I understand that and that's why I was hoping for a staff artist to make a new tutorial video, an upgrade of the one we have now which is not very useful seing as that style is completely outdated. To be honest I have some very stupid doubts about making a lineart and shading and I don't know who to turn to for advice .. I just wish there was a basic tutorial telling you what brush to use for the lineart, how thick the lineart has to be to get accepted, stuff like that. Do the site artists use the pen tool or draw anything by hand? I really only just wanna see a video of them drawing a wearable from the sketch to the final product, I don't even want a commentary, lol, as long as it's not a speed video xD

Also I don't agree that commission prices should really drop - new artists charging less is normal, but with experience comes a higher price - it's the same for every art type (overlays, traditional art, cis, cws etc.) - dropping commission prices would also be a deterrent for artists to stick around because what is the point if what you are selling right now is less than what you used to, despite having more experience?

That being said, more artists would definitely increase the overall market and I totally support this!

(^ this was to your last post sorry!)

Now to the one you juuust pinged! I can definitely put up a guide with the brushes I use n_n I think Sonatine has one somewhere on her blog also (:

hello missy!

Regarding unlimited - the thing is, we have two types of buyers. The cw community that prefers limited things and the other buyers who save up for an item slowly. I have a wig in my cw shop that's been there for over a year now and I still sell copies once in a while. I feel like we shouldnt remove unlimited options because there are some poeple who like them! (At the same time, I know that unlimited deters people from slotting at all ;___; )

Oh I didn't mean current artists should drop their prices, I meant that if new artist showed up on site maybe their prices would be lower being new and not very experienced, that would allow more people to commission something cause not everyone has the money to pay for a USD commission and maybe new artists could be interested in CSC too at first. Just, more options for people to chose from, I guess.

Lineart is the most difficult thing for me , lol, I've tried recreating one of my commissioned CW as an exercise and is either too thick or too thin or transparent sobs

I've also got some older items that still periodically sell in my CW shop, so I can see that side of it. It's just a tricky balance trying to work out what would help :/

What if there was a new way to structure the CW forums/slotting process, so that instead of reading 100 boards there was a way to have pictures, sort of a row of the new public items this week. Users could decide if they wanted their items displayed (so they could keep private things hidden) and then if someone saw an item they liked they could click through to slot for it? Sort of like how you see the preview when you pay for a slot. That might make it quicker for people to scroll through and see items they wanted. Or it might be a terrible idea. Idk

I thought about that as well, the last thing we need are artists that just copy other established artists. That would make a for a pretty toxic environment, and in the end helps no one. I'm not sure how you'll create a thorough tutorial without those cases happening, but as long as you keep it generic, artists will be able to reference it to better understand subeta's requirements. They should be submitting their own work and coming to the forums with their denial details. I guess, only after new artists have developed a half way or more decent style of their own should other artists come to them for collaborations.

You and I both have seen threads pop up of new artists showing their work and straight up asking for guidance in the Custom Clothing: Discussion forums and discussions going on in the Art Market: Custom Wearables (dead) forum, it doesn't help that there are basically two forums for this kind of conversation and it's confusing people...

Yeah I definitely agree it is stealing in a sense. Unfortunately, I find it highly unlikely rules will ever be enforced ;-;.

ur posts are so long. I concur.

Actually there are multiple tutorials that have been made over the years. Unfortunately they have not all been compiled in one place which is why it makes it very difficult to find things hence the suggestion of a tutorial compilation thread!

I think the record would be very confusing on value itself. Value fluctuates almost every day for a lot of items because its up to the seller to base the prices off what they feel it is worth. Yes some will simply sell at slot price, but when an item is popular, the price rises. When an item becomes old, the prices then drop. This rapid fluctuation would be even more confusing due to the number of pawned items that constantly appear every day. So a value page for all cws in my mind would just be misleading and never accurate.

I kind of agree that unlimited items do cause a lot of problems because they devalue even quicker than regular items which is unfortunate

Good points..I was just throwing an idea out there. I'm just total dog shit at pricing, so anything that would make that in some way easier for me would be great. As a data analyst by trade, I would find mapping prices oddly interesting though, to look at trends etc. But, yeah, it'd be kinda redundant info :/

Yeah I completely understand. I wish it was possible, I just don't know if its feasible. It would be interesting to map item values, that would be so cool. I would love to see the trends in pricing. But omg that would be so tedious!

no, rly, I am a data nerd. I'd have that shit in Excel and would function the shit out of it. It'd be all graphs and shit. It'd be beautiful. I mean, getting the raw data is impossible as shit, because it's not recorded in any way...but...ignoring that teensy, base fact, totes do-able. 😆

Anyway, I'll crawl back under my rock and stop making terrible suggestions now.

GUYS SORRY I'M SO LAZY TO READ THIS ALL FOR NOW, but I started making a compilation of the tutorials for Subeta CWs. Tbh I only found mine and some few others LOL I REMEMBER also did a great one on perspective for people to understand how it works on the HA!!! It was so very useful! o: I FOUND IT

LINK TO GOOGLE DRIVE

we also need to create a thread for this, but idk where? LOL

if u guys find more stuff PLS SEND TO ME

Ooh okay I've been sorta following this thread and wanted to add my own opinion to it cause I have loved custom wearables from day one and have way too many thoughts on this subject. I'm a sometimes commissioner and frequent buyer of CWs (less frequent these days)

This is from the perspective of someone who buys all their csc with real money, if I checked my bank account on how much I've spent on subeta in these past few years I'm pretty sure I would cry bitter laughter.

The Problem

1.) I would love to own more CWs, but I have to be very careful on what I slot for these days. Items that have more than 1 batch usually don't retain their value and become very difficult to sell cause nobody seems to want them (if you can even sell them at all). In the past the market was active enough that most items usually sold for slot price or slightly higher and that in turn gave sellers more csc to continue slotting/buying items. These days people who are desperate for csc are forced to pawn their items or sell them for much lower than slot, resulting in a loss overall (For example, You slot for a wig at 700 and sell for 500). Hence, people like me are being very careful that we are slotting on something we actually want. Which leads to my next point...

2.) Commissioners/artists are finding it difficult to fill spots. I've released a few commissioned items and to be honest, I struggle to fill a single batch on most of them. I make most of my items single batch in an attempt to retain their value so that buyers can hopefully sell for slot price. Best case? I fill a batch and earn a profit of 600csc, which helps me breakeven (as recolours usually cost around $5-6). Worse case? I cover the extra slots myself OR submit the item directly to the cash shop, making a loss of 100-1500csc. (This is not including the price of the original commission which may be up to $30)

Now don't get me wrong, I am happy to pay for the commission and also to cover the extra slots for the item to get on site. The artist has worked hard and deserve to get paid. I commission items because I would love to see them on site and use them in my HAs, I believe for many of us, that is the drive that keeps us going. But the reality is that CWs have become a very expensive hobby and it's turning me off from commissioning and releasing my own items, because we lose so much money doing so.

(I am also so sad when I see an item I commissioned and released in the pawn shop cause I try so hard to make them accessible yet rare though that is another complaint entirely, haha)

Why this happens and what we can do about it?

1.) I believe this happens because of an oversaturation of items in the market. Everyday new CWs are being added into site and none are being taken out. There are so many sideswept hairs/shredded tops/heels to choose from. In addition, the CW consumer market is growing very slowly, if it's growing at all (Maybe it's even shrinking?). I don't see as many people buying CW's as before. I think this might just be a case of supply > demand. The site/we need to draw in new people to get interested in buying and selling CWs.

I'm thinking the current buying/selling CW system we have needs to be more accessible. Most of the R200 market happens on the forums, and I think like probably less than half of subeta users actually frequent the forums... I saw an earlier suggestion of having something like user shops but in csc, and I am in support of this idea. Anything to make the CW market seem less intimidating as it takes a lot of effort to learn the ropes of the CW market (Ie private items, public copies, offer on rare items etc)

Another thing would be I think to draw in new users who would be willing to spend money on buying csc. (I'm sorry I don't actually have any suggestions on how to do this... I know that subeta wants to sorta get their site stable before drawing in new users but yeah this has to happen.)

2.) Yeah UNPOPULAR OPINION TIME I'm one of those people who think that the pawn shop should be cleared out or at least CWs being taken out of the site somehow. Cause as I said everyday new CWs are added on site and there are not enough homes for them to go to. Maybe we could have a countdown on items in the pawn shops, whatever number seems reasonable (Like maybe 60 days or something) and once time expires the item will be removed from the site?

I understand that some users save up for an item that they want in the pawn shop hence a reasonable time frame for them to save up. And yes it sucks that an item that someone once paid real money from is gone forever, but we just can't go on with more and more items over saturating the market. It's just sad that there are items in the pawn shop that have been there for years.

DUMB SUGGESTION TIME: Okay cause it's late and I'm kinda tired I'm pretty sure this suggestion will seem silly in the morning, but I've seen mentions of the hustler around and what about a CW hustler? So basically CWs are sold to the hustler (Or items unwanted in pawn after 30+ days whatever) and become unavailable to buy via normal methods. BUT the hustler sorta 'rotates' through items so that the copy is available for a set amount of time (say 12 hours) and if it sells the hustler moves on to the next item and etc etc. Something like how we have the cash shop items at the moment except with limited CW copies. Perhaps the price could be cheap as well? Like maybe the same price it costs to pawn the item or maybe 50csc higher. This could effectively remove items from the market but give people who want it the opportunity to grab it eventually as it's not 'gone forever'

(Tl;dr I don't buy CWs as much as I used to cause hard to sell. And I lose epic amounts of money every time I commission something. There's too many CWs on site atm and none are being taken out. We need more buyers getting into the CW market to get the cash flowing and a way to take CWs out of the site cause we will eventually reach oversaturation.)

If anyone makes it this far THANK YOU FOR READING <3 It took me an hour to write this cause I can't express myself eloquently haha.

OMG, thank you, thank you!!! I've been looking for video tutorials FOREVER with no luck, but here they are! sobs quietly

thanks for posting! n_n

You're not the first person to mention that cws are a very expensive hobby - and that's a really important thing to underline! Cws should be a hobby, yes, but they shouldnt be that expensive (because as with everything, you drop out if it is too costly of course). A part of the problem is that we dont have a large pool of artists/buyers/commissioners and that creates a tank.

Regarding the hustler, Im personally on the fence about it because this would devaluate cws - not to mention it kind of sucks to see an item you made/commissioned being sold for cheap because no one wanted to buy it at its full price (I see the hustler as being even more of a 'last chance' than the pawn shop personally). I also can't imagine the staff offering cws for 'cheap' as an alternative. It's like thinking 'if your cw isnt popular / doesnt make the cut, it's automatically hustler material', yknow? ;;

I would however be interested in a hustler offering new limited cws - as in, cws submitted by users for the official hustler so that they can benefit to other users (partial csc/sp profit would go back to the artist, usd profit is forfeited) - it would get the word out about cws, give people the opportunity to purchase exclusive cws in rotation (my idea might be just as bad, im sorry haha)

ohhhh thank you! I didnt know about half of those guides haha I'll try to stop procrastinating & add a few ones this week (im thinking brush settings, blending modes and lineart for now maybe? I need to finish the darn cw contest items, im so slow x.x )

Thanks for replying! :) I'm glad people are opening up about how expensive CW collecting can be and I absolutely agree with you that having CWs as a hobby is great and fun, but it really shouldn't be this expensive. And the high cost of the hobby will eventually start to drive people away.

I think lots of the problem is based around the CW community shrinking. I think the existing suggestions for getting more people into CWs + making CW shopping more accessible are good ones and hope they get integrated into the site in some way!

I do understand where you're coming from and indeed it's a struggle to try to maintain CW values + keep them obtainable so that people who want them can buy (This is something I struggle with alot) Idk there are just a lot of items nobody is buying in the pawn shop and I don't really know what we can do about them but yea it's not great to see them sitting there for months and months. :(

I kinda like your limited hustled CW idea ^^ It sounds interesting though I'm not sure how many CWs will be released this way (If the submission fee was voided maybe it would give people more incentive to release items via this method)

Thank you for facilitating this discussion! It is an important one to have c:

I don't think the price is out of reach as it is (for example, I dont see wig slots selling for less 600-700 like they are right now) but the fact that the wheel is turning veeeery slowly is what makes cws an expensive hobby. We need to generate a better system in which we can create, buy, sell, trade without exhausting every possibility and without turning to the pawn shop automatically for a meager 300csc back!

I feel like if items are no longer wanted in the pawn shop, they should either benefit from a 'last chance discount' for a limited time and then be deleted rather than using a hustler system which only further devaluates cws (it's like saying we have two cw sinks for items no one wants at all - it's kind of sad!)

For the new cw hustler I was thinking no fees since the item would be essentially donated to subeta for the good cause. Sure the artist could possibly get a small profit off the purchases but from an artist point of view, it's a loss more than anything else since any USD is forfeited here. I'd like to think people would submit official cws for the sake of contributing to the community!

I think slotting and buying prices are actually pretty good these days but it's just that they can be hard to sell down the road so to get more csc we have to turn to pawn shop or spend money.

I agree with you :) I'm one of the people who think that we can benefit from unwanted CWs being deleted after a period of time. But I think the last time subeta cleared out the pawn shop last year there was quite an outrage. People were mad that items others once paid real money for were being deleted. I understand where they are coming from but at the same time the pawn has become a dump site for unwanted CWs which is sad :c

That would be a nice idea :) Just a way to reduce the cost of submitting items would greatly help my pockets haha. This could also help new artists just getting started in drawing CWs, since they don't have to invest 1.5k csc to send in their item for critique/consideration.

it is slow only because the wheel is turning slowly though! I remember cws 3-5 years ago and people had much more csc on-hand, they could sell for either slot price or often higher.

I totally understand why our solutions tend to minimize the negative outputs rather than magnifying the positive ones but that's partly why we're stuck in the mud right now. We really just need fresh blood to get us rolling again.

The last csc deletion was pretty bad indeed but I think it's mostly because subeta hadnt announced it clearly (most people had not interpreted 'gone' as in 'deleted' and it didnt look like they had a valid reason for doing so, other than just destroying unwanted items. I feel like we have a counter-argument for them here, because we state why we believe they should be deleted after a while.

(Still, Im not sure this will be a popular opinion because while the cw community can usually manage to scrounge csc on time, regular users save up a long time to get their things and the delay may just be too small for them. If you ask me, the pawn shop in itself is creating those unwanted cws qq )

I'll add the hustler cw suggestion to the first page n_n

hello! Not sure if you have seen this thread yet, but I hope that you are willing to look into some of the ideas as while we don't all share the same opinions, we all share the opinion that there are issues within the cw market that we hope that will be resolved.

Cathii's main post on the front page has some of the main ideas we have all contributed and links to various explanations!

Thank you again in advance!

I AM NOT SURE WHY I AM PING HERE?!

Link Link

Something about tutorials that really need updating and making pretty pft

Anyway they're mentioned so links if you want em! 8D

thank youuuu bun! n_n Im working on some as well and hopefully we can come up with a decent recollection to help others!