Artisan is fine, although it will take a bit more thought.
- It’s fine. It’s not like there’s a long crafting tree of higher and higher level stuff. You can probably sell anything you start with, although it might be a good idea to not buy anything TOO niche.
- The ribbons do represent the enchantments, and yes, they need to be attached to a suitable physrep to work. Ideally, you have a suitable prop, and if you sell (the magic item) to someone else, you exchange the ribbon onto their prop. However, you could just carry around the ribbons, and apply the “enchantment” onto whatever prop someone is able to provide.
That is, you have a “Magic shield” ribbon, you could likely find someone wanting their shield enchanted, they have the prop already, you apply a little binding ritual, attache the ribbon and their shield is enchanted.
Let’s divide the artisan stuff into 5 tiers of stuff;
Tier 1 (0 materials)
tier 2 (1 to 10)
tier 3 (10 to 20)
tier 4 (20+)
tier 5 (artefacts!)
As a starting artisan, you get some ribbons for your items from tiers 1, 2, and 3. Note that with the exception of artefacts, no item will last over a year. And so even if someone is wealthy enough to get the shiny powerful tier 4 sword, they’ll want another one next year… And as for the cheaper stuff, there’ll be hundreds (I’m not exagerrating) of people wanting it, within their budgets, every year.
Lets use some of my items as examples:
[Tier 1] Warriors Plate (0 materials, 2 months to make). +1 hit from heavy armour. There are a LOT of suits of heavy armour on the field. Every character could probably afford this on their first event. It’s cheap, effective, and popular. When someone in heavy armour DOESN’T want Warriors plate, it’s because they’re wearing better.
[Tier 3] Oakenheart Shield (14 materials) +1 hit and + 1 rank fortitude. A pricey but good shield, a favourite of many a shield user, and in high demand. I suspect there’s a hundred or so of these on the field. And every year they’ll all need replacing. So there’s a lot of demand there. The Empress has an artefact version of this, the duration on that is permanent…
Sometimes being able to make the popular stuff is good, because it’ll always sell. Sometimes being able to make the unusual stuff is good, as clients will come to you… my Tier 4 sword I may make this year, for someone else, on commision, for the first time…
(don’t get stuck on these tiers, I just labelled them for ease of discussion)
And finally, a word on resources:
Your personal resource generates stuff.
Military Units and Fleets generate random shinies and roleplaying opportunities.
Farms and busineses get you cash,
forests and mines generate ingots of stuff for artisan items.
(congregations and mama sites generate stuff you could sell for ingots)
Unless you’ve a story-driven reason to do otherwise, I’d advise picking your artisan items, then picking a resource that will help fund them.
IE: If you have items using a lot of Orichalcum to make, start with an Orichalcum mine. Use what you need, swap the rest.
As an artisan, a lot of in-game time will be spent buying and selling and trading resources, and selling the fruits of your labour. This is also a great way to get out and about on the field and meet people.
Sorry, rambling on a bit here…
Next question? 
Thank you all for your very helpful and very appreciated advice! I’ve learned a lot I couldn’t from the wiki!