Raphael/Akioh/Moon
He/him
29 Years Old

Hey, I'm Raphael and I love OCs! Yeah. Also I study linguistics. Idk what to put here.

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ALMOST AT 400 FAN ARTS (+ update)

Mood: LAZY but I'm gonna update anyway

HEY FRIENDOS! I have a lot (?) of stuff I can talk about, so LET'S GO. I'mma number the topics because idk it keeps me organized.

1) I tabled at Kamecon at UMD last Sunday! It was a really good first-year con imo!!! Here's what my table looked like this time:

Doin the exact same pose as the last picture. Nice.
I think this is my favorite setup I've done so far. It's pretty similar to the AUSA table from last year, but I have more charms and my sticker display is a bit better I think. I def need to rethink setup for Otakon tho, considering I'm trying to get more merch and stuff.

In terms of sales, I actually kinda did better at this con than at Kigacon even tho I was at Kiga for 2 days. :O I only sold maybe 6 commissions (compared to the crazy amount I sold at Kiga for some group), but I still felt fairly busy the whole way through. I definitely sold more actual merch than at Kiga... the charms were the most popular, I think I sold around 20 total between all the charms I brought. I even sold like... 3 prints? AHAH;; STILL WISH I COULD SELL MORE PRINTS TBH... A couple people were eyeing my PMMM prints, but idk I guess it was too late in the day and they didn't want to spend more money.

BUT YEAH!! Overall it was fun, I met some nice customers and stuff~ I'll definitely be applying next year! Especially because it was fairly close to my house (like 45 mins to an hour?). I even ~*~DROVE THERE~*~!!! With my mom in the car. BUT STILL!!!! That's probably the longest I've driven in one sitting, ahahh;;;;

2) I'M ALMOST AT 400 FAN ARTS ON THEOTAKU....!!!!!!! Just 1 fan art away... I was actually going to post another thing to my portfolio today, but I'm thinking I should save the 400 for something important. It's been so long since I've done a special 100-mark fan art since I passed on doing something for the 300 mark, so I'll try to make it nice this time. If I have time, at least;;; I've been pretty busy with work and con stuff.

I also don't really know what I'd draw... It'd probably be something of my OCs. If anyone for some reason has any characters of mine that they'd specifically like to see for the 400th fan art, let me know! :o

3) I'm working on applying for a grad certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language! The deadline is actually extremely soon aahglasdghlsdashg I NEED TO REQUEST TRANSCRIPTS AND REVISE MY ESSAY.... That's probably what I'll be doing today ahahahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......................... BUT YEAH, that's my plan looking forward. The grad certificate is a 2 semester program and hopefully it'll open up some job opportunities for me even if I don't do anything permanent yet. YEAH... FUTURE.

AND YEP.... THAT'S WHAT'S GOIN ON IN MY LIFE. Hope y'all are doin ok. :^0 Like I said, I've gotta work on my application, so I'm gonna go do that like... now. Thanks for reading this if you did!

Back from Kigacon!

Hey guys! I was boothing at Kigacon at CNU on Saturday and Sunday! Here's a picture of my table:

SO TINY... I was trying something new with the setup where I put some prints on the inside of the wire cages, but tbh I wasn't really a fan of it. I'm gonna do some more experimenting with setup before Otakon... BUT YEAH, KIGACON! This was my first college convention, so here's my thoughts on the con:

Pros: I payed off my table! Quite a bit, actually. The table was $20 and I made around $300 off of commissions and random other stuff. *-*/ So I've already been able to cover the cost of the new charms that I ordered, which is good. There was this group of dudes who kept coming back for commissions, which was suuuuper nice of them. ;u;/ They were fun, haha. I think I drew like 13 sketches over the past two days;;;; I was also able to sell around 30 stickers, which was good!! Even the TWEWY ones did okay.
My mom was nice enough to cover the cost of the hotel and gas (THANK U MOMMA), so... overall not a bad job for 2 days and a tiny con.

Cons: I didn't sell any prints again... :T Idk if I've mentioned, but from all 3 of the cons I've done so far, I've only sold about 10 prints total... which is pretty bad, especially since I have a TON of extras of my first batch of prints due to misprint mixups. SO... ALAS. I didn't really sell a lot of merch in general tbh... I think I only sold like 3-5 charms, ahah.

I think I've realized one of the problems with my prints is that I mostly have 8.5" x 11" prints, whereas a lot of other tables have 11" x 17" as their main size. Larger prints definitely are easier to see from a distance, and I think people may be more inclined to buy bigger poster-sized prints rather than smaller ones... so for Otakon I'm gonna try to make more large-sized prints. I'm aiming for about 5 new prints...? It'll be two Yuri!!! on Ice prints, one Zelda print, and two original prints (I'm thinking 1920s Laf for one and maybe seifuku Laf for the other). I'm worried because larger prints are a little more confusing for me since I don't draw on large canvases as often;;; but I'll do my best!!! ;n; I just wish I could sell prints better somehow;;;

SO YEAH... that's where I'm at right now. My next con is in a couple weeks, it's a 1-day con at UMD. There's also a 1-day con April 22nd that I'm thinking of doing too. *-*/ Hopefully I can get a bit of extra cash from these!!

Anyway, I have more stuff I can talk about in terms of jobs and ~future prospects~, but for now I'll just end here! Talk to you guys soon! *3*/ ♥

EDIT: Closed!

Edit: I posted this on other sites and managed to get 5 replies total between all sites, so I'm gonna do charms for those 5 people!

Mood: neutral

I recently found out that Zap! Creatives lets you buy single acrylic charms at a time! THAT'S CRAZY! And good! I don't know of any other charm services that do that other than like... random Chinese production companies online.

Anyway, I'm saying this bc I'll probably draw and order a charm of one of my OCs or smth for myself at some point... but it also got me wondering if anyone would want me to draw and order a charm of one of their OCs for them? :o

If you'd want one, you'd have to pay for your charm production cost ($8.85 for a 2" charm) and USPS shipping (about $2.50?), but other than that I'd do everything else (drawing and ordering the charms). So like... you'd have to send me $11.35 so I could pay for your charms. You'd also have to give me your shipping address.

I wouldn't be making money off of these by the way. It'd be like me drawing a chibi request of your OC and you ordering through Zap! to have a charm made out of it... except I'd be doing all the charm file set-ups and orders and whatever.

Anyway, this was just an idea I had... I thought it'd be a fun gift-y kind of thing to do for my friends here. I personally love getting physical art and stuff of my OCs, so I thought maybe you guys would be interested in getting charms done of your OCs. ;u;7 I'd probably only do a maximum of 5 and do it later in the year rather than sooner. :o BUT YEAH...! If you're interested, comment here! :o

And if money is a problem, I might do this with plastic shrink film charms instead! I'd pay for everything, but you'd still need to send me your shipping address... (not now obviously, but if I do end up doing these.)

Holographic Laminate Tests

I recently found out about a holographic laminate that's sold at Hobby Lobby! I thought I'd give it a try on some of my stickers and things.

not in the light:

in the light:

It's pretty cute, but the main issue I have with it is that it makes dark colors really difficult to see... it seems to work better with lighter things. It's really obvious on this dark print I tried the laminate out on:

not in the light:

in the light:

It's really hard to see the color distinctions even when the light isn't shining on the holographic stuff. :T WELL, I think it works alright for stickers but it's kinda too difficult for prints and bigger things since I have to stick it on manually. I'm gonna test out a different holo pattern that Hobby Lobby has, too. Getting stuff holographic printed by a printing service is likely a lot better quality, but idk I don't have the money for that atm haha;;;

BUT YEAH, I'll probably make holo stickers an option for sale in my store sometime. I'll give a couple of them a test run at Kigacon to see what kind of feedback they get first, tho. WOO HOO, HOLOGRAPHIC.

????!?!????!??!?

MOOD: ???!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?

I JUST GOT INTO THE OTAKON ARTIST ALLEY HOLY CRAP???????????