Hi guys, this is Des again for another Hiyaku blog post. Well then, another DO has gone and passed. Hope everybody had fun :)

It looked like you guys enjoyed yourselves. Even though it was one issue after another, we managed to have a good time ourselves. One of the the biggest issues we faced this year was with the printing of the books. Half of our artbooks had to be returned because they were defected, which meant most of the copies we had left were sold within the first hour. Backorders were made available when we did sell out, but it seemed most people were put off by the idea; so ultimately this blunder by the printers kinda screwed us over. It’s pretty sad, seeing as how I spent half a year working on this book.. but shit happens I guess. This may have contributed to my miscounting of how many books we had left to sell, so by the time we got to a certain number, I looked into the box and was like ‘where the fuck is the rest??’. This meant a reserved book (by Arkillian) had been mistakenly sold off, and I sincerely apologize for that. Another screw up on my part, which I seemed to do a lot of this year. But the reprints should be done by the end of this week, so, for anyone who backordered , you should see your copies arrive at your doorstep within the week following should you respond to my email promptly when it is received.

Alrighty then, enough about that. Lets take a look at some actual photos of the event. These were taken by Kody, who does all our photos every year.

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This is our table near the start of the event. Me on the left, and Steven beside me cutting out his paper crafts with his pen knife. We were pretty busy this year, having got off onto a rocky start and then remaining pretty occupied for the rest of the day. What happened is Steven’s home printer packed up the previous night and then mysteriously started working again the morning after, so he arrived a bit late after having printed what we needed. We started setting up the table a little after the place was open to the public, but getting everything properly prepared for sale/presentation took us up about midday to resolve. So yeah, not the best start ever lol. After that, we were just generally busy all the time.

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Here’s is a look at our table. On it there are A4 prints, A3 prints, our artbook, bookmarks featuring characters from Persona 3 and 4, free chibi character cutouts, and chibi paper crafts featuring Miku from Vocaloid, Taiga from Toradora, Yui from K-ON, and Rei from Evangelion. There’s also a laptop at the end displaying some of our general artworks, and a folder containing some of my originals which I had for sale/display. A huge thanks to the fella that bought a bulk of those originals, you’re a legend :)

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This is a close up of one of the constructed paper crafts (Miku from Vocaloid). All of these were created and designed from scratch by Steven, so all credit goes to him for these awesome little chibi figures. It proved to be a great seller, and he’s definitely considering adding more to the series. I actually brought one of the leftovers home for my little sister, and it took her about an hour to finishing constructing. Don’t let that put you off, though. The finished product looks great, and if my sister can do it, I’m sure it must be pretty straight-forward lol. It was the Taiga one which she made, but she preferred Yui, which I totally forgot to pick up until it was too late. Sadness. Anyhow, I may advise Steven to make a blog post here about these for those who are wanting to know more about them, how to construct them properly, or voice their opinions about the existing paper crafts themselves and what they might want to see for future additions.

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So as you can see, there’s a fairly decent number of attendees this year. The tables are still as vibrant and attractive as ever, and with double the exhibitors this year it’s double the goodness. I myself didn’t get a good look at the stalls since I kept myself pretty busy at our own table, but I did remember seeing some impressive stuff all around. Though, one thing which stood out for me, personally, was ProjectNabe’s artbook. And I’m not saying this out of bias because I did guest art for them or anything, but (from a bookmakers standpoint) it really was well made. It took Hiyaku about 5 years to get to where we are now, but these guys are already up here with us after their debut at DO2010. There’s even word getting around that these guys are taking over our spot as the prominent artist circle of DO lol, which is all good. I’ve always wanted to see another local artist circle at DO that had as much drive/ambition as Hiyaku Studio, and here they are. Lets both put in a good effort for our future projects.

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Here’s a view from behind our table. Steven on the left, I’m in the middle, and Claire is on the right (looking cool as always). It’s a bit blurry, but whatever lol. Thanks to those who visited our table and bought stuff. You guys are awesome.

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This is the Hiyaku crew after the event. From left to right, it goes Claire, Kody, Steven, and myself. We tagged along with a group of others after DO and went to The Don, a Japanese restaurant, for dinner. The food was pretty good, even though someone else supposedly ate my dish by mistake and got smacked upside the head by Jeremiah (ProjectNabe head honcho) lol XD. It’s interesting to see that there’s an obvious hierarchy in ProjectNabe; so unlike Hiyaku where we’re more sort of laid back about the pecking order (or lack thereof).

It was at this time that Jeremiah proposed, with a toast, that we should combine our efforts instead of going head to head as rival circles. Now, we in Hiyaku don’t mind some healthy competition, but being able to work alongside ProjectNabe actually sounds like more fun, don’t you think? So we accepted the idea. We hope to get to know our new partner circle a little better as time goes by, and look forward to working with those guys.

Speaking of ‘partnerships’, something quite interesting happened while I excused myself from the table and went to the restroom. The Hiyaku guys thought it would be amusing to pass along a napkin with my cellphone number on it to Jeremiah, which I wouldn’t really mind if it weren’t for their shifty ass ideas behind the whole act.. as well as being completely fucking inappropriate! LOL fuck you guys, man. Dodgy assholes XD. That being said, Jeremiah (if you’re reading this), I feel I have to apologize for these guys; they’re a bunch of clowns. You can call me if you want, but i may decline any date you have in mind LOL. Just kidding, but not really.

All in all, it we had loads of fun. I enjoyed it immensely, even after putting up with these guys’ crap for the entire rest of the night after DO lol. Ethird even called us in the middle of the event, which was awesome. Couldn’t hear jack of what he was saying cos of all the noise, but it’s nice to know he’s still with us :D . Hopefully we can set up a live feed for him next time haha. Though, in terms of preparation and business-side of things at our table, it could have went better; but we’ll just have to take this on as another learning experience. The work kept us busy from conversing with you guys properly, and we’ll try to change that for next year so we may provide a better service for our customers. Nonetheless, we hope you guys enjoyed yourselves. If you want to see the rest of our photos, they’re at the bottom of this post.

From everyone in Hiyaku Studio, thanks again to those who did business at our table. Thank you to the Doujin Overload committee and volunteers for all your hard work; and thank you whoever shouted us our drinks at the post-DO dinner. All you guys rock. Best of luck for next year, and stay safe :)

- Des

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