I've tried scouring the art forums on my own for information but I'm not finding enough. Hopefully someone here can provide some insight (and hopefully I'm not in the wrong place considering I'm asking about more than just pricing). I've recently discovered a huge love for making miniatures out of polymer clay. I'm still fairly inexperienced at it so they certainly have their flaws.., but so far I've made a few Subeta characters and I'm so so in love with how they turned out. Currently they take hours to get all of the details right, but I'm hoping to get quicker as time goes on so that I could potentially do commissions. So I guess first and foremost, I'm wondering if we're even allowed to recreate Subeta characters/items to sell as fan art like this, and if so, would there even be any demand for it? I've seen a lot of digital art but very few instances of physical items, and nothing that I found closely resembled a Subeta item/character.

What do you think people would realistically be willing to pay for something like this? Would the answer change if I was able to do a custom set of favorite characters or a custom HA?

beware: cuteness overload!

These three are approximately 1 inch tall and half an inch wide. Pete and Sarah took roughly 3-4 hours each, not including baking times. The Wizard pretty much took an entire afternoon/evening. I'd guess 5-6 hours not including baking times or time spent distracted by Youtube.

In my attempts to scour forums for anything remotely similar, I found several topics where people were selling physical items and found mod posts that said its ok to do USD-only slots for physical items that require shipping. Does this still hold true? Assuming there is any interest/demand, how would you recommend going about organizing the payment of these items? PayPal? Is there a better option? I've heard so many bad things about people scamming the seller by disputing the charge and PayPal always siding with the buyer. These take so many hours to make that I would be pretty devastated to be scammed out of my work. Would working through Etsy instead be an option for something like this?

So, my main questions, summarized, are:

• Is physical fan art of Subeta items even allowed?
• Would there be demand for it?
• What would they be worth? What if it was a custom set or custom HA?
• Would it be worthwhile to try auctioning one off? (That forum seems dead, so I'm unsure how I'd get enough traffic for it, especially since many people have adblock that negates billboards)
• How to organize payment to ensure I'm not scammed out of my work?
• Physical items that require shipment are still allowed to be USD-only slots, correct?
• Is there anything else I should take into consideration?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this! As much as I'd love to have the answers to all these questions, I'm also still trying to decide whether this hobby is worth pursuing further so literally any feedback helps me right now (even if it's just to let me know that you may be interested in the future).

• Is physical fan art of Subeta items even allowed?

It's been ages so honestly you are better served filling a ticket to get an official answer. They are trademarked characters so you definitely need to check in.

• Would there be demand for it?

Of a subeta character for me personally no, for a physical piece of my fursona hell yes. I have multiple physical pieces I have bought of her from other subeta people.

• What would they be worth? What if it was a custom set or custom HA?

Depending on size honestly for a little charm thingy I wouldn't do more then like 10 and that is with like glaze. Now if it were larger and more detailed like a mini statue then way more. I paid 60$ for a bust statue that isn't that large.

• Would it be worthwhile to try auctioning one off? If you have a pre-existing ping group then maybe. Otherwise I would like do little freebies without shipping and then if they want shipping they pay. To create buzz and have examples to establish a group before then auctioning for a price.

• How to organize payment to ensure I'm not scammed out of my work?

Unsure I have only ever been a buyer.

• Physical items that require shipment are still allowed to be USD-only slots, correct?

This is correct but do not be surprised if they do not fill at first.

• Is there anything else I should take into consideration?

Material cost, time, shipping. If your clay thing breaks during shipping what will your policy be?

Thank you for trying to answer all of those. I will definitely check in and file a ticket to be sure if I decide that I'd want to go forward with it. Doing freebies sounds like a great idea since I don't have a pre-existing group to ping. It would certainly help me get more practice in, which would also be a plus!

Do you happen to have a picture of the bust you purchased so that I could get an idea of what kind of quality I could be working towards? If not, that's alright too - the help was still very much appreciated :)

images of it from the artist's blog. the images are zoomed in. I can get you a size comparison in a bit. The statue is just high up and I am pregnant so not risking it on a chair/stool to grab it. But like the whole thing is smaller than my hand standing up on a table if that helps?

That looks amazing! Oh definitely don't worry about grabbing it - this helps a lot already. If it's smaller than your hand, it's probably still roughly double the size of anything I've done so far (and much more anatomically correct & detailed). I think to be able to achieve that level of detail, I'd need to get better sculpting tools and move on to a firmer clay. But this definitely gives me something to work toward! :)

So that was like almost 6 years ago. I would pay more now. I have bought from subeta various real life pieces from crochet, paintings, sketches, mini sculptures, stickers. It would again depend on size of the little clay. And again definitely outlining your policy on postal mishaps because it does happen. I lost a canvas piece to postal mishaps, the dude kicked a whole in it and the artist wasn't willing to do it again. But I have had like all other things come back totally fine.

There are a few Etsy polymer stores to get like a price gauge too. But yeah personally I would do freebies, if they want the actual piece then USD to cover shipping. But this creates buzz/ gives examples. You can also get a better gauge on pricing estimates. Take into account materials and if you are going to glaze/paint .etc or just do solely clay. Perhaps also consider doing like earrings/charms as those tend to be popular you just need the little metal pieces to attach to your clay.

For a charm I would do probably like 10$ not including shipping. My assumption is that it is just the head/bust and not like a full body and under an inch in size. The bigger/more elaborate the more I would pay. Hopefully I was of some help. Good luck!

As far as postal mishaps, I'd probably just redo the item or offer a refund. I'm a pretty careful packer though so I'd guess that it would very rarely, if ever, even come up. I like to choose a box that is bigger than necessary and make sure there is a substantial layer of padding/bubble wrap on all sides to protect it from impact. Thankfully I also have a pretty good source of free packing materials at my workplace, so other than the very slight weight increase, the extra packing materials wouldn't even noticeably increase shipping costs for the buyer.

I have considered earrings, as well as necklaces and keychains. I've done one keychain (baby yak keychain) but to be honest I've been terrified to put it on my keychain because I suspect that it will not be durable enough since it doesn't have any type of glaze yet. A glaze is still on my to-buy list, and until then I don't think I'm willing to risk it since she's my favorite at the moment.

I've noticed that the Subeta minis I've done are about the right size to fit inside of a bottle cap, so I've thought about using resin to suspend a character within a painted & sealed bottle cap and turning that into a necklace or keychain. Unlike the exposed nature of the baby yak, I think that the resin would serve to fully protect the clay from breakage and wear & tear even better than a glaze could. But as far as demand goes, I'm not sure that it would be much better than what I'm already doing (and for higher time/material cost since currently I'm not messing with resin or painting anything). It might also just end up looking a lot more trashy than I'm picturing it to look, so I've been undecided about whether it's actually an idea worth trying. I guess I can't really know how it'll turn out until I give it a try though.

Anyway, you have been very very helpful! Thank you so much for everything. Your advice has given me a lot to think about.

For baby yak I would easily do 15+ because detail. But yeah I would also hope it was glazed for some better water protection. I personally wouldn't get the bottle cap but if you did like vials with resin in it or glass bottles that is more my personal taste. Looks more like they were captured sort of thing. But I lean towards more mythical like creatures. Just some more ideas. Wishing you the best!