Reflections 2025

EOY 2025 just passed. It has been a while since the last time I went to a convention. I felt things I have not felt in a while. It was also my first time tabling. My wife and I planned for it casually for a few months. Our plan went more or less well. There were no major incident. On the whole I had fun.

Post EOY, I still feel the want to table, perhaps a few more times. I have some ideas about how to fit the audience better. Plus, I did experience a form of support: Kamen Rider fans bought "Robo Rider" prints; a kind cosplayer gave words of encouragement and bought a few original prints (I really appreciate this!); fellow artists exchanged artworks with me; attendees visibly reacted to "Avengers: Infinity War" print.

(As a side note, I involuntarily listened to many, many songs throughout the 2-day event. One song in particular stuck with me: "Venus Bug" by Suisei Hoshimachi.)

I am no good in social media campaigns, so I was wowed by EOY staff social media posts. They definitely know marketing. One post that they kindly made me a co-author of gave me around 10 times more views than my usual posts.

Reading my 2023 reflections compelled me to summarize my journey since then.

• October 2023 brought an unexpected 3D collaboration work with ChicDead26. It was a fun side quest, revisiting 3D modeling. In the process I learned Blender modeling and texturing a bit. I was happy with the outcome.
• I rushed a repainting of "Greeting Ms Moon" in December 2023. I felt like I should do another painting pass someday.
• I remembered not knowing what to do next in early 2024. I ended up with another side quest: fightstick art. It was interesting to learn about fightsticks, but I do not click with fightstick world. Perhaps because I no longer play fighting games.
• I joined an OverClocked Remix project in May 2024. It is a Tetris Attack remix album. I spent the rest of 2024 drawing and painting front cover and back cover images for the album.
• I also upgraded my website in mid 2024.
• At the beginning of 2025 I formulated this art goal: "I would like to create images that evoke an emotional reaction. Maybe through dramatic expression and posing." This guided my ideas in 2025 and hopefully improved my paintings.
• In June 2025 I decided to try tabling. I spent the latter half of 2025 polishing old works such that they are good enough to sell as prints.

This brought us to the present. Next year I want to (1) make smaller products for conventions while at the same time (2) paint large, dramatic images for my artistic satisfaction.