Posts published in 2024

Happy birthday! Tadashi Kikuchi 2024.11.22
#菊池忠誕生祭2024

These are from last year, I couldn’t find them in the blog archive, so I’m uploading them here.

I finished the sketch zine I’m planning on bringing to the zine off today.

It’s 16 pages, with a collection of Mashita and Yashiki drawings from the Spirit Hunter: Death Mark game. I also finally made that hanafuda minizine I’ve been thinking about for ages, even if the art is old.

Someone had described the cover is very “noir.” I don’t know if I’ll be able to draw a whole book in this style, but I guess we’ll find out (after a lot of research and experimentation).

I read Claudine by Riyoko Ikeda while visiting a friend. Even after writing the fujoshi zine, I’m constantly surprised how far ahead the manga-ka of that generation was in terms of telling these types of stories, even if, by modern standards, there are flaws on the outcome of it. I felt the ending matched with the tone of most of the manga I’ve been reading from that vein. It’s not a manga of that generation unless it comes with tragedy, incest, or me yelling “HE WAS A BOYTOY???” (not Claude, if you read it, you will know who it is).

I’ve moved to Bluesky for social media. It was strange and saddening to delete all the things I’ve made over the years. I’m still glazing things as I go, because my skepticism is higher than ever when it comes to big tech. I have a lot of unsorted thoughts around social media…mostly that it’s both a curse and a boon.

The main group of art friends I have don’t even post their art on social media, and sometimes I wonder if I should join them since they seem like perfectly well-adjusted people. Social media doesn’t come easily to me, as I tend to overthink it. I understand that a lot of artists are there for marketing or promotion purposes, and to grow your following for some goal in the future. I’ve been at this blogging thing for 10+ years, and this has so long outlasted all the other social media accounts I have created. But every event that needs an application asks for social media. Even setting this site to not be indexed is not guaranteed - the robots.txt is a suggestion, and you know how tech feels about boundaries (they have none, and nothing is sacred).

I did manage to make it out to at least one seasonal market this year, as I promised. As much as I say that I don’t go out much (due to energy levels or other reasons), it’s still a lot better than a few years ago.

I made this mini sign for the zine off. I’m happy with the way it came out, even if it’s fairly simple looking. Do people even use RSS? I doubt it, but nevertheless, I persist.

This is a rough for a submission to the next CAC quarterly. I am enjoying my time working on these non-BL comics, though, I could make it BL. We’ll see. Apparently the next quarterly will debut at SUCZ 3 in Staunton, Virginia. You can also get the files to download and print at home if you get on the mailing list for the club.

I have been showing my newest doujinshi around to friends, even though I feel like it has a lot of flaws. I did really enjoy my time making it and it expresses what I hoped for when I drew it. It might be a bit out of character since it’s so far outside of canon. I’d like to work on an in-canon timeline story next time. Before then, I’m working on a Death Mark book. I have a general idea of what I want to write about. This new book is honestly for myself and my friend that convinced me to play the game. That’s probably one more person than last time, since the old man Tadashi & Ainosuke was mostly for myself. Probably don’t ask me too much about audiences and advertising. But I’m happy that the old man doujin is going to print, and I feel okay enough for it to happen. I’m probably too anxious about everything…but I won’t get better if I keep shrinking myself and avoiding it.

I don’t know why I even need to be anxious.

I went to a workshop at the Queer Zest Zine Fest where Laura Chenault was demonstrating how to do stab binding, and I think I’d like to try that next time for at least one copy. The use of Japanese papers and vellum greatly appeals to me. Also I was worried about having to make a book press, but now I can just bind it with thread.

I watched Desert Bus for Hope in the background this week, and enjoyed a lot of the activities. I particularly enjoyed the Beyblades x art contest.

My friend asked me about putting something on their table at Comiket, but I only have BL. I am really enjoying the Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’s playlist a lot lately, especially Zoltraak, Knife to the Throat, and Dragon Smasher.

Twitch 100 follower celebration stream

I hit 100 followers on Twitch. The 100th person was Kokaise visiting my unannounced 2AM stream, haha. I’m planning a celebration stream for December 8, 2024 at 2PM ET on my Twitch account, where I will be taking sketch requests. I haven’t been consistent with it, but that’s okay.

I’m planning on playing Monster Hunter Wilds in February next year. My machine seemed to do okay during the open beta, despite having to lower a lot of settings and it loaded the graphics slowly.

Watching

• Genshiken Nidaime: I still enjoyed it, and found it very funny. Some people might find the way Hato is handled annoying by today’s standards, but I thought it was a good attempt of the time. I’d like to see the first season again, or read the manga.
• Been reading more Shigeru Mizuki.
• Been reading and copying manga action. I think I need to use a ruler on the iPad or do certain things in Clip Studio Paint, instead of Procreate. I’m still very attached to using Procreate. I don’t have CSP on iPad.
• I’ve started reading all sorts of topics related to Death Mark. I might even be able to understand Saint Young Men now! I kid.

It turns out the CAC calendar from the last post is USA only. Sorry.

Playlist

• Ava Max - Choose Your Fighter
  • It was Tsubaki-chan from Windbreaker’s birthday this week.
• Handsome Pose Collection - Evan Call
• New and Dangerous Magic - Evan Call
• Hakai ma joukou no Teema

In case it isn’t extremely apparent, I am very excited about the upcoming Sk8 the Infinity OVA. It will be screened in Japan in January 2025, and then be on disc in March. I’m not sure when I will be able to see it, but from the trailer, I’m very excited for what is in store for Tadashi & Ainosuke.

This site doesn’t have a comments sections yet, sorry. I do have an idea of how to go about it, though.

The secret project that I previously mentioned is now live. Please note that this item will only be shipped inside the USA.

Presenting: Comix Accountability Club (CAC) 2025 Pinup Calendar pre-orders!

I drew the May art. It’s for a fundraiser for the club that will support the CAC Mini-Grant initiative. It features 12 full-color illustrations by CAC members! Please note: the final version is uncensored. Hope you check it out!

Here’s the full drawing.

I’ve been having a rather emotionally trying week, so I’ll update stuff later. I signed up to go to the TZL Zine Off, and I’m planning on bringing some of my zines and hopefully the new Death Mark sketch zine. I managed to purchase the paper for the printer, but I think I overshot when I should have gotten the 24lb paper. Sok, it works well for colour printing, which is what is what I wanted.

Tadashi’s birthday is coming up, and I think this song is rather fitting for him (and Ainosuke).

Playlist

• 2024.10.31 すずめ / RADWIMPS covered by ざらめ
• (Suzume) Suzume no Tojimari - Pealeaf & Chewie Melodies Cover
• ROSÉ & Bruno Mars - APT.
• 【アカペラ】メフィスト - 女王蜂 // covered by 凪原涼菜
• Takanori Nishikawa - Eden through the rough
• B.o.B - Airplanes (feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore)
• 夜の秋葉原で『夜に駆ける』踊ってみた/YOASOBI
• Hai Yorokonde (English ver)
• Good Omens | Angel With A Shotgun

Happy birthday! Athrun Zala 2024.10.29
#アスラン・ザラ生誕祭2024

I bought Spirit Hunter: Death Mark during a sale, and finished it. Now my head is full of Mashita and Yashiki…

Preview for my piece for the CAC secret project launching in November. I tried out these brushes by Ruthie and I feel like this is the first time I’ve used watercolour brushes with Procreate that felt like I got what I wanted.

It sounds like Broken Pencil and Canzine are closing down.

Anime I’m looking forward to this season:

• Yakuza Fiancé
• Dan Da Dan
• Blue Miburo
• Kabushiki Gaisha Magi Lumiere
• Natsume’s Book of Friends
• Uzumaki

I am seriously considering re-buying the Yakuza Fiancé books physically because the prices from Bookwalker swapped from yen to USD. I’m 2 books behind, and I’ve read Haru’s Curse more than once, so that’s a sign that I should at least seriously consider getting the physical release. I’m waiting for a sale so I can also pick up Mobsters in Love (is there a pattern happening here?), Haberdashery Ginmokusei, Stigmata: Love Bites, and Guardians of the Far Frontier.

A fancomic of Tadashi Kikuchi x Ainosuke Shindo from the anime SK8 the Infinity. You can now download it in full from Itch.io. Please read the content warnings, this is intended for mature audiences. 33 page comic/40 pages total.

Download Days gone by: Tadashi Kikuchi x Ainosuke Shindo SK8 Unofficial Fanbook

I made exactly one print copy at the self-serve for myself, it was fun. I laughed at my own comics as I read it, is that odd?

Citrus Con came and went! I’m looking forward to when the organizers can move the con to a winter month, as the plan is to slowly shift the con out of the summer. You can check out their Indiegogo campaign and Citrus Con site. Make sure to register if you’re interested in attending! It’s free.

It’s been another great year at the online convention, and just seeing how everyone is doing and enjoying themselves. The old man yaoi thread was several thousand comments deep, and apparently that and another thread had to be put in slowmode jail because people were too excited. I enjoyed chatting with people about Gegege no Nazo and convincing people to come to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. (I don’t know anything about USA cons, only been to Anime Expo and PAX West once each.)

I only brought TCAF up since the maple syrup thread people were talking about how they were disappointed at the local “comic” (as in comic con) convention only having workshops for children. I’m very much looking forward to TCAF next year. I’ve never tabled there, mostly been someone that comes to buy stuff and maybe talk to people behind their tables when they invited me. That was years and years ago though. I think this year was the first year I even went to workshops or the events with the guests, since I never bothered in the past. Hopefully I’ll be less anxious next year! I don’t really plan on applying to table, it seems like it’s a hard show for someone without actual, physical books (and rather amateur art, for the matter), and I don’t have a squad of people to split the table with. I recently learned that people split and sublet their tables at conventions, and that’s how they reduce the risk, but I absolutely don’t think I want to worry if something will sell. Maybe in a decade’s time?

I’m still catching up on the videos from Citrus Con. Artist alley was fun this year as well. I think every order had at least one Bravern print in the order, so thank you everyone that checked it out. I kind of buried it in the pile of Tadashi and Ainosuke stuff, haha. I did have one commission! I like how it turned out.

Not much to report. Things are going. I worked on a new page with an original character in it for the CAC quarterly, which apparently will be given out for free at Small Press Expo (SPX) in Maryland. We all get the digital copy to make one for ourselves, so I might show it off next time.

The zine I’ve been thinking about writing for over a year was finally completed. It’s 16 pages, with a mix of fujoshi history, shipping, tutorials, and fun screenshots. I made some colour copies, but I’ll mainly stick to making black and white copies.

Tht title is “Not just fujobait: An information guide on fujoshi, BL fandom, and shipping”, and the drawing on the cover is something I drew over 2 years ago when my friend made a tofu and fujoshi joke. I was hoping that it would be useful for newbies and full-blown fujoshi/fudanshi/fujin to enjoy. It’s very silly, but I’m proud of it.

I went to Zine Dream, and it was fun. It was probably larger than the 2022 one that was at MOCA, and possibly even larger than Canzine. I saw someone comment to say that Canzine is the largest Canadian zine festival, but after last year, I seriously doubt that is true anymore. Maybe if the Ottawa location is bigger? Last year, Canzine was in a community centre in Chinatown. It was pretty small…like the same size as the zine festival at the Tranzac, and that was small. Anyways, point is. Zine Dream! There was a lot of risograph. There were some tables with very few zines, or no zines, but it did have an alternative art curation vibe. There were a lot of zines, which I’m happy about.

I did realize in the last while that while there is zine culture out here in the city, making fan comics isn’t really that popular. Hence me (Discord) server hopping, since it really feels like a lot of people are already in friend circles from tabling and whatnot. I just need to find a place to work quietly and ask questions occasionally. I think I’ve found a place for now, and it’s going okay! I’m going to work on the last 16 pages of this personal thing that’s been on my plate since July.

I enjoyed watching bon odori videos last year in the summer, and I’m back on it again.

This was created for the Shibari Zine: Red Threads Volume 2 Kickstarter project! Thank you to everyone that checked it out.

These two are two original characters (OCs) of mine. I guess it really has been the year of the old man yaoi…

I’ve been rather torn about posting more OC art on social media. It’s one thing to say that I shouldn’t feel the need to be validated by numbers and other things like that, but to truly convince myself is another thing altogether. I’ll probably keep it to the blog. It feels a lot more personal when it’s original art, whereas for other things I don’t particularly care as much.

Zine Shine: July 9-21, 2024

I’m participating in Zine Shine, which will run July 9-21, 2024 at the Issues magazine shop. There will be a bunch of zines by other zinesters there as well. Tadaai logs will be there at the shop.

You can find out more details on Zine Shine here. Issues magazine shop is located at 1489A Dundas St. W., Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Citrus Con, August 23-35, 2024

You can still sign up to attend Citrus Con in August, which is a free 18+ BL/queer media con. Hamletmachine is going to be a guest(!). I’m running a watch party for Word of Honor, and also participating in the Artist Alley. Hope you check it out if it’s your jam.

Word of Honor is free to watch on Youtube, and is also streaming Netflix. When I filled in the form, I did note that the show doesn’t contain sexual content, but it does contain self-mutilation (self-harm) and violence. My favourite character list does contain Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishou, but my favs are actually Ye Baiyi and Scorpion King. This show is hard-carried by the actors, especially Wenzhou. I believe this drama was shot post-lockdown in China: there are some really funny screenshots of this show where it’s very clear that the production budget simply wasn’t there. I seriously think this drama is worth your time, even if it won’t compare in popularity to works by MXTX. I really enjoyed the videos by AvenueX on the flirting and lip reading for this show, as well as the explanations for the poetry and other literature that is referenced. If you do end up watching it, please note that there was an episode 37 that was created and does conclude the show in a satifactory manner. It does seem that episode 36 was made to appease the censors, and if you didn’t know episode 37/the special does fix the ending implied, you would find the ending enraging. (Not sure how many people have seen Guardian, but I was so mad at the end. My god.)

Anyways, this could be us at Citrus Con!

I finished this drawing…I actually painted this twice because the first try was pretty much a failure. I’ll try the oil painting brushes in Procreate some other time.

Canzine postcard

I don’t think I’ve posted this here, but here’s the postcard that was included as a gift for purchasing Midnight amaretto at Canzine earlier this year. Hope people enjoyed the comic!

Other

I haven’t worked on figuring out how I can get this blog to have summary posts yet, so I’m probably doing that for the next while. Also comments?

The robots.txt is a web standard file, and apparently scrapers have taken to not respecting it. You can read more about it here.

• Exclusive: Multiple AI companies bypassing web standard to scrape publisher sites, licensing firm says
• Cloudflare: Declare your AIndependence: block AI bots, scrapers and crawlers with a single click
• Microsoft’s AI CEO with his bullshit take on the free and open web
• Eric Bailey: Consent, LLM scrapers, and poisoning the well

Despite posting all of the above, I feel like I can actually write more freely here than what I was doing for the last year on the old blog.

I actually watched all of Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger recently, and found it to be a fun take on the sentai genre. Despite the name, this show is sanctioned by Toei, and is shot in Akihabara. It was cool window into Akiba of 2012. I feel like I really appeciate suit actors and practical effects a lot more after. I might watch another sentai show sometime, but so far I’ve simply started watching Fuuto PI.

In some ways, when I watch shows like Akibaranger and Bravern, I have this small fear that the things I enjoy are contributing to me not expanding my borders and reading other things. Like a snake consuming its own tail; when is it bad if something is too meta? But I enjoy them so much…I know some people might say that modern otaku/fans are too concerned with only reading specific media and not going outside what they knew from childhood, but I do try to watch/read other things. I suppose having been an anime/manga fan for a long time lends itself well to being able to enjoy these kind of shows.

Playlist

Yes, we are continuing with this endeavor.

• 陳雪燃 Xueran Chen《大漠經》【電視劇沙海主題曲 Tomb of the Sea OST】官方高畫質 Official HD MV
• 奥井雅美 - God knows… from CrosSing/TVアニメ「涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱」挿入歌
• Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger opening sung by the cast
• fripSide/LEVEL5‐judgelight‐ ‐version 2022‐(Live) 2023/01/08＠Zepp Haneda TOKYO
• 【推しの子】第2期ノンクレジットオープニング｜GEMN「ファタール」
• TVアニメ「しかのこのこのここしたんたん」ノンクレジットオープニング映像『シカ色デイズ』
• Hitsujibungaku - Burning [TV anime【OSHI NO KO】Season 2 Ending Theme]
• Zenki (OP)

Anyways, I’m doing my best to not to be a shut-in, since it is summer.

Until next time!

These Brave Bang Bravern! emotes can be downloaded via Itch.io. Happy Pride~

Note: This is a cross-post from the Wordpress version of this blog. I’d like this domain (awsketch.com) to be the home base in the future.

Upcoming events

Zine Shine, July 9-21, 2024

I’m participating in Zine Shine, which is an in-person and online event. My Tadaai logs zine will be available for purchase at the Issues Magazine Shop, and online, during that time.

Shibari Zine Kickstarter – funded!

The Shibari zine kickstarter production is underway.

I applied to Zine Shine mainly because I had 10 copies of the Tadaai Logs leftover. I wanted to avoid having so many extra copies of my zines (I really don’t like making more copies than what is required), but because of a mishap with the print shop, I have extra copies. The print shop had made some really bad prints, but had made efforts to correct it after I refused to accept the printed books. I apologized to the print shop owner for making trouble, and he seemed to understand where I was coming from. I eventually made the prints at Staples at a higher price to meet the Canzine deadline, but now I have 10 copies. I did make a speed run of the Anime North artist alley to take a look at the pricing of people’s zines, and well…let’s just say that the pricing of zines at a zine festival is drastically different from the ones at Anime North. Which is understandable, but also the scale of difference is huge. This is kind of how I feel about seeing when there are zine workshops that are $100+; I understand the organizer needs money too, but the other part of me is thinking about how zines are being perceived as something that is outside the domain of the every person. I appreciate free local events, but hosting space is hard to come by in the city and competition is high.

So…about this blog. I finally migrated over the mailing list from the first iteration of this blog to here…but. But maybe you have noticed that I’ve stopped uploading art directly if possible. I’m going to keep this blog for new announcement purposes for the time being, but I’ve fired up Astro and finally built out the domain I have been holding onto for a while. I previously used it to host files, but I’ve mostly filled in the pages I want for it, and it will serve as the future home for blog posts and art I want to share with people. I have a lot of strong feelings about the direction that the tech industry has taken, especially in the area of treating the concept of a free and open web, as envisioned by people like Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and twisting it into a resource that can vacuumed up, destroying the originals in the process. Maybe I’m blowing this out of proportion, but this has seriously been bothering me for the last year.

Here’s the domain: awsketch.com.

It doesn’t have email subscription, and so far only the blog pages support RSS. I didn’t want to have to migrate again since I’ve only had this blog for exactly a year, but I’ve gotten to a point where I can acknowledge that art will continue to be a hobby for me (as you can probably tell since I’ve kept an art blog for 13+ years already), and being “found” directly by a search engine isn’t in my interests at the moment. I’m not even sure if I’ll apply to fandom zines unless under very specific conditions. The compilation zines are extremely expensive to buy and import, and I basically can’t really even see the fruits of my labor. I made a washi tape design for a planner project I took part in, and I couldn’t even get a decent photo of the final product. Overall, those zines are nice to look at, but I think I need to go find some other more…book-like zines, and forget about the merch for now.

Zine event applications: I was wait-listed for a local event, but I actually realized a few days before the emails were to go out that the organizers had commented on social media that they were looking for original zines (so not fanzines/fanart). I’ve made my peace about this kind of thing a while ago, since I understand what kind of vibe these events are going for (which is good). The upside of these zine festivals is that they are free, and I can still go and look at zines. This is unlike trying to get into something like Anime North, where you to need a pass to even go in. I don’t think I’ll apply to any more events unless I feel extremely compelled to.

I don’t plan on bending myself into any kind of shape to get in, though, I do want to draw more originals for myself. On the good side: competition for local zine festivals is good because that means there are lots of local zinesters. Zine festivals with people that make zines specifically are great. It’s kind of how some people think of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival as a con, when it’s more of a book festival. Very different. Anyways, I’m rambling. I still like fanzines and fancomics, and understand that because of the intersection of where it is, it might not be a good fit for a lot of places and I shouldn’t feel bad about it. Also some of the things I draw might not be acceptable in an artist alley as opposed to a zine festival.

I went to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival! It was fun. I met some cool people, including other fujin/fujoshi/fudanshi. I traded doujinshi with saicoink, which is something I probably would not have imagined was possible as few years ago. I’m happy I was able to trade, maybe one day I’ll have a chance to print on nicer paper because my books are pretty…low-end. Very “I stapled this after it came from the photocopier” level. Maybe I’ll try to make nicer covers and printing eventually. I also was able to give zines to people!! It was nice to also meet other Tadashi & Ainosuke fans, and I was able to buy the books I wanted from Yam Fam and give them some zines I made.

Shirahama Kamome-sensei, the artist of Witch Hat Atelier was also at the event. I wasn’t able to go to the live drawing despite being really early, mostly because I got freaked out by people rushing from the front door. They had picked a very small room to hold the live drawing in for privacy reasons. I was able to go to the Q&A, and was cool. I wasn’t able to win the signing lottery, but also, it solved the problem of me not having my Witch Hat books with me since they were only allowing for Kodansha books to be signed. Shirahama-sensei is really cool, and I just felt like I had a lot of feelings after hearing her talk about her work. Mostly just that comics are really great and hard. Did you know she does all the inking with a dip pen? But she’s very fast. I’d recommend her manga to read, and especially Witch Hat Atelier. I’m a pretty big fan of Olruggio and Qifrey, haha. Also she mentioned Moto Hagio as one of her inspirations.

I was told by my friend recently that I should have more confidence about my art stuff, but it’s hard. I just want to go back into my hole and draw some more. But hey! I at least applied to some stuff this year! Might take a break after this one, though.

I was going to write more, but I did say I wasn’t going to try to feed the AI machine too much here, so I’ll leave it at that. Even the playlist is short this time, even though I did listen to a lot of new music.

Until next time.

• 顺流逆流(清唱)
• Running In My Head – Miyavi

A fancomic of Tadashi Kikuchi x Ainosuke Shindo from the anime SK8 the Infinity.