  If you've got a bit of a presence on Facebook already, then you'll probably do even better, depending on how many people you get on there.  I wouldn't post all completed works on there, but a few might make people curious.  My "advertising" has basically consisted of making a post in this forum, telling my 4 buddies in my gaming group about my latest release, making sure I've got a many different tags as possible leading back to my packs, adding a link between my profile and my seller page, and ensuring my cover art didn't look like it was mashed together in MS Paint.  My friends have been an invaluable help during the process by giving feedback on what I've shown them.  I went through at least 10-20 versions of my first ad page until I was making changes so minor my "market research assistant" didn't even notice anymore and was sick of me asking.  I've not done much in the way of social media advertising because, well, I'm not really that big into the whole "social" thing.  I've heard it's worked well for a lot of people, though. Just bought one!

Dr DM said: Just bought one! AWW!  Thank you!

Alyssa R. said: I'm really excited to make my first pack- but I'm noticing not very many people pay for these kinds of tokens because people can just take stuff off google and makes their own. This is piracy, theft, and illegal. Just because they can, doesn't mean they SHOULD, and doesn't mean they will always get away with it. Packs of tokens don't sell as well as map packs but make them if you want. Do what feels right to you. If you make them high res you can sell them on other places for stock art for modules as a bonus. However, in my experience, my most useful and therefore most saleable packs have a clear gameplay mechanic to them. The tracking clocks. The Solar System map creator. The runestones. The map packs. Almost everything I've made outsells the character tokens. I imagine you might have a different outcome if you made many different character packs. If you don't feel like doing maps then don't do maps, it's your brand!

hey there,  I found out that while faceplates do sell, topdown sells better.  What I did was create combination packs with both view points in them.  If they are standard top down users they can use the faceplates in the write ups to describe and give their character a face to work with ..  I personally simply use faceplates because I love the detail.

My experiences with character driven work. I've been running my "experiment" for a little over half a year now and I considered the same problem at the start. I still think about it. I want to do characters and I have a front facing full body preference. I like to do high detail. All of this leads me to a very low rung on the store as it takes forever to produce and is in low demand. Solution is similar to what DMS proposed, find a way to combine your packs and keep what you love doing afloat alongside what has been proven to trend. In my case I combined full body characters with alternate style top down tokens. The bundle result keeps me sane. For you research, search BUNDLES in the marketplace browser and see what you can combine. If you just want to do portraits, then do as you say a lot of series, dragons together, orcs together, ect. Then consider a bundle as people "trend" towards bulk buys. Be prepared for the possible customer dip if people recognize you for combo sales though. Once a bundle is out, your single products will stop selling. Once you have a product, you will gain access to sales reports which function as your personal analytics. While a majority of my work so far has been character driven, the single icon product I've put out has outsold all my character work combined. There may be some sad truth in that people are seeking utility art over characters.