#guys im having so much fun 😭 i missed cons so much 😭😭😭

[verytendou]

CHILCHUCK COSPLAY SPOTTED

[alicenpai]

🌟

anime north 2023 con report

finally posting this - thank you to everyone for a wonderful anime north!! \o/ this con prep season was the longest ive ever prepped for a con, and i think it was the busiest con for me ever. it makes me so happy to see people taking my art home!! 😭

so thank you for coming by anime north and chatting and supporting me! and thank you esp to the people who came by gifting their own merch?!??? - either fanart or ocs?! and im honored to see your beautiful ocs?!?? what the hell you guys are the GOAT thank you all 🥹🥹

it was so busy that i wish i had time to walk around & talk to other artists! i really wanted to get dango and onigiri at the delta too.. didnt really get time to eat so im sorry if you saw me shove 10 timbits in my mouth at the end of the con. yes i really did that .

throughout the con i kept saying "he just like me.. HE JUST LIKE ME FR!!!!!!!" every 5 seconds like an NPC. im sorry if you had to hear that more than once.

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i wasn't able to post my con catalogue for AN on tumblr and instagram... i was so busy.. dying... maybe if i do other cons this summer ill post something similar. i had a lot of new stuff this year so formatting it was rough haha. here it is! more thoughts under the cut (bc this report really is more for me, but maybe someone can find something useful)

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this is more for me honestly, so it will be really long. but i'm sharing it in case it may be helpful for others. i find that i'm always looking back at my old con reports, so typing out all of my thoughts are really useful to me. overall a great con, fellow artists and customers alike really inspire me to do better in my art.

comparisons to last year: (since i didn't end up making a con report last year!!!!!)

location: the artist alley layout was huge, and im really happy there are a lot more newcomers to the con scene. i know how much my first con experience meant to me, so i want others to join in on the fun! i don't know how the artist alley staff managed to fit so many artists in the building now! we got placed in a corner where there was a lot of breathing room, and a lot of traffic. i got lost a few times (didn't actually have time to walk around, but you know, it was to get in and out of the con centre and to the washroom/water station) because the amount of tables was overwhelming however, and the layout was super confusing. however i didn't feel as if there were any significant bottlenecks in traffic when i was taking some walk breaks.

commissions: last year it was still busy, but i still had some time to draw a handful of commissions. this year was a non stop barrage of customers! i think i may retire on the spot commissions at cons, just because ive always found it too stressful to draw right at the con, even if the traffic is slow. (and im lazy)

fandoms: last year i felt that it was... never so difficult to sell niche and old fandoms...? most people bought primarily 3 things from me at AN 2022, and not much else was touched. it was a struggle, and i even wondered if my art plateaued, if it wasn't good, if i should stop doing conventions altogether, at least for a little while. this year was so surprising with how much love there was for old and niche fandoms. two people from quebec came by and noticed the old fandoms and mentioned that if i was able to come to otakuthon, i should, people in mtl love nostalgia.. i'm gonna be honest otakuthon was pretty bad expenses-wise for me, but i heard it picked up since cons came back in 2022. it is a really beautiful city so mayhaps.. i will come for miss montreal.................

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and a separate section on the new merch i made:

the new sticker sheets i printed (one piece, baccano, breaking bad/better call saul) did so well! nts to add luffys scar bc apparently i forgot... ive seen this dumbass's face for hundreds of eps and yet i still forgot .

these are a far cry to the sticker sheets i designed in previous years. many sticker places restrict you on how many stickers you can place on a sheet due to spacing requirements... the more stickers you have + the closer they are, the higher the margin of error, which i understand is why many professional sticker printers have these restrictions in place.

the artists i worked with for my AN stickers are so genuinely nice and accommodating with my requests. I just went wild haha. the sheets with the most stickers are brba/bcs at 27 stickers and one piece at 32 stickers.

2021 (top) vs 2023 (bottom), the chara stickers on the new sheet are larger & 2x as many item stickers! the new design makes greater use of the space. my octopath 1 stickers are meant for planners but you could use it for anything!

in 2017 i could only realistically fit 6 ish stickers on a sheet (for vinyl, not cricut home printing) due to printing restrictions. these costed about $3.30 CAD per sheet from s/ticker/mule (not worth it for the price point AT ALL... but i wanted to try sheets for the first time)... and yes it's a tiny 4x7 as well. it was a hard sell for $7 in 2017. but im glad artists have been pricing them a bit higher + sheets have become much more customizable.

now on to charms:

i am so obsessed with this borderless charm look on the new charms... they look like candy... thank you guys for loving my new charms!! i tried out a new technique with designing charms. and im so happy with how they turned out. the charm manu was super accommodating and they are so much better than vograce who fucked up my order so bad in 2022 🤡👍

the soul eater charms from last year were kind of a precursor to this. last year i tried something a bit different than my usual with the transparent bgs, which require full bleed in the file setup, and that was already pretty new for me. i find that charm sales are usually pretty mid for me, so during the pandemic i took a soft break from making them, and i wanted to do research based on others' designs and really tried to improve my design sense. to me i want to design charms that aren't just a flat piece of artwork that gets printed, but something that utilizes the capabilities of the acrylic material it gets printed on 🤔

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fandoms/merch types i want to try next time i table:

more soul eater? it's one of my favourite animes and im very happy for the soul eater love this year. my partner kept selling out of her soul eater prints even though it was her first time tabling!

fma! ive been rereading AND rewatching it lately. it's one of my top 5 anime of all time so me drawing anything for it is a struggle, the bar is set so high. i never end up having the time or ideas to draw anything for it (and the aesthetics are very different from my usual taste)

shadows house has been one of my favorites recently!

dungeon meshi, the print i made was back in 2018 and i think it's time to retire it! it sold out at AN, thank you! with the way the story has developed in the last 5 years, i really want to draw something new for it if i can.

blue period needs more love!

golden kamuy.....

and many more.....

i also want to try mini prints maybe...

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administrative stuff:

next time before the con, i definitely need an organized chart i print out before the con so im not.. literally writing down each transaction... 🧍‍♀️

clamps...?

possibly new display? grids even with plastic panels are heavy... and they can be a pain to put up. this AN we had our neighbors and good friends @nappotuna & @stripeyworm helping us put the grids up, they did an absolute speedy banger job! but it might have taken way longer without 4 hands on the grid work.

if we had used tape to hold our prints up as well who knows how long it would have taken. we used magnets, apparently a lot of people were using them at TCAF. they were so easy to put up and adjustable. *jesse pinkman voice* MAGNETS, BITCH!!!!!!!

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merch i may shelve/do less of:

i really appreciate when artists talk about these kind of things behind the scenes... when products do well, when others dont, products w surprising responses, the factors that we think affect sales... the hard truth is that not everything sells, just bc the art is good =/= good sales, etc etc.

lately ive found it so fun to design sticker sheets over individual die cut stickers!! i understand now why some people only specialize in stickers!! it's also such a pain to stock individual characters and have greatly varying levels, bc of customer interest, and bc of how printing stickers works, you often get extras of random characters due to overflow 😭.. like at some point I had 7 jeannes and like only 1 of the other vnc charas bc the printer had so many extras and she's arguably less popular HDHFJSJHDJS anyways, i think i'll probably do less die cut individual stickers for my next con...

anything old that i only have 1 or a few copies left (meaning i won't reprint) i may not have for display anymore bc of space concerns... before my next con ill just post them on social media to have people claim them!

i may want to do less 3" charms in the future...? theyre a hard sell online prob bc i cant really do deals (i could but id have to be checking the stock every few hours which is not ideal), but they do a lot better in person due to deals.

it's been fun to try specialty products (I've tried scrunchies, stamps, pouches, microfiber cloths, coasters, enamel pins), but i... find they dont sell well for me... maybe my art doesnt have that wide mainstream nostalgic merch type appeal idk... maybe im just not good at designing or advertising them wahahaha. (specialty charms are still charms and i wouldn't necessary consider them a part of this)

my jojo buttons were really popular at anime north 2019 and fan expo 2019, but when the part 5 anime concluded, i noticed that interest for the interest completely moved on 😭 (or it's possible that everyone who was interested bought the buttons already?). part 6 anime didn't rejuvenate the same level of interest. it was a struggle to sell even more than a handful of these at each AN 2022 and 2023. right now they're taking up a lot of space in my con luggage that i'd prefer for newer, better art. i still love the art i did, but unfortunately, i think ill give them a go if i get into otakuthon (and maybe fanexpo too), then it'll be time to retire the jojo buttons. sometimes fandoms come and go so fast, and it's difficult to keep old merch around when they don't have any more interest and when they're occupying a lot of space.

my banana fish lollipop charms do not sell well, and i only sold 5 of them in a 3 year period, across cons and my shop. i created a bargain bin at AN, and it really helped me get rid of old things! unfortunately even in the bargain bin i could not sell a single one of the banana fish charms. maybe it's the art that's not appealing, the characters aren't recognizable, the price point for a lollipop charm was too high, i wasn't hitting the right audience, the market was slow around the time, even when it was included in my promo post... etc. these lollipops were my first time making specialty charms. unfortunately i think that's the last time making lollipop charms, and about time to recycle these charms, so that i have space for fresher and better art!

other thoughts moving on:

maybe go back to simplifying my art a lot more... if i keep making drawings like my great ace attorney tarot + zine, witch hat atelier print, and pandora hearts print, then id not only take 1 month per illustration, id also be destroying my arm 😭 i stopped stylizing my art in 2021 bc i found that my art was getting sloppy in 2020 + i was really struggling in life drawing in school. i needed to buckle down and be more conscientious when drawing poses, learning anatomy and structure... and bc getting back into anime in 2021 really helped me cope with the isolation of the lockdown, so that had a huge influence on my style. but bc of that i think it just took longer and longer to make illustrations and that's something i no longer really wish for.

i really like the period of my art in 2017 with a lot of my persona 4/5 art bc it still has structure even though it's simplified... and the style in my zelda icon... mayhaps experiment a bit more this summer if i can...

[ishikawayukis]

(hi!! I was pretty busy but I’m finally on vacation and came to my home country to visit my family last week!! hope you’re doing well<3)

Fr, I feel awkward when that happens bc I never know if I should be the one switching languages or waiting for the other person to do so, but I might change between both bc atp I’m just as bad talking in both JAJAJAJA pero no me sale el video:’) I’ve tried to click it but I think the link is missing lol

Okay idk if these are the flashbacks you were referring to, but now when I was finishing skypeia arc (my favorite so far!!) I did skip the whole Nolan backstory 😂😭 I’m sorry but I really needed to see Luffy go kick that electric ass ://

There’s more we can learn about the crew’s past?? That I don’t mind JAJAJA (es que si es lindo<3 him and Iñaki are so precious) so far I only know Sanji said he’s from the North Blue👀

NO WAY??? I mean I can see it if these episodes aired during 2001 but that’s not the reason I was expecting for Pell’s miraculous survival JAJAJ

SHUT UP IM DOWN BAD FOR HIM!!!!! Skypeia Zoro is everything to me I swear, he didn’t give a sh*t for that god act and he cared so much for everyone in the crew :c oh and I’m watching it in japanese!! I don’t really like watching anime dubbed lol Y SI BIEN LINDO JAJAJAJA I need more Luffy singing moments<3

OKAY I might reach it then bc I’m on the Enies Lobby arc rn (which is so freaking cool abilities-wise bc damn todos han tenido un upgrade increíble + el plot está tenso y emocionante JAJAJ) AND HELLO?? SANJI’S LEG JUST CAUGHT FIRE?? ZORO SUMMONED A FREAKING DEMON SPIRIT?? LUFFY HAS TWO NEW ABILITIES ON HIS SLEEVES??? (metaphorically at least lol) but yeah idk how much I’ll be able to watch while I’m home BUT I really want to know how this ends JAJAJAJ (y gracias por no dar spoilers<3 veremos como nos va con el timeskip JAJAJ)

Oh no you’re totally right, if it was zombie that would be a cry for help LOL when I heard the song for the first time, although I did like it, it felt too heavy for me if I were to listen to it on my bad days:’)

OH ALSO I GOT THAT THIRD PIERCING JAJAJAJAJ

have fun on vacation!! love that you were able to visit your home country too <333

(me dí cuenta q el video no estaba cuando se lo quería mostrar a una amiga y dije ay jesú la tecnología me ganó AAJJAJA) but it honestly was just dumb it was a video fo ace singing propuesta indecente to sanji and zoro being like i Will kick your ass it just had me giggling so much LMAO

those are exactly the flashbacks i'm refering to LMAO if you thought nolan's was bad...... i am so sorry they're gonna get worse LDSGKHL much love to those characters tho nolan's story was very fun i just did not care. and yeah there's more you're gonna learn about the crew, sanji being from the north blue is a huge huge hint tbh i honestly can't wait for you to get there

skypiea zoro truly is top tier 10/10 can you believe there's people that say you can skip thsi arc like are you stupid. and nice i can't watch things dubbed either unless they're things i watched dubbed as a kid LMAO otherwise i'm like what the Hell is going on man

ennies lobby is SO GOOOOOOOD they all go insane like we can see how much they've grown and just everything about that arc is so good, i'm usually not a big fan of the fights because they uuuuh pq las prolongan mucho AJJAAJ (se me olvidó el inglés) but the fights in ennies lobby? amazing 10/10 kaku i don't care that you're a bad guy i love you please be good man

AJAJAJAJ AMOOOOOO next time i'm about and about with my friends i will most likely get it as well because who am i kidding i don't have any self control LMAO

[ramu-ego]

AHHH JEEZ A 2 DAYS LATE REPLY MY BAD, i def wouldve responded sooner but i suddenly got busy, missed camping in this little blog here 💔😭 (yes 2 days is a lot in my book LMAO)

when i saw sir nighteye, i looked at ego and i was like. Yea. Yea that’s a type alright LMFAOO.. IVE MEVER SEEN THE REST EXCEPT DAZAI BUT MAYBE THATS SIGN FOR ME TO OPEN MY TASTES A BIT MORE..

100% agree on the ego paragraph!!..!.!?! EVEN IF I WASNT THE BIGGEST FAN ITS SOO OBVS HE CARES.. one day imma see an ego appreciation paragraph analysis explaining every single detail abt what he did and i wouldnt be surprised if that post is from you LMFAO

god i’ve never heard nikko’s eng voice but i’m def not looking forward to it — i read the nikko post though, GOODD LOORDDD may of changed my perspective of nikko on ruining him but still, gotta stay loyal to my favs (a lie, i’m a whore and would jump around but niko just aint it for me LMFAO)

god yea, my timezones been like .. the direct opposite of most people so i wasn’t surprised to see ours be different, JUST CRAZY HOW KUCH OF A DIFFERENCE IT ACTUALLY WAS .. fuckk guess we can twin in being last to almost everything then huh? the only win i get is just having an asian timezone to be early to actual content LMFAO

i respect liking dubs!!!! i used to watch dubs for like, romance anime? toradora and shit when i was WAYYY younger!! HONESTLY I SEARCHED UP ALL UR RECS AND III THINKKK i may start with mob psycho first since it peaks my interests the most! but i’ll def check fire force since it’s one of ur favs, i’ll tell you what i think abt it when i actually DO start it (chronic procrastinator, i even procrastinated writing this message despite how much i wanted to chat LOL)

I HAVE REALLY BAD MEMORY SO IVE GOT NO IDEA WHICH GUY I WAS REFERRING TO.. curly hair??? black hair??? looked kinda dead inside??? I THINK IT MIGHTVE BEEN W GAGAMARU AND RAICHI.. his hair looked kinda like it hadn’t been washed in weeks ngl

IM HAPPY TO READ YOUR RESPONSES HONESTLY, SUPEPRRR FUN and it feels like im having a genuine one on one convo even if we are like — replying to it like letters or sum LMFAO, guess we going back to the past era for this! BEINNG A HAIRDRESSER FOR 5 YEARS IS SOO COOL?? you’re only 25 now so like — did you pick this job up early on??

i’ve never watched haikyuu but i could see a lot of people felt differently abt blue lock compared to haikyuu, blue lock kinda increases that competitive spirit that’s rare to find in that. team work stuff?

since i felt as if my replies were kinda ass this time, i got news! just watched blue lock episode 11 and good fucking lord this shit was good — yea i was worried about bad animation but shit POPPED OFF.. and rin itoshi :?/!.?.!?! i screamed creamed probably was thinkign with only my metaphorical dick from that point on because good lord i want this man HELP.. it’s been like a year or two(?) since i first saw rin itoshi in the manga but good lord when i saw him animated and even spoke, i felt sum ROARING DOWN THERE … (excuse my language i only think with my lower region!) this awakened sum in mme.. don’t be surprised once i start sending genuine requests and thirsts

since i even joked about this being like a literal letter, maybe i should start signing off like one!!!

from 💌 anon or something LMFAO

NO NO TWO DAYS IS NOTHING I CAN BE AWFUL AT RESPONDING-

-I am so bad at like focusing to respond so trust me no apology needed bc I'm chronically bad at looking at a message and then giving myself anxiety over it. It's something I'm working on 😂😭

Dazai is mildly the odd man out except for the dude with black 'n white hair they're kinda con losers together but I'd say the over arching theme is "they look like they bite...but not really" I have no sense of danger I want the weird looking men no one wants 😂 but no seriously all the fandoms they're from are really good highly recommend Dr Stone and Fire Force if you enjoy Blue Lock. They are *chefs kiss*

do you know how hard it is to keep my twitching fingers on my keyboard to not rant about Ego??? I could do it I could go on and on about this man but- asdfghjkl- I'm controlling myself! mostly bc i don't wanna share my weird husband shhh that's not the point shhh he's my ugly little greenbean

i blame my friend on the niko bullshit!! she went on about how perfectly he'd fit that pervy hentai protagonist who like- steals panties- and cries when he gets caught and all that bullshit?? now I can't unsee it?? he's so stealing panties and putting under his pillow to sleep with only to make up a loud sob story when he gets caught. He's a perv and now I can't unsee it and I hate it 😩

really you have the problem of conflicting timezones?? I'm genuinely surprised bc like- everyone I talk to is like bare minimum in Europe and further over as I sit my lonely self in the United States. Count your blessings bc at least you don't live in the States we're awful 😂 we can be opposite timezone buddies like long drawn out lovers from two forlorn families writing drawn out poetic letters to each other to be sent by snail mail as we try to survive the black plague! or you know...something like pen pals 😂

my peanut brain suffers with subbed I can't look at the animation and take in what they're saying T^T I did it with Jujutsu Kaisen when it came out and can honestly say I don't recall anything I watched bc I was reading subs. RIP this is why I have to read the mangas </3 Oh but Mob is so good!!! It's one of my favorites and my comfort animes I can't tell you how many times I've watched it?? I think like- seven times? Eight times? Easing your way into the list makes Mob Psycho a good starter. But no seriously I cannot stress it enough how much I love Fire Force. Plus cursed knowledge, English dubbed Ego is Fire Forces main character and he is a cinnamon roll of a good boy and a total 180 of Ego's character 😂 Equal parts blessed and cursed when you hear Ego being a good boy

a lot of them look dead inside but dying so hard at gagamaru being put in the dead eye category?? my wife is in love with him so now I'm dying over the dead eye thing 😂 tbh they're so many characters I still have to look back and know who's who

you will find out I can't keep my mouth shut so if you get me talking I will put in that much effort 😂 But actually sweet I'm not 25 I'm 27 (had to double check with my wife I lost track) So the five years of hairdressing isn't too out there but I did pick it up after two yrs of college when I dropped out bc US education system suuuucks. Love hair but covid made people entitled shitheads and didn't want to spend nine hours a day with jackasses to come home to a baby so I just swapped entitled costumers to an entitled baby XD

haikyuu is...cute. like- ok i dont really do slice of life animes and heavily dont do sports anime (haikyuu and blue lock are literally the only ones) but Haikyuu is definitely not the same as Blue Lock. They spend a lot of time explaining how the game works where as Blue Lock its kinda "you know how soccer works or sucks to be you" which I like bc the one thing I do get tired with haikyuu is the over explanation of things. It's a cute show though! I could only watch it once thru but its fun when you haven't watched it before

UGH IM SO WORRIED OVER WHO IS GONNA PLAY RIN I'VE BEEN CHEWING MY NAILS OVER IT- Their casting director has been so good so?? Like?? I know it'll be good but at the same time?? I'm still so worried?? I mean- They convinced me to love Ego even after knowing who his VA was (and what I watched him previously in was NOT anything like his Ego role) but still- Rin's my baby?? Rin's my little bratty temper tantrum baby i wanna smoosh?? He has to be perfect?? More so than anyone else?? Pleading with the casting gods Rin sounds good or I will sob 😭 And I'm like- Have no idea are they doing 12 episode season or a 24 episode season. I need answers T^T

pls send me Rin thirsts I can't shut the fuck up about him