WIP & general life update ☀

Hellooo~ gemlins! ☀

There's over 400 of you here now, I can't believe it ° -°)! Thank you so much!!

The next #MUTED pages are in the works and should be up within the next few days, please look forward to that!

Other than that I've started packing preorders now and I've kinda been wrapping them all like actual christmas gifts, which is taking /SO MUCH TIME/ but also it looks cute so unless I find a faster method that I like equally as much, I'll continue like this, slow and steady.

It's definitely going to take until July to ship all books, I'm so excited for everyone to get their copy ; A;)))) 💙

Also, now that it's been a week, let me tell you a little bit about the DOKOMI!

It was my second time having a table at a con, the first time was together with fanta a few years ago. I don't think I've been to a convention ever since, not even as a visitor. The only reason I decided to attend Dokomi was that I'd heard so much about it and I wanted to... kinda "challenge" myself? As dumb as that might sound, but I rarely even leave the house unless it's to go for walks with my doggo, so leaving town with an actual purpose and obligation was like 20 levels too high for me XD But I also knew some friends of mine were going, and I was looking forward to seeing them, so I bought my tickets in January and ever since then I was constantly torn between excitement and regret (mostly due to health, I didn't think I'd be up to the task lol)

Every tiny speck of regret left me as soon as I arrived in Duesseldorf and met the people I was going to spend the weekend with ; -;) I had so much fun, everyone I met was so so incredibly nice and supportive, fellow artists, my audience and customers, my friends, and even random strangers we met in the hotel. I'm still baffled. It was an amazing experience, I haven't had such a pleasant time while socialising in years.

I arrived at the convention centre without any plans on what I wanted my table to look like. I  brought some fake flowers that I wanted to place around the table, a small pin board for my charms and little blackboards for my prices but that was about it. Despite that, I think my setup looked pretty cute x)

A lot of my fellow creators had so so many different products at their tables, but I figured only having a small amount of things would be best for me, since I was travelling by train and I also hadn't been to a convention in ages, so it'd be best to test the waters first with just a handful of items, I really didn't want to have to travel back with all my bags still full of unsold merch. I was lucky enough that I could send my #MUTED books to a friend beforehand, so I didn't have to carry those all the way through Germany, lol.

So I arrived there with pretty low expectations, I went there for the experience and the people and my only goal was to make enough money to cover table, train and hotel costs. ............ Which I did within the first few hours of the first day ; A;)! I was so surprised, but the books were sold out so quickly, if I go to another con in the future I definitely know to bring more. My table looked pretty sad and empty by the end of day 1, which was a very happy circumstance for me, of course x) But I felt so bad that I had to tell so many people that I didn't have any books left ; _;)

I pretty much chilled on day 2, I did a couple of commissions, chatted with some visitors and visited some friends at their tables. It was so nice💚 I was still super tired afterwards.  My squad who stayed at the same hotel already left on Sunday evening, while I stayed until Monday morning, so I spent my last night at the hotel all alone with LOST, a glass of wine and onigiri I'd bought at the convention.

Fancy, fancy.

Staying at a hotel alone, making use of the hotel bar  and just having them put everything on my credit card has been one of my dream scenarios for so long, I feel so accomplished now that I've experienced that 😂 A true business person, LOL.

The journey back home went by without any complications, which I was very grateful for and I can definitely say I returned home with renewed vigor, motivation and inspiration. Also, I still feel pretty healthy, my breathing problems returned for a little bit but I've been better the last couple of days, and that's such a big boost to my productivity and overall mood.

And, thanks to my friend, whose FFXV artbook I finally got to buy, my love for the game and the boys came crashing back right into my goddamn face and I started playing it again, and Idk if anyone remembers my Noctis in Wonderland stuff, but I'd planned a mini artbook with those designs but kinda trashed it due to time restraints, but I STILL WANT TO MAKE IT......... it doesn't have to be 100 pages beast, it can be as mini as I'd like, I can work on it slowly whenever I have a free minute....... but I would really like to make something for this game again, the characters are still so dear to me, it'd be a real feelio project ; _;) So, yeah. That's been on my mind recently. I made a few drafts and planned a few things here and there when I had some time, so hopefully I can show you some of that in the future, too.

Ah, here's bad quality pics of my friend's artbook, that don't do the actual book justice AT ALL (and prints and stickers she gifted me, because she's a sweetheart and we share an equal amount of love for FFXV ; ;)

All of that said - I'll go back to the tablet now, to finish off one more page before I can call it a day!

💜💜💜