Just have to say, I signed up with ToonVectors last week and the experience so far has been great. No sales yet of course, but Chris has put together a great site. He's even managed to figure out the problem of generating a color-accurate preview directly from an EPS file, which is something that no one else I've worked with has done. Not even Getty has figured that one out on ThinkStock.

Good work, Chris. I'm hoping for good things for you and TV.

Quote from: Maui on September 02, 2012, 10:29

Quote from: Toon Vectors on May 21, 2012, 02:34
On the subject of watermarks, I have a new design for these which is present on the most recently published images.  Before going through and replacing all of them, I am still playing around with something for the 140px size, although I am leaning heavily towards leaving thumbnails at that size without watermarks or just adding a bottom bar which is cropped out on the site display but can be seen if you drag or save the thumbnail image.

I would suggest to have a watermark on the 140px size as well, because those images are still quite clean and crisp for many purposes.

What do you think about the bottom bar watermark concept for that size?  Obviously it could easily be cropped off in an image editor, but at least it's a small deterrent.  I was not able to come up with a covering watermark for the small images that I was happy with.

If anything, I'd rather just shrink the gallery images a bit if there's concern.  Is there a certain size that you think would not need a watermark - 120px, 100px, smaller?

Quote from: EmberMike on September 02, 2012, 15:37
Good work, Chris. I'm hoping for good things for you and TV.

Thanks!  For automated EPS thumbnail generation I've been using Ghostscript and ImageMagick - both are free and open source (although maybe a little complicated to setup the first time).  Seems to work pretty well as long as reasonably close ICC CMYK profiles are fed in for the conversion to RGB.

Quote from: Toon Vectors on September 03, 2012, 03:31
Thanks!  For automated EPS thumbnail generation I've been using Ghostscript and ImageMagick - both are free and open source (although maybe a little complicated to setup the first time).  Seems to work pretty well as long as reasonably close ICC CMYK profiles are fed in for the conversion to RGB.

Shhh! Don't tell Getty that!

Quote from: EmberMike link=topic=15978.msg270447#msg270447Shhh! Don't tell Getty that!

Honestly, I don't mind sharing things I've learned.  Perhaps this is a bias from primarily being a software developer, where we have clearly seen over the last couple of decades that an open community of shared learning reaps vastly more benefits for everyone involved in the end as opposed to closed silos of trade secrets - especially for the smaller guy.

I must say that I had my first downloads and I love the $14 RPD. Keep up this great site.

Quote from: Noedelhap on December 19, 2012, 17:45
I must say that I had my first downloads and I love the $14 RPD. Keep up this great site.

Thanks! Traffic has been growing at a nice pace, so I'm hoping for many more sales next year.

Looking good. Wondering if I might take a shot at getting in. Hopefully the upload process is as easy as it appears in the FAQ. Is Chris Thoman (the founder) and Cory Thoman the same person or are they relatives?

Quote from: Toon Vectors on May 07, 2012, 03:57
Toon Vectors is a brand new microstock website for royalty-free vector graphics and clip-art.  The website is comparatively minimal and simplistic at the moment, with its current set of features driven by the philosophy of a minimum viable product, but I have a number of enhancements and improvements planned for the near future.  Constructive criticism is most welcome.

I recommend reading the FAQ and end-user / artist agreements linked below for more detailed information, but here are some highlights:

• Fixed prices: $19.99 / $99.99 standard / extended royalty-free licenses
• No buyer subscriptions - ala carte purchases only
• 70% artist commission on all sales
• 10% affiliate commission program
• Payouts through PayPal or Moneybookers processed monthly, no minimum payout
• EPS v8/10 uploads required
• IPTC metadata extraction if an accompanying tagged JPEG is provided
• Uploads handled through Dropbox
• Based in Austin, TX
• One employee currently (yours truly)

Home Page
http://www.toonvectors.com/

Frequently Asked Questions
http://www.toonvectors.com/help/faq

Royalty-Free License Agreement
http://www.toonvectors.com/help/licensing

Artist Agreement
http://www.toonvectors.com/help/artists

Artist Signup
http://www.toonvectors.com/register?type=artist

Chris is Cory's brother. In my opinion this helped him out a lot because Chris has managed to avoid all of the start up mistakes. At least that is how it appears, I'm sure he has made plenty of mistakes but none that would affect us as contributors. The upload is one of the best out of the 20 or so sites I upload to. I love it and it serves as backup at the same time. This site works and for me it is outselling all of the low earners except GL, and outselling BS and DP as well. Not all that hard to do with $14 royalties and $70 els. Doesn't take a whole lot of sales to get your numbers up there in a hurry. Not a ton of sales yet but been fairly consistent for the last 3 months.

This site is a winner- you need to give it a shot.

 :)This really makes me happy. I think THIS is the site microstock illustrators have been talking about supporting all these years. The site is connected to real illustrators and the pay is excellent. Now that you've confirmed the connection to Cory, I vote that all of us consider supporting ToonVectors 100%. I've only had a few correspondences with Cory, but from what I can tell his work ethic and thoughtfulness is top notch. I'm sure his brother, the owner of ToonVectors is similar. Keep in mind I don't even know if they'll accept my work, as I haven't yet applied  .

Regardless, I plan on giving them a chance. Sending some exclusive illustrations to them should also be in everyone's plans. If enough of us get behind them and the good words spreads, ToonVectors could be a big turning point for the illustration side of microstock.

I would like to add that GLeftovers and the other smaller sites are decent payers too. So I don't want to sound like I might be putting them down.

Quote from: chromaco on December 20, 2012, 20:32
Chris is Cory's brother. In my opinion this helped him out a lot because Chris has managed to avoid all of the start up mistakes. At least that is how it appears, I'm sure he has made plenty of mistakes but none that would affect us as contributors. The upload is one of the best out of the 20 or so sites I upload to. I love it and it serves as backup at the same time. This site works and for me it is outselling all of the low earners except GL, and outselling BS and DP as well. Not all that hard to do with $14 royalties and $70 els. Doesn't take a whole lot of sales to get your numbers up there in a hurry. Not a ton of sales yet but been fairly consistent for the last 3 months.

This site is a winner- you need to give it a shot.

Hopefully, Toonvectors will become something profitable like Clipartof in the future. Toonvectors will be one of the agencies i highlighted to join.

Sadly, Hitimages started by artist chud is down and it does seem to have potential. Unfortunately luck wasnt in his side.

Currently, the only good and fair independent stock agencies for strictly illustrators left in the market are Clipartof, drawshop, toonvectors. I am also hoping Yuri acurs who own peopleimages.com will start to accept illustrators as well in the future.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.  I'm on vacation this week with a somewhat spotty Internet connection, so the submissions review and approval process has ground to halt, but business as usual should resume at the end of the week.

Quote from: chromaco on December 20, 2012, 20:32
The upload is one of the best out of the 20 or so sites I upload to. I love it and it serves as backup at the same time.

It works well, but DropBox isn't exactly a standard way of uploading. I prefer FTP, so I hope this option will be built in someday.

I think ToonVectors can be better if you can group the artworks into different category eg, like lifestyle, medical, sport etc. It make search easier and it reallly helps.

Oooh just seen this thread and the new Toon Vectors site. I like it. Going for it. 

Have just registered, got to sort out this dropdown box or whatever. Oh well, more fun & games for uploading 

Drop box is easy. Very similar to FTP but even more intuitive. Just upload the files (both eps and Jpg) to the Toonvectors folder and leave them there overnight. If you have the IPTC done that is all you need to do. If you want to move faster you can click on the sync button and the upload will happen immediately. Just remember to not move your images to new folders until they have been synced.

After the files show up on the site I catagorize my images into subfolders and use Dropbox as a backup for all of my files. Nice little perk

I think you will like this site.

Hmm, it uploaded my .eps file but wouldn't upload the jpg, now I can't find out how to upload again. Shucks a learning curve coming up here me thinks.

Just sent you a PM. This system has always been very easy for me. Hopefully we can figure out what is going on.

I kept getting a flash error, but all is ok now 

I've uploaded and syncd my first 10 files to toonvector, so am just waiting for review and obviously acceptance to the site.

By the way, did you guys download and install the dropbox or are you using the web version to upload?. I haven't downloaded it 

Quote from: chromaco on February 12, 2013, 19:27
Just sent you a PM. This system has always been very easy for me. Hopefully we can figure out what is going on.

Thanks yeah I got your pm, but it was dinner time so I had to come off computer, then got a visitor doh. Always happens when you're trying to do something new eh 

Quote from: toots on February 12, 2013, 20:51
I kept getting a flash error, but all is ok now 

I've uploaded and syncd my first 10 files to toonvector, so am just waiting for review and obviously acceptance to the site.

By the way, did you guys download and install the dropbox or are you using the web version to upload?. I haven't downloaded it 

Downloaded it,  The little icon at the bottom right (near the time but I'm a PC user) makes it super easy to open up quickly.  I prefer this method of uploading to a lot of other sites. 

I've been pretty happy with how the Dropbox integration has worked so far on the backend, although there are a few bugs to fix (mostly my fault) and minor enhancements that I hope to make soon.

I had planned to implement a similar upload system for Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive this year to supplement Dropbox for those who would prefer to use them, but the need doesn't seem immediately pressing - also perhaps the trust level and sentiment around Google and Microsoft in the microstock world is not so favorable at the moment.

hi, can we upload vector made raster illustrations and 3d render raster illustrations?

Quote from: mtkang on February 13, 2013, 05:21
hi, can we upload vector made raster illustrations and 3d render raster illustrations?

At the moment, it is only EPS vectors with no raster elements to keep things simple and consistent.  A ~3000px JPEG is included in customer downloads for convenience, but I consider the scaleable and editable EPS itself to be the main product.

Hehe just got accepted, just a case of uploading all my vectors over the next few days or so 

I've got loads of christmas ones, so I suppose they'll have to wait till later on in the year.

Thanks Chris for approving me so quickly. Am looking forward to helping build up this agency. Cool 

Question for Chris @ ToonVectors:

As toonvectors is basically a vector site even though you throw in a jpg version, should we upload designs with e.g. "sample text", "vector EPS10 transparency" text within the design or would you prefer we left such text off the vectors along with their corresponding jpg's.

Placing text like that on some images sometimes gives a visual representation to buyers as to what the image looks like with text on, sort of bringing it alive if you know what I mean. It's the jpg version that you're including which I'm concerned about.

I wouldn't want to lose sales because I've included text, but there again I'm more for selling the vectors of which text is easily removable.