Starting and maintaining a business can be one of the hardest things to do, having to make big changes to your lifestyle to grow an empire but really its not too hard if you genuinely love what you do. For me, this was painting on shoes and clothes.
Custom shoes and clothing is such a good idea to show off who you are and express yourself with these unique pair of shoes or a jacket, that is why I wanted to start this business 'Cam Createz', I want people to feel unique and good as they walk down the street with this wearable art making them stand out from the crowd.
Anyone can customise... honestly.
Get Inspired and start making
I started out my business @camcreatez with digital portrait paintings on Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop selling these, but after a while I wanted something I can interact with and physically make changes to it, and after painting on my own shoes and clothes in the past, I thought this was the best path for me. I first looked at the audience out there on Instagram and started following and being inspired by the other customisers out there like @artofvisionary and @customsbyleanne etc. From here, I discovered the boss of it all, @angelusdirect. Angelus Direct are the leaders in the custom clothing/shoes industry, they produce any paints that can withstand the daily wear to a shoe.
What you need to start
Angelus Direct Starter Kit - AngelusDirect.com
Any pair of a shoes with leather on
Cotton Wool for preparing the shoes
Masking Tape
A comfortable workspace
More products for customisers here: https://www.camcreatez.com/what-i-use
For information on how to prep, paint and finish a pair of shoes properly, I'd recommend watching Angelus Direct youtube videos, these will ensure you are doing it properly.
Start Sharing On Social Media
With this quality of work in mind from videos and other artists, I started experimenting on battered down shoes that I wouldn't wear, the good thing about this is you can choose WHATEVER you want to customise, I mainly chose my favourite rappers and kept on painting and painting over the tops of the shoes. Once you have a design you are proud of, you can share this on all your social media. It is a good thing to have social media in this business, this includes Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Snapchat, TikTok, Pinterest and any others you can think of. The more the better.
A great way to grow your social media is to start creating a community using hashtags relevant to what you do, in this case my main hashtags are #customshoes #painting #angelusdirect. This way you can connect to other custom artists and grow together and start to find your style, and in return find customers easily that are looking for custom artists like yourself!
Have Fun
Painting can be tiring and long, but you have to enjoy the process in each piece you paint to make it special for the customer and you will feel a lot more satisfied with the end results afterwards. People will try find ways to say that your business will fail or you cant make money from art, but look at all the other artists like myself that have made a living from it! You will enjoy it, trust me.
The Business Side
The main thing to have in mind is to register as a sole trader (UK- self employed) on HMRC website so that you are legally okay to sell products as a business. After this you can start copyrighting and trademarking your name. You HAVE to keep track of all expenses and your income for the end of the tax year every year, there are many services to help you with this such as talking to an accountant.
I usually price my work towards how much I really think it is worth plus how many estimated hours I think it would take me. This comes a lot easier as you do more designs as you will understand how long each design would take depending how detailed the design is. You have to have in mind the cost of the shoes, the painting work and shipping to work out your profits on each piece.
Thank you for reading this and I wish you well with your new business venture, just stick through it for the long run, you will have times where no one wants anything. Enjoy it!
Cam