I'm going to TRY!! And make monthly updates about my work, cons, & life in general here! As well as making little smaller posts in between? But well here's an update from the past month for now!

broke era & taking comms

September was the first month I've had since... December maybe? Where I haven't had a convention to sell at, haven't had to travel, and haven't had to do any uni work. I can't tell you how grateful I was not to have to pack any suitcases or see any airports for a while. If you read my 2025 summer summary you'd know how crazy hectic the summer was.

I spent September being a hermit. I was too broke to go anywhere - like seriously broke I don't think I've ever been this broke in my life LOL - and wanted to get lots of new stuff done for MCM London! I wrote in my last post about how because of college I wasn't able to get new merch done for my Summer cons, so most of my cons during summer were just mid and I was only making costs back. And that's all had a knock on effect so I'm having a broke September now too lol. I did enough of complaining about being broke in my last post, I won't go on! So I took on a bunch of commission work this month to help pay the rent. It's really rare that I take them on, but I had a lot of fun doing them! I took on custom badge commissions, where people ask me for characters to illustrate and then I make badges from home, and send to my customers. I'm currently working on two, but these were some I completed!

MCM London Prep - New Merch!

For MCM, I really wanted to work hard to make as much new stock as possible! I want to make enough money so that I can comfortably take some time to work on my visual novel and a new comic. I really want to take more time to create original works, but unfortunately they are time consuming, and they are certainly not what pays the bills and feeds the cat! I really enjoy making and designing merchandise, but have very complicated feelings on it, which I'll not get into right now but will probably write about some time...

Anyways, I had a big long list of stuff I wanted to get done for MCM, and here is what I did!

I put all of these up for pre-order! And they all flopped so hard LMAO. WHat can you do but laugh. I don't like to post publicly on social media etc when stuff I make flops, because I hate when people try to guilt people into buying stuff. You know when you see a tiktok and it's like "This is my small resin business and I'm not able to pay rent this month because YOU PEOPLE won't buy my resin triangle!"? I just think it's so gross and don't want to make customers or fans of my artwork feel that way. It's okay because I have MCM coming up and know for a fact they will do well at it, so it's fine! I think the whole tariff situation has people hesitating to shop online rn too.

The first thing I designed were the PVC Vocaloid charms, and I re-used the design for bottlecap pins too, which are something I've wanted to make for a while! I had grand plans to make all the cryptonloids + Teto, Gumi and Flower, but I had to be realistic about costs. Maybe next time!

The can shape badges were something I thought of after seeing someone with them at Dokomi - it's such a unique shape! I wanted to make one of Teto with Canned bread, one of Gumi, and one of Shimbashi from Ooe with canned mackerel, but again there's only so much one can do! I'm keeping those ideas on the backburner... The Saya one is actually what's done best in terms of pre-orders so far! In fact nearly every order is for the Saya, and maybe one or two for Miku.

The Sonico chocolate charm took the longest. I didn't intend to do a rendered illustration like that but, I got carried away. I was supposed to draw an Aoba chocolate one to match, I thought it'd be cute to have a Nitro+ Girl and a N+C boy! But I'll have to do that next time. Good thing I didn't design too much, considering how badly pre-orders went!

Anyways after sending all of those off to the manufacturer, I designed some more new stuff! Very self indulgent stuff just for me!

I got these made locally! My local printer started offering foil products, and I wanted to test it out! I'm definitely going to be making more stuff like this in future. It's pricey, but looks great. These actually surprisingly sold better than literally any of my other merch!? Probably because they arrived so quick and I was able to take actual merch photos, because that's when people started buying them. THANK YOU OOE FANS!!! ♡♡♡ I already have these and some Ooe stickers, but I definitely will be making more Ooe stuff... Because It's all that's on my mind lately and I'm obsessed with it. And also so I can easily meet other fans at cons and talk to them lol. I was really happy with how these turned out! I don't draw boys as much so I wasn't super confident drawing these. My girlfriend helped me draw Oosaki and Ariake! I think you can especially see it in Ariake where she helped me out hehe. Anyways, that's all the stuff I drew this month before catching covid and being absolutely annihilated for a whole week. I've had covid since last weekend? And only now am feeling well enough to work again. I sketched something small last night to try get back into the groove. I have so much shit to do!!!!!!!! ARGH!!!!!! I have two comms to finish, a stamp rally piece due ASAP, and an overdue zine piece now too. On top of the emails and orders that stacked up over the week and MCM prep... GIRL HELP!!!

Personal Stuff!

ONE good thing about having Covid was that I was able to just spend time resting and reading visual novels. I finished the first volume of Misericorde and then read the entire second volume in one day. I absolutely loved it!! I wrote a little more about it in my media log. When it comes to yuri visual novels, OELVNs are knocking it out of the park!! Makes me so happy to see. The mystery is great too. I have no fucking clue who the culprit could be. I have my theories but I really wanna go back and re-read it and take notes. If you like Umineko, definitely recommended!

On the topic of VNs, I started reading Kusarihime again after finishing Misericorde. I started reading it like... 2 Years ago nearly? And never got back to finishing it. So I've picked it up again and am really enjoying it! Probably gonna be a little slow to finish it now that I'm a bit better and back to work again though!

Anyways that's pretty much all I can say for September? Aside from going to a family wedding, I was a shut in... I was so broke and also sick so I just stayed inside and worked hahaha. I've got conventions coming up now so hopefully the next entry won't be as boring. To end, here's a sketch of Kurame and Saya I drew last night to shake off the rust!

Signing off with a song!