Orion Lodubyal's Art and Fiction Blog

Now for the dark side: When you know your art isn't going to get approved but you want to sell it anyway.  I am not saying anyone should do this or that it's a good idea or that it's a respectable thing to do. It is very much in the gray area of what is "allowable". Print-on-demand sites let a lot of stuff slide because if you aren't "trading on the brand's name", the brand isn't likely to notice or, in some cases even care.  It's very simple, but not without risk. Proceed with caution (and for godsake back up your artwork!) Don't tag your art with anything the brand owns or looks for.   Don't use the brand's name, the actor's names, anything . This will make it harder to find. My Garak stuff is largely invisible because there is no "DS9", Star Trek, etc etc.  So how will people find it? They won't - unless they know to look for it. You can use fandom tags like Garashir, Spi...

One of the abstract Obsidian Order (commissioned) pieces CBS approved on RedBubble.   Another commissioned set of designs approved by CBS this week.   I finally have a handful of artwork that's been approved by CBS for sale on RedBubble! It only took 6 months, but at least now I have a better understanding of what they're looking for, and what they're rejecting. What follows is only slightly above hearsay but it's what I've learned from other Star Trek artists and from representatives at RedBubble and TeePublic (which have now merged.)   I only recently found out a lot of this stuff when RedBubble and TeePublic joined forces. TeePublic reached out to me upload my fanart over there and I asked them what the brands, particularly CBS/Star Trek was looking for. The rep actually gave me some really helpful info that isn't on the Brand Partnership page. Here's the TL;DR if you don't want to read the whole thing: Avoid actors' face...

If you see my artwork on Amazon, I did not put it there. No one on Amazon has permission to sell my art, ever. In fact, if you see an artist's work that you like on Amazon, look them up on social media or for the website on Google. Ask them if they have given permission to sell their to Amazon. I saw pages and pages of artwork that I know I've seen from artist friends' pages on Twitter. I spent all evening trying to match the artwork with the artists and let them know. For many of them, this isn't the first time, or even 5th time. They have a monthly routine of using Google image search and store name tag search to find their artwork posted in places it should be. It's a job in itself. And now it's my job too. The worst part of it was talking to Amazon's customer service rep on the phone who said, "Amazon has never had this kind of problem before." Oh really? A 2 second search on twitter yields pages of results. Then there's the BuzzFeed ...