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Posted by:

eX_O_Studio

Date:

May 8th, 2007 6:20 PM

Header:

May Press Release

Bulletin:

As usual, Anime Boston was an enjoyable trip. I was satisfied with everything except for the lack of revenue. At this show, I premiered a lot of new merchandise and many of my new art projects got a lot of attention. Overall, I think that I got some memorable exposure despite the lace of sales to back it up that success. First off, I premiered a new series of greeting cards, staring my fantasy sibling duo the Onion Twins™ I only sold a few of these but a lot of people showed interest in seeing the characters in other projects.
This year my newest concept craft were the Anime Piñatas. I first experimented with the concept at Momocon where I only had two designs, a Kappa and Pikachu. At Momocon, I was left with only one Kappa. At Anime Boston, I had five designs: the Kappa and Pikachu model along with Sonic the Hedgehog, Alphonse Elric from Full Metal Alchemist and a Giant Chocobo model that was the grand prize in my table’s Saturday raffle.
I also included one of my new Fan Hats with Stenciled boxes as a prize for the raffle. Two years ago was when I had first created a Kirby Cutter baseball hat based on the variety of hats that the Nintendo/HAL character, Kirby, wears in his numerous video games. I had hand painted the eyes for the first series and used real feathers for the wings that appear on the sides. I believe the hats premiered at Anime Weekend Atlanta. All of the new hat designs, Kirby Ninja, Mario Raccoon and Luigi Raccoon, along with the Kirby Cutter hat are done with foam parts since foam is easy to use and looks a lot cleaner than felt. I sold the hats with boxes that I stenciled with spray paint. The stencils were of icons that gamers familiar with Mario and Kirby would easily recognize such as the 1UP mushroom or the magic parasol. Making the hatboxes was a lot more fun than making the hats themselves. Soon I will post pictures of the hats and all of my latest products with Pay Pal buttons for anyone who is interested in purchasing them.
I started selling tickets on Friday for my raffle that was going to take place on Saturday. More and more often, people leave Sunday morning and cannot make a Sunday drawing. Friday was steady, I got a chance to do a once over of the Artists’ Alley and see what the other artists had to offer. The majority of the room had really talented artists that were on the right track. I wish I had earned more money so I could go buy some art as I did last year. During my summer break, I am going to try to support some of the artists I like financially. As the economy remains ever shaky, I have to do what I can to support the groups I care about.
On Saturday I hadn’t sold many tickets, I don’t think I sold more than 20. My prizes were the Giant Chocobo piñata, a Mario Raccoon hat, a Kakurenbo DVD and some gift bag. Though I did not have a huge crowd for my raffle the winners seemed very pleased with their prizes.
I really enjoyed seeing Nikki and Snack for another year. Nikki had some new pictures of her year old daughter Katrina who gets cuter and cuter. I had shipped some boxes ahead of time to the convention expecting to sell enough that I would not need them on the way back. I was still unable to pack two of my piñatas so I gave one the Pikachu ones to Nikki for Katrina’s next birthday. I gave the other to my friend Jason, aka “Crybringer”. He and some of the guys I know form back in Maryland, like Ronzo Murphy and Joe Silver are all working on some really nice comic projects. I’m going to have to work hard to keep up with them!
The only depressing thing about Anime Boston is that I have to fulfill a premise I made before it. I promised that if I did not at least break even at this show that I would cut back on shows and work on a meaningful project, a comic series. I want to create a comic that would be an impressive accomplishment that I can look back on. I want to complete a body of quality artwork, writing and design that I can build from. I will be canceling a significant number of shows. I only want to invest in large shows where I can get the most exposure, network with more artists and get more sales. I want people to know about my characters and their stories and to love those characters as much as I do. Therefore, the summer will be dedicated to laying the groundwork for Bun Bun Café, (formerly “Bun Bun”) a 28-page, 12-issue comic series about the coming of age of two sisters who have to take care of their family’s store during their parents long-term second honeymoon. I will also be streamlining my packaging design portfolio and working on more illustration series. I have just finished creating a polished design for my Character Generator I use to come up with random characters. For the longest time it was handwritten on a beat up piece of cardstock. For sake of posterity of such a useful art tool, I decided to make a digital version that can always be accessed by me and others who wish to use it. You will need a D6, D10 and D20 to use the character generator; at the next show I attend, I will be selling laminated Generators with the required dice.

Current Issues-
Atlanta’s ONLY, AJC is considering cutting back on its Arts Coverage, sign the petition and tell them that we need an arts section! We are barely holding on to our culture and class. http://www.petitiononline.com/AJCArt/petition.html

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