Blog | reirei18

Otakuthon 2015 Review

Posted on August 12, 2015August 12, 2015 by reirei18

where: Palais des congrès de Montréal
when: August 7-9, 2015

It’s my first time in Montreal outside the airport. I’ve been a Canadian citizen for many years now but this is the first time I felt like I’m in a foreign country… LOL. Main language is french and people talk to me in french naturally. I studied Japanese, knows a little Korean and some Thai but I’m in Canada and did not study french. Shame.. :(

Anyways.. the convention.. I dunno. I’m stuck in my artist table in the artist alley as usual and it felt average. I’m not sure if it was worth paying for the premium artist table because we’re just beside the regular artist alley. In the end it’s all about the location of your table and the art gallery…. it was just quietly sitting in the very dark corner. None of my buyers knew about the art gallery thing. I get the same “woah” “kyah” “omg” expressions from people and I somewhat felt bad for not telling them I have exclusive mounted posters in the art gallery for auction because they are already eager to buy the regular/silk posters which are more expensive than the minimum bidding price in the art gallery. I took my pieces down earlier after realizing the gallery is not worth it but anyways… sales in my table were stable. My spot was good enough.. if there’s people, a bunch more will come but if there’s none, there’s none at all. There are some idle moments as in no one’s walking in front of us or it’s just an event hour.. but I’m probably not attracting enough customers because my pipe display was too big to be in a baggage and my cubes were too heavy so I only brought a few. But thanks to my neighbors who had a really huge and tall display, some people walked towards me too.. lol. Nevertheless, I am surprised to have sold out a bunch of pins, bookmarks and prints regardless of my raised price tags (nothing is worth a dollar now – just tried and it works). Someone have said that if they like it, they’ll buy it regardless of the price..and if it’s expensive, they’ll ask for a deal. Nobody asked for a deal, I impulsively offered just because I think they’ll buy more if I offered a deal.. and so they did. I get that “Oh, ok” a lot when I told them it’s 2 for $5 and so on.. and then they take a lot of their time again to choose which one to get. I just noticed they have troubles choosing what. People tell me they want to buy all….. then buy all! LOL…….. hahaha overall, it was a good business! People are nice and friendly.. I just wish I can understand french so I know what they’re talking about while choosing which item and their thoughts about the pics.. oh well~ I also got a few “keep the change” tips from this con.. haha… Merci beaucoup!

This girl, I dunno her name but she’s one of my rich buyers in that con. Thank you for being rich and generous! She bought a Sailor Moon silk poster set plus that last stock of the Sailor Konoha silk poster. It’s hard to order silk posters now and they’re quite expensive to order too so that’ll be the last of that image and she has it now~ *remembrance* ^_^

I saw a few non-cosplaying attendants or I just didn’t see that many since most of my buyers are dressed as some character… there’s a bunch of cool cosplayers as usual!

Check the other pics in my facebook page: www.facebook.com/reirei18

Old friends from Toronto… Me with Sam and Ron.

It’s been more than 2 years since I last saw them! They haven’t changed or rather changed for good but I grew fat so they kinda inspire me to go back to the old me cosplaying and attending more cons outside~

Last day in Montreal we went to the Basilique church in Notre Dame. As expected, the mass is in french haha. I already took pics before I saw the no pics sign.. sorry. =P

And then flew back to Winnipeg… so tired and my feet hurts from all the walking even before the con started. Really really bad idea to explore and do stuff before con starts…. but thank God I was able to managed during the con with my sore feet and tired legs. Also thanks to the nightly salonpas strips.. lol.

But yes… even after arriving in Winnipeg, I’m still tired so.. I’ll be resting a little more then back to work…………. for now, back to sleep~

River City Expo 2015 Review

Posted on June 21, 2015 by reirei18

where: Viscount Gort Hotel near Polo Park, Winnipeg
when: June 21, 2015

Just a 1 day con and it was during Father’s Day and Manitoba Marathon. The con is from 10am-5pm but people started coming around lunch time. It felt like there’s only 4-5 hours sales time. I saw familiar faces and repeat customers (thank you thank you for always trying to buy everything!! lol..) but majority who bought from me are new to my stuff… and probably why I did well despite the not-so-good day was because I’m the only anime booth?……in a comic and toy expo.. lol.. why not? I tried and sort or earned my hotel fare for Otakuthon on August.. but anyways, the admission today was free but there’s not so many people…. because it’s just a not-so-good-day so I guess those who knew about this con went there to buy some cheaper stuff than normal. The table beside me was selling everything in 50% off! Well, it’s fan appreciation day so I kinda gave away some free stickers too.. haha.

The night before the con, I was doing some last minute mounting and counting of the left overs to sell.. lol.

And because it’s a fan appreciation day and I kinda honored that, I sold bookmarks/postcards/pins for a $1 each.

And did I mention I was there since 7am to setup my table? Yeah.. I finished my setup after an hour or so and ate breakfast then started scribbling. I ended up finishing 2 pieces today just because there’s just too many idle moments so might as well draw.

I’ll get them ready for Otakuthon.. I’ll be working on the others while monitoring some game management jobs and a game design project that I recently accepted. Details about that project next time~ for now, rest and sleep.

Once again, thank you Winnipeg buyers. This’ll be the last con for this year in Winnipeg but I’ll be back next year or the year after for newer artworks!

Next convention: Otakuthon – August 7-9, 2015 @ Palais des congrès de Montréal

FanExpo Regina 2015 Review

Posted on April 28, 2015April 28, 2015 by reirei18

where: Canada Centre Building at Evraz Place, Regina
when: April 25-26, 2015

Just 2 days of smiling whole day and selling prints and posters but I think I did pretty well on the sales – what more if it was the normal 3 day fanexpo, right? :D

my artist alley table setup and me on the last day before closing down.

I keep changing my display… lol… I lost my old one and had to buy a new one… I will keep my stuff in my room so I don’t forget where I put them in the house.. but pictures are the same. The Sailor Moon heads set is still an eye catcher and the 2 kimono girls always get the pointing fingers too so they will always be in the front.

Anyway.. the convention isn’t that busy. I am in front of the celebrity autograph area and I kinda feel bad for them too because the whole convention is supposed to be 16 hours in total (10am-7pm + 10am-5pm) but people start coming around lunch time and leave early for dinner. It felt like it’s just 10 hours of total interaction with people or less.

But I am surprised that my sales are better than my previous con in Winnipeg (because Winnipegers probably bought almost all of my stuff and I only have a few new stuff during my 4 years of straight cons in Winnipeg – so no Winnipeg cons this year for me.) New audience, new buyers but I still get that “I saw this on deviantart”, “I have this in my favorites”, etc…. thank you~ particularly to those who just didn’t comment and praised my works but also bought stuff most especially to the 3 people who bought a complete set of the Sailor Moon heads in silk. I, myself, find it so hard to spend that much for a set of posters so I really appreciate these buyers~ <3

Anyway….. cosplayers.. there’s not really that many.. but some more are posted in my facebook page. I’ll take lots of pics on the next con.. >_<

^ that moment when I was just taking a stolen shot and “she” saw me and came to my table then posed in front of me hahaha… :P

That’s about it for this convention in Regina.. except from the very dusty venue like literally green brown black dust filled my table easily, it’s a so-so convention.. not too many anime fans probably, majority of the cosplayers are from sci-fi, comics and film and no booth sells anime cosplay! I wanted to buy a cosplay for the next con but I guess I’ll just buy online or create my own… I saw a team rocket cosplayer but he was too far to take a pic so I just drew the idea in a tissue and thought I can do this too~ anybody else wanna do this with me? It’s simple and easy enough hahaha..

but I really wanted to cosplay Mikasa from Attack on Titans so we’ll see~~~

So yeah, that’s it.. my cheeks still hurt from smiling “waikiki” lol but it was worth the effort especially since I saved a lot on the traveling expenses. Long drive from Winnipeg to Regina thanks to bro Andrew and sis Iris for the company and many many thanks to our homestay sponsor sis Aubrey and family for the sweet room and foods especially the boodle fight night with other CFC~

See you again in other conventions! Next convention to be announced..

follow me on my facebook page for more updates: https://www.facebook.com/reirei18

RPS Fanart

Posted on February 2, 2015February 6, 2015 by reirei18

First thing I drew was my cute baby merchant character ^ IGN: Baby K I just realized I don’t have a screenshot of her in game…. so I took one now.

Up next is still a work in progress but I still want to post.

The reference:

My sketches sometimes look better than the finished work… ***no jinx intended!*** I personally like how clean and quick it took to sketch her character…. but the hands gave me some pauses and I’m sure I’ll be thinking about it again as I go into detail later… or tomorrow.. procrastination starts now… jk. Need sleep~ I’m just more motivated and less distracted when drawing early in the morning… now sleep!

**feb 3 edit**

and because backgrounds will be removed later for something else, here’s the finished pic without background or rather just a simple white bg with petals from google. ^_^

That’s it for now regarding character art. I also did some monster artworks before.

I am pretty much satisfied on how they came out. I have some more ideas for the poring designs but I didn’t get enough compensation for these so I stopped there.

Anyways, some rights reserved.