Designer Con 09

so ready for some sweet lovin.

linda hong sandin some squib butt.

long shot of our booths.

top left: battle damaged by nate, top center: blank, top right: metal head by mana studios
bot left: panda squib by linda, bot center: candy skull by irene, bot right: deep blue by linda

i poured, cut, sanded, buffed, filed, polished, and drilled every one of these little metal bad boys. not the most fun in the world, but i like the end results.

our bouncer was back.

howdy

Designer Con came and went quick for us. it was only open for 7 hrs, but it was a good 7 hrs. we took up 2 booths this time. one for Squid Kids and one for Hyperactive Monkey. we met a lot of new people and will hopefully get to work with some of the other artists we met.

due to casting problems we didn't have the large DIY Squib avaible for sale. we did get some good custom Squibs out of those bad castings. we also made up some Heavy Metal Squibs for the show. we are only goin to sell these little fellas at conventions. it seems like people need to feel the weight of them before buying them.

once again, we did just enough business to break even. one more convention, one more baby step. we'll be in San Fransisco for Wonder Con on April 2nd-4th. let's all hope that step will be a bit bigger.

ANIME EXPO 09

just gettin started.

our intern hardly at work again. Ha.

i swear it's not a sweat shop.

we had our jumbo Squib protecting our booth.

NERD ALERT!!!!!!

i think i ate some bad calamari.

Hello Daisy and an awesome Appa.

Hyperactive? maybe not in this photo.

we had at least 10 people waiting to win stuff in one of our raffles.

who let the white guy behind the booth?

howdy

here are some photos from our first big convention, ANIME EXPO. we didn't do any advertising or promoting for this event. not the smartest move, but we aren't marketing people. we create stuff and hope that some other people will like it too.

Thursday was a slow day, but Fri and Sat went well. Sunday was a short day, but went well. it was a learning experience for us all. i've walked through a bunch of conventions and passed tons of booths, but i never really thought about what it would be like on the other side of the booth. i started to realize how much it takes to catch someone's eye, and even more for someone to stop and take a look up close. it takes so much more for someone to actually spend money at a booth. it's givin me even more appreciation for the family, friends, and fans that support us.

Anime Expo was a great experience for us. we were able to share our booth with Jerome Lu of Hyperactive Monkey and his ladyfriend Daisy drew in the crowd wearing her giant plush Hello Kitty head. we pretty much broke even over the 4 days. not bad considering that no one knew who we were or that we would be there at all. it was another solid baby step for Squid Kids Ink.

Squid Kids Art Show 2008

sketches colored in Photoshop then printed on canvas.

Linda Hong's digital artwork on canvas in customized frames.

Chito A-word's digital art on canvas.

my custom Squib Kid Pilot. that leather cap was not fun to make.

a blank Squib Kid and Chito's art print.

the world famous Tracy Tubera.......and Chito.

our Squib army ready to march.

here's our intern Chito hard at work. HA!

here's the shortest assembly line ever.

a little show preparation at Mana Studios.

here's Jay layin down some base coats for me.

howdy

these are some photos from our very first art show way back in Oct 2008. a friend of ours Irene Medonis curated the show at GoRilla in Costa Mesa. this was the first time we revealed Squibs to the world. the show went well for us. we sold some prints, t-shirts, and keychain/zipperpulls. the gallery managed to damage Chito's art print, so they didn't take the 40% commission off any of our sales. we didn't even come close to making a profit, but it was nice to not have to give away almost 1/2 of our earnings.