2019 Fall Posts Archive
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Ā September 4, 2019 : *crickets chirping*
Sorry for being so quiet the last couple weeks both here and even on IG! Itās been a bit hectic with us dealing with having to suddenly have our car hit by a texting driver, then waiting a week for our insurance to finally move forward with our claim only to declare it a ātotaled vehicle.ā Ugh! So as of Friday we not only had to entertain my visiting family, but we also had to scramble around test driving used and new vehicles before settling on an okayyyy replacement car. We considered just not getting a new car right away, but we actually realized we use it a lot for business needs (picking up product orders, dropping off customer orders, researching suppliers, and we have a few events we plan to sell at). Plus of course, Taka eats a lot because heās a small skinny boi who burns hot (seriously he can eat so much and never gain weightāheās like a 35 year old teenager š¤£) so we visit the grocery store like 2 times a week. We even drive to Seattle pretty regularly when visiting family and have to stop by the big Asian market because he insists on only the finest Japanese rice and comfort foods.
Anyway, life problems aside, we have been working hard behind the scenes preparing final designs for the pin manufacturer as well as designing each backing card individually (I canāt wait to show you) which will also be used in the backside of the acrylic keychain designs. ā„ļø
Taka has also been plugging away at some tattoo design for a friend of mine. Whether you love tattoos or hate them, I thought youād be interested in how āmappingā looks for tattoo artists. The red lines on the tracing paper are the āterritoriesā of my friendās skin that have artwork she got from her previous artist. Takaās wheel sketch is how he plans to fit it into her elbow are with regard to her other tattoos. She basically wanted a filler and a few pieces added to her arm so she can have a complete sleeve.
Did you know this pattern is the Japanese pattern for weed?! Yes marijuana! While it is completely illegal and treated as a drug as illicit as cocaine or heroine in Japan, this pattern remains one of the most popular. Taka plans to use this as filler for my friendās arm too.
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September 9, 2019 : Backing Cards
Hi everyone! We finished up all the backing card designs the other day and just placed the order for them last night.
These were so much fun to design. The inners were based mainly on their transformation sequences and the outers mainly on their powers. This works well with their designs especially since the inner designs have their wand stars, and the outers all feature their special weapons.
Although we called our old Chibiusa Design āBaby Loveā based on one of the ending theme songs from SuperS, we used the dreamy artwork of Pegasus in the distance for the backing card from the song by that name. The Kitties also have the theme song treatment! Mamo is well, just as cheesy as possible! š¤£
Finally, I didnāt think I could pull off a Crystal Tokyo background, but I am feeling all sorts of nostalgia for life in Tokyo after designing that one. Thereās nothing quite like the Tokyo skyline at night.
Which ones are your favorites? Blue being my favorite color, I canāt help but gravitate towards all those designs in particular. š
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If yāall follow our stories on Instagram, youāll know that non-gamer Taka is pretty much terrible at video games as far as strategy goes. š¤£ That said, a friend of ours recently let us borrow his Switch so we could finally play Breath of the Wild. š
Iāve asked Taka to work on some sketches for a possible series of Winking Zelda characters. He really likes the kawaii style of Wind Waker, but I personally think that something between Ocarina and BOTW will better suit our manga & art Nouveau look. We would likely just do a handful of favorite characters. Iād love to do Impa & Sheik (Ocarina style), Link & Zelda (BotW) and maybe even a saucy boi Ganon since he was so arrogant in Ocarina. Maybe a great fairy too?
Here is a super quick sketch he worked on last night after I passed out due to my condition. Once again, if you follow our stories, youāll know my condition the past two weeks has become pretty terrible. As if our bad luck wasnāt bad enough with car problems, as soon as I felt caught up on work things and even was nearly finished with some new Halloween pin designs and prints for yāall, my condition took a turn for the worst as of Sunday/Monday.
I began getting some throat pain and after it became severe as of Sunday/Monday. Donāt laugh (itās ok if you do) but Iām pretty sure the culprit is a piece of bacon I complained about cutting my throat on Aug 31 (I remember because we were waiting in line eating breakfast sandwiches at PAX). My best guess is it cut my throat and left it open to bacteria to grow as my throat ache has progressively worsened since then. The doctor canāt pinpoint it specifically but says thatās as likely a cause as any.
I went to the doctor on Wednesday and they told me I have about 20 swollen lymph nodes in my throat due to an unknown cause, though likely bacterial since Taka has no symptoms I have. So stupid as it is, Iām now dealing with that and have spent most my time laying in bed dying. Iām even writing this as I wait to go to the doctor again since itās gotten even worse pain in the last two days since I visited even though they prescribed me antibiotics. Iām sure itās ok, but I wanna make sure before the weekend starts for peace of mind, especially since my pain has only gotten worse since I started the antibiotics treatment and Iāve noticed even more swollen lymph nodes.
I rarely get sick (maybeeeeee once a year or two years) so when I do get sick, itās usually pretty bad. š
Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Iāll be sharing what weāve been working on whenever I feel well enough. Thank you all as always for always being so sweet and supportive!
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While our pins from the SM Kickstarter are in production, weāve been working on some new original designs! We shared some sketches of this ghost lady and others a few weeks ago so we thought weād share it again now that itās finished being vectored.
This design is a character that is in our Shishi-Chan and Shishi-ko characters weāve slowly been developing the story for. This lovely, soft-faced ghost was designed by Mandy and inspired by a visit to Kiyomizu-dera, one of the most iconic temples in Kyoto. I havenāt been there since 3 years ago, but I remember being kinda shocked by the love shrine, Jishu-jinja. While there is an area for finding or blessing relationships, there is also a tree there that used to get straw dolls nailed to it. I read they were nailed there as a curse to unfaithful men. I imagined the woman who started this as not being evil, persay, but truly hurt and wishing the lover would experience the pain she felt in being betrayed.
As we begin to weave a tale around our puppies, our goal is to have supporting characters who work at the temple they protect, as well as yokai that pop in from time to time to tell their story or cause havoc, etc. this is a really fun way for us to share true Japanese culture with others while also indulging in lore and artwork that we love so much.
As the spooky season comes closer, are there any stories you love?!
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September 23, 2019 : How itās made!
This week on āHow itās madeā (haha does anyone remember that show?)
Anyway, I thought yāall might be interested to see something neat I just found out they do at the manufacturer when filling with ink. At first Taka was like āoh no, theyāre filling parts of the sword with blue that are supposed to be recessed!ā But it turns out that is like a fill they put into areas they donāt want filled. Itās kinda like when people do their nails, they out that weird clear coat on their cuticles so that the paint doesnāt go onto them. Then after theyāre done painting they can peel it off and itās totally clean!
So the manus apply that same type of material to the sections that are supposed to be recessed or cutouts to ensure they donāt get filled with enamel paint. How clever!
I donāt know how many of you are interested in the process of making pins, but for a little while now, Iāve been wanting to make a little catalog that compiles the process and helpful info on how to pick manufacturers, pantones, programs, markets, etc. So, anyway, enjoy these behind the scenes photos of the process on Ami in particular!
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September 25, 2019 : This Princess Don't Need Rescuing
Takaās been working on this Princess Z3lda design the last few days. We both agree that he needs to change the hand posing a little bit, but look how sweet and dreamy she is!
Hereās an updated L!nk since the last sketch of him, too!Ā
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Mandy here! Now that my health is slowly starting to return, I have more energy to make new stuff, and just in time for this month of Halloween Horror. In case you all didnāt know, we are huge fans of horror and sci-fi.
One of my main gigs as a graphic designer is doing horror publication design for books, magazines, events, and brands. I never meant to get into that niche, it just sort of happened and I still do it. š¤£
I thought it might be interesting to show you how my art process works when I do traditional art.
1. Sketches
First I do small sketches using a pencil. In this case, my sketches were smaller than what I wanted the final piece to be. I knew I wanted the final piece to be at least 5x7ā. Itās important to decide what size the final largest size you might want because even if you scan the design, you canāt make it bigger on the computer unless you want to lose resolution in the final printed version.
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Ā (The kanji on the side says āScreamā since itās a mashup between Scream & NoFace.
2. Linework in Pen
After Iāve got my sketchlines down, I go over them in micron pen. I wasnāt happy with how the smoke or centering of the bathhouse with the rest of the image. I also decided to paint this bigger than 5x7. Taka used our scanner/copy machine to make the artwork 20% larger.
I drew darker lines in marker for the things I wanted to change in the smoke around the bathhouse. I also added a little color in comic marker to decide how I wanted the contrast of color to the black cloak that NoFace wears. I am still on the fence if I want to make the bathhouse black like a silhouette with only the lights in color or not.
3. Lightboard Re-draw
After revising my increased sized copy of the initial linework, I used a light board to pencil out the new linework changes and also shift the bathhouse so itās more centered and the smokelines are what I want them to be now.
4. Final version
Now the hard part is deciding if I will do the final piece in traditional or digital. I have been playing around with a more flat style in digital lately. Iām definitely a slower digital artist than I am using traditional work. That said, I can achieve smoother gradients in digital than I can in traditional which is what I want as the effect in the lighting around the bathhouse. If I do go traditional, I will likely be using actual ink/watercolor as opposed to Copic markers which is my usual go to. What do you all think would be best? Iām leaning towards watercolor still, but that will need more practice on my side!
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October 4, 2019 : The Night Gallery
Every year, where we live, there is a film festival for independent filmmakers to submit their horror films. The event is called Bleedingham, and for the past few years Iāve been creating their posters for their craft fair that is part of it.
They are the perfect client to me because they donāt give me any real stipulations and trust my creative judgement. Last year I went with an art Nouveau horror theme and this year will be no different. This is the basic Info so far and I still have a lot of work to do for it but aiming to have that done this weekend, as well is mail out prints to you all. āŗļø
Most people know Muchaās (moo-kuh) famous beautiful paintings of women, but he also did a lot of dark, occult looking art. It wasnāt in fact occult as he was a very religious and devout Christian, but it has continued to influence so many art styles today. His influence can be found in psychedelic posters from the 60s & 70s, Macabre Art and even Neo-traditional tattoos. Even Naoko Takeuchi was heavily influenced by Mucha as some of her paintings are referencing clothing and poses he created. Thatās why we really went with the art Nouveau feel when we did the Winking series.
Did you know when Art Nouveau was being decided as a name for the style actually wanted to call it Art Mucha?
In other news...
Yesterday Taka and I sat down to some tea and pumpkin cheesecake to discuss our goals for the brand in the future. We discussed dream products, characters, project series, etc.
I am so excited for some of the things we plan to have in the next few months, including a pin club starting in January! We know we arenāt the fastest artists, so we appreciate your continued support and love having you along with us in the process.
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October 26, 2019 : Pins Finished
We got news yesterday that the pins were shipped out and theyāll be here on Monday! Ahhh so exciting!
Thought weād share these beauties with you first. Iām only including the ones we didnāt share on KS:
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I know, I know, it isnāt even Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas, but we are already planning way in advance for our future pins, especially with Lunar New Year in China putting all companies to a halt for a good 2-3 weeks! Wouldnāt that be nice if we had that type of mandatory holiday?
With that said, we are going to be collaborating the same folks as last year with a limited edition Lunar New Year Pin for the Year of the Rat.
The sketch above keeps in theme with the boar design we created last year. Last yearās design featured a mama and baby boar with a mikan (mandarin orange). They were based on the figurines that are displayed at New Year in Japan. We also stacked the piggies like the mochi cakes that the Japanese offer up.
This year, we have a cute rat holding the mikan. The Mikan is larger in comparison to the size of the rat, so proportional if you will. It faces the Northeaat as that is the direction of success for the rat.
Besides this collaboration, Taka and I are planning to begin our Pin Club in December. Anyone who joins in December will get the pin for January. If you join in January, you get the February pin, etc...
We are still trying to figure out what would make it more worthwhile for collectors to join the pin club. We are aiming to keep the price around $15, with shipping included for domestic. It will be $20 if overseas.
Realistically, unless we have over 50 patrons, it wonāt be feasible to make the pin exclusive due to minimum order requirements of our manufacturers. That said, pins will be cheaper for patrons, and we plan to set up an exclusive shop with a new password each month for patrons to have access to shop items on the cheap at any time, no discount code needed.
Besides cheaper pin and discount shop, what perk would you like to see? We are considering either stickers or an exclusive print that is in theme with the pin. It wonāt be the exact same design as the pin, it would be different because I think who wants to pay for the exact same design as a pin, print and sticker?
So for example, if this Rat was our theme for January, the pin would be the design above. But the sticker or print might be as below (finished and full color of course):
The other idea we had to make the club more worthwhile is that we could make a color variant that was pin club exclusive. And we were even thinking that quarterly weād offer two pins at the end of the quarter for loyal patrons. So if you signed up for Jan, Feb & March in a row, youād get two pins in March. New patrons would only get to choose one of the two.
Anyway, if you have any ideas on what would make you more inclined to join a pin club, let us know! We really value your feedback. š
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As you all may have noticed, both here and on IG, weāve been pretty quiet. It took an entire week for us to quality check the KS pins, and unfortunately as you would have seen if you backed the KS, we had to get two designs remade. š©
By now, the remakes should be about halfway done, so hopefully theyāll be shipped to us by next week sometime.
In the meantime, Iāve been working on some client logos for a local indie theatreās rebrand, a small music school, and a mascot and branding for a twitch user. Is that something that interests you all to see? I sometimes want to show you that stuff because while itās not as fun and exciting as art prints and pin designs, maybe youāre all interested in design process? Let us know if thatās something youāre into.
Besides that, now that we have shipped out at least half the orders from KS and are almost fully prepped for our upcoming event at Geek Girl Con in Seattle, Iāve been working on some new purikura prints for the Purikura print tier. Iāve been really into She-Ra and Taka pointed out that it really looks like my already existing art style, so I decided to play around with the characters and also am considering a print series of them Winking. I donāt think the fan base for pins exists to add them to the Winking Magical Girl series, but Iām planning to at least draw them! āŗļø
Taka has also been working on some of the designs for the upcoming pin club that we hope to put into production in early December. Since China will be on holiday at the end of January, we will be ordering pin club pins for Jan-March to ensure pin club patrons will get their pins at the beginning of the month each month. āŗļø
Should have another post for yāall later this week! āŗļø
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Hi all! Taka has been working hard on this design and ended up completely redrawing it! š
He and I both agreed something was not quite right about the original sketch.
See right. I think we didnāt like how her head was tilted. It felt unnatural, so he drew another sketch (see left).
Anyway, here is the newest design with his colored pencil āsketch.ā Iām personally already impressed with it, but he says it needs one more iteration, hence the line work illustration at the beginning of this post. That will be the final artwork that he will color in with markers! š
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November 24, 2019 : Inner Critic
Friday night, after toiling away all week on a introduction trailer for a rebrand I was working on for a local indie movie theatre, I felt like I already hated what I had made. I constantly hate everything I make, which Iām sure most of you know about artists in general.
So I made this little comic. I like drawing little comics because I usually donāt force myself to follow rules for art too much and actually donāt criticize it much either. This one is actually about having your inner critic be both an enemy, but also an ally pushing you to be your best.
ļ»æHere it is in ink. Will likely scan and add type after since my handwriting is crap (oh look, more self criticizing) š¤£
Iām planning to post more mini comics as I have time and we are working on more sketches of our original characters.
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December 6, 2019 : Final Nezumi
As we are working with the same group of pinmakers as last year to produce a Year of the Rat pin, here is the finalized vector artwork for the rat design. The other pin makers in the collaboration are in different stages of finalizing their designs, but aiming to have this on KS in December so we can release these by Lunar New Year (end of Jan/Early Feb).
Itās so refreshing to make a simple design since most our pins are so detailed. This design is based on the little Japanese figurines displayed at New Year. The mikan (mandarin) is traditionally stacked on the mochi cakes. This naughty little mouse is trying to get it.
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We display this one all year with the Snake (Mandy) and Rat (Taka). The boar is facing the NE in our house as that was the direction for money luck this past year. š¤£
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Hi all! As weāve been telling you for the last month or so, we are planning to launch our pin club in the next few days. Youāll soon see a new tier for our pin club.
Each month, we will include a new pin, stickers, and exclusive woodblock-style postcard print. These designs wonāt be fan art in any way, as we are trying to build up our original artwork and the characters in our story. These are however very traditional Japanese style, and each month we will include some information about cultural traditions and meanings on the back of the postcard print. Each month will be themed, with the first month of course being New Year, which is the biggest holiday for Japanese people!
The design here is the Lucky Hammer which youāre supposed to shake to open up your luck for the year. This pin will be 1.5ā and have our backstamp, translucent enamel for the wood grain, cutouts, recessed metal sections and screenprinting. We have more designs to show for the new year, but will leave that as a surprise! We already have this design ready for production and are preparing February and Marchās designs for production ASAP. If New Year was a big deal in Japan, itās and even bigger deal in China. Lunar New Year in China means the factories all close down for about 2 weeks, meaning all Pin designers are scrambling to get all our pins done in time for releasing even if theyāre on vacation. We should have the pins all made before the Lunar New Year so we can release them early each month.
Finally, we will be sending out any prints we owe you for your support during these busy months. We are looking forward to getting caught up while we are on our upcoming holiday break. I (Mandy) am also wrapping up all my client work this week which means Iāll be focusing more of my time on our brand. I never knew when we started how much time it takes to really build a brand.
To put it into perspective, I spend about 1-2 hr a day doing marketing (IG posts, posting, taking or editing product photos), about 3+ hrs a week doing management (answering emails/DMs, getting Taka to finish what he started š¤£, researching/getting quotes from manus for future products), at least one hour prepping orders when we have new orders (which lately is everyday āŗļø) I handwrite each message to our customers, pack orders, prep shipping labels (Taka mostly polishes the pins one last time before shipping out and puts the labels on the packages), and then actual design time to turn our artwork into actual reproducible products whether in print or product form. Not to mention any event prep, inventory, communicating any problems with our manus or customers.
Itās a lot of work, but I really love doing it and am slowly working towards doing less and less client work as a graphic designer and looking forward to āfiringā my clients. Not that theyāre bad clients (most of them) but I am so excited to be pushing our brand even further and grateful for all the support youāve shown us both as patrons and as friends who encourage us! Thank you all so much!
Here are some of the sketches before the final piece for this design:
@Aileen: Hehe donāt you even worry! I have plans to get those made in the next month! :o
Hi Mandy!! I need to ask: WHAT HAPPENED WITH ZELDA winkers idea??? Itās super pretty and I need them on my life. That BotW Link with that awesome hairā¦. is justā¦.<3<3<3<3<3