London Boots & Web Design

As many of you may or may not know. I love the Japanese comedian group London Boots. I have a collection of videos of their shows, and Ikuko brought back some new vids for me. I used to intentionally force myself to watch these videos while I was still learning Japanese at the UW for me to pick up listening skills. Its been what, 6 yrs since I graduated the UW and I still to this day almost daily at some point watch London Boots. This is cause I like watching while I'm cooking or working on the computer as background noise. Ikuko hates London Boots now cause I watch the same dang video over and over and over and over...like how kids can sit and watch Pocohontas like 3 times in a row (as she describes it). I've got a tele video on each of the 3 floors of our townhouse, all in areas which I work on art, or cook. Ikuko thinks I should write them a fan letter to tell them of my infatuation with their shows. And that I can repeat lines from episodes before they even say it. She said if I write them describing to them my dedication to watching their program, that they may even come over to Seattle to do a show. Wouldn't that be something? My friend who works at TBS (in Japan) gave me a tour of his facility and he pointed out that Tokoro George just drove by. Also, Tomochika walked right by me! They are famous people in Japan. In my mind I wish I Lonbu would've walked by. :)

So I'm sitting in front of my computer working on designing the Enfu website, still tinking away at it. Its tough. I had come up with a color scheme I liked, and a simple design with the purpose of selling the prints as its main goal. Its all about tweaking the design to look just the way you want it. Lots of tweaking...in fact I think I spent close to 5 hrs last night working on it! Of course, 3 of those 5 hours were just me watching London Boots.

My wife thinks I'm a workaholic. I guess I take after my dad. But I really unwind and feel rested after I get up off of the computer desk. Its cause I'm doing what I want to do, and it doesn't feel like work at all. Until the site gets online, be looking forward to it!

Business loan or self fund? No Free Lunch.

No Free Lunch.
No Free Lunch.
No Free Lunch.

My dad used to say this to me all the time. Everything costs something.

I'm coming to a crossroads in Enfu where I'm thinking beyond my financial means. I'd like to put things in motion where I don't have the funds to pay for them, which after being married, now I have 2 pairs of eyes on my accounts.

I always think big picture and am characterized as ambitious and 'unfocused'. The wife is a bit more grounded, fixes herself to the details, and has tunnel vision.

Starting to calculate my enfu spending through Money 2006 was an eye opener. All the R&D, remotely related but still tied to business expense, and all that jazz is adding up. I'm calculating all this for the year end tax deductions I hope to get. Also something I haven't factored in yet is the total percent of square footage my Enfu business space is taking up within the Taya household. Its 24%. I had to actually take a tape measure and work the numbers. This means as I've read, that I can deduct 24% of my utilities and mortgage interest over the years its been operating under Enfu. This I believe will be a big chunk o change.

The cost of printing the actual images is relatively cheap compared to what I would like to spend on advertising. $500 per 2 months of advertising in Giant Robot is not cheap. Also, I only have physically 1 piece ready to sell all packaged nice and neat signed and numbered and everything. I would like at least 3, but need more to get my own show. Rethinking how much it'll take to achieve this makes my brain hurt.

I ideally would like 3 finished pieces and a finished online website with advertising in Giant Robot by Spring 2006. This will be sufficient to get Enfu rolling and hopefully self sufficient. But not enough for a show. Getting into a show is a whole nother issue.

Anyway, the ken taya enfu association is not too much more willing to shell out mucho denero for this, so I've gotta budget better and figure things out.

I'm rollin the dice counting on my bonus...... goooooooo 7s!!!

Xmas

The 500 postcards I ordered finally came in. Which meant lots of label printing and card writing. At first I wrote long messages..but after my first hand cramp...I just started to write shorter messages. But seeing the whole stack done with and it being the first time we as a couple sent out a card, it was very satisfying.
I made the postcards with a plug of enfu.com on the back. This way the cards we didn't use we could place in restaraunts and such. I ended up over a period of 2 days placing stacks of cards in the following places:
1. Kiku Restaraunt next to the Bellevue Uwajis
2. Uwaji's in Chinatown
3. Kinokuniya
4. Video Hop in Chinatown
5. Kobo at Higo
6. Panama Hotel Cafe
I selected places specifically targetting a Nikkei audience. The cool thing is, lots of people were willing to have these postcards in their stores, after knowing that they were free and people would pick them up. The cooler thing was, after I came back to the downtown Uwajis, most of the cards I placed were taken! I guess nothing goes faster than free. I restocked it with more piles. I got rid of 4/5 of my cards.
This whole experience of pretty much self promoting, or self marketing really really challenges my self confidence constantly. I cannot push on others something I don't believe in myself, and I cannot get myself to physically go out to distribute these promotion pieces without having faith in myself. Having to go through this act only strengthens my resolve.

Also while talking to these store owners and clerks, I felt like a door to door sales person. This one on one conversation explaining what I'm about in like 20 seconds is great practice for me. The owner of the Panama Hotel Cafe was really really encouraging. She said hurry up and come up with some pieces to display, we can have a show of your work! I was really excited, but yet burdened with coming up with a library of works. I already have the Scooter Gallery, Emerald City Comicon, and the Fresh Flours shows to work up to...now I have even a greater goal.

I also spent time putting up a real bare bones temp website for www.enfu.com This way when people see the link on the postcard, they can see more than just a freaking monkey and think WTF. They will get a gyst of what I'm about.

Also, since the domain transferred hands, the site was down for a bit. This freaked me out cause people now have access to the site, I didn't want it to be down. Tore my hair out trying to get it back online ASAP.

Christmas was a small break from Enfu..but gotta get back into it.

Having a small business on the side really cuts down on free time.

Web Design

The 1st prints are done! But the packaging materials haven't arrived, so they are left unsigned and unstamped as of right now. Once they come in, stamping and packaging may commence!!

I've also been transferred the domain of www.enfu.com recently, its totally mine..mwahahaha!
This means I've actually now got to put my web designer back to work. I've been messing around with the design and layout, and I based it off of other artists' sites that I thought were efficient in selling their work. I would never know how much who sold to whom, but if I liked their design, I implemented the core to my design.
I have the big picture in my mind of what I want, but now its just a matter of making it happen.

Christmas is fast approaching, and hopefully the Christmas postcards I ordered will come today, so we can get on the Christmas card writing frenzy.
I also would like to put postcards in Japanese restaraunts as well, so I'll have to make soliciting rounds to restaraunts and the such soon, which should basically be me stuck in traffic between shops. great....

Year in Review

Since my whole endeavor of attempting to run Enfu...whether its successful or not, I've learned many things from my trials and errors. Its nearing the end of the year and its time for me to reflect on what went right and what went wrong in 2005.

I'm still mid journey on making Enfu self sustaining, but allow me to share with you what I've learned so far:

-Find what motivates you and surround yourself in it.
Seeing other arstists' works and artists that are up and coming motivates me. Artists that share similar backgrounds such as being Asian American or who work in the games industry motivate me through their own endeavors on the side. I make it a point, a very intentional choice every day to expose myself to these elements to keep fire underneath me and to stay hungry for more.

-Draw boundaries.
I admit I'm not that good with this because many things tend to excite me and I like to be hands on with many things. I've been learning to pick or narrow down my selection to a couple things I'd like to focus on rather than many. Don't restrict yourself but know your limits.

-Good fences makes good neighbors. (Goes along with drawing boundaries)
I've learned a hard lesson early on this year. Some of you may know this already, but because of a botched job I did for a friend (where both sides were equally at fault), things went sour. What went wrong was I didn't clearly define my boundaries. He wanted me to design a skateboard, I did, last minute he wanted it in a different format. I was in crunch at work and my day job is my priority so I told him outright I don't want to stay up till 6am on this job, so give me an extension.
Long story short it was my bad that I didn't finish the job, it was his bad for total mismanagement and putting me through hell. I ended up choosing a good night's sleep over trying to satisfy someone who at this point is yelling at me and to me had crossed the friendship boundary into asshole territory. I should've protected myself with a straightfoward contract which clearly define terms that we would both agree on from the beginning. I mean, what kind of 30 yr + guy yells at his friends..in MY house? He was all up in my face all I could think about at the time was "If he throws the first punch, then that means I can deck him right?" I was calm and collected as he was agitated out of control. We ended up parting ways, I cut my losses and apparently cut some friends by choosing to hold my ground and not give in.
What gets me is, some of our shared friends (mostly one person) took his side and 'denounced' my actions, stating I was unprofessional. To this day I mock his elitest attitude. Who is more professional, one who keeps his cool during conflict, or one who yells at you so close to your face that his spit is flying all in your face? Who is more professional, someone offering their services way ahead of schedule, or someone last minute totally changing the delivery method for the final product? I mean, the whole grounds for this job was very unprofessional. He was offering to pay me in socks! And he also thought he was doing me a favor. Well hey...thanks alot. Much appreciated. Great knowing you.
Point is, protect yourself by making boundaries. It'll do both parties a favor.

-Don't buy meat from a vegetarian.

In other words, don't listen to those people who will always say you can't, when they don't choose to be ambitious themselves. Rather, take detailed notes on what people tell you who are taking big proactive steps themselves. Listening to advice is always good, always listen....but be selective about what you believe. If you believe in every naysayer out there, you will fail.
I can't say I haven't been discouraged this year. I have been discouraged alot, and plan on still being discouraged in the future. There are always going to be comments made by people that are simply discouraging. People who don't really even care for your welfare, whether you succeed or not. They will simply bring the mood down.
I have chosen this year to listen to those who do things for themselves. I feed off of them and their insights. I've sought out advice from many many friends this year and they have been a great support.

-Inclusion is the key to get people involved

Updating people and being proactive about telling people your process is not only a good way to keep yourself accountable to following through on these processes, but also a good way to solicite valuable feedback. Include those around you and invite them to take part in your processes.




2005 was a good year overall. I started ENFU on my 28th birthday, got married, and finished my first full video game title (F.E.A.R.). Lets all hope for a great 2006 as well!

to Pay or not to PayPal

Visited Tom this weekend a couple times to see him finish "Tako Truck". I was really amazed at his printing skills and am confident this business relation will keep going. FINALLY, the first print is done. I look at it with as much satisfaction as when I completed my first video game.

I found with a little prodding in Google you can find supplies of just about anything on the web. I was looking for plastic sleeves and padded cardboard backings to package my prints when I bring them to trade shows and what not. Also if I were to ship the prints, looking for a format where I don't have to roll the prints to ship it. I found 2 great websites:

www.clearbags.com
www.uline.com

These sites carry everything I need to package and ship my products.

I go to:

www.modernpostcards.com

to print my postcards as well. Basically, I can access all these things from my CPU.

But there is still some legwork that needs to be done in the field, you cannot simply rely on the web to get stuff done. Going out and talking to curators and shop owners to see if they would like to display my artwork is the essence of selling yourself. I have to go sell myself and my product to alot of people. Because I'm confident that my prints speak to more than just me, I'm sure it'll sell, but its convincing others that they should buy it which is hard.

When I visited the Scooter Gallery in the U district I found that they wanted me to print notecards to sell on the side to their customers. They encouraged me to look into packaging my scooter prints into cards. I looked into it and it is a viable product I can supply and package and still make a little return.

Anyway, I'm on the brink of bringing my product out of production and into a show room. The showroom being www.enfu.com
The problem I'm coming up with is how to set up payment, should I use a Yahoo Merchant account or set up PayPal. I'm reading up on both, but PayPal seems like lower overhead. I'm getting mixed reviews on whether I should use a REAL merchant account or PayPal. Oddly, but not surprisingly, websites that are very much Anti PayPal all have links to a certain merchant account company. hmmm..i wonder if..hey..this is all just a big freaking advertisement!! Jeez...gotta look at the source of the info I guess.

Back when we were in Crunch

Uploaded a pic from work back when we were in crunch. Most of the team decided that while we were in crunch for the sake of solidarity we would all not shave our facial hair. I grew it out as much as I could handle. Dang, mustaches were really really annoying.

Ahhh..now we are not in crunch, and am not looking forward for another one for awhile. Ah the good life.

Apparently the magazine PC Zone wants pictures of the developers of FEAR on their magazine, and these are the pictures we'll submit to them. I don't mind..my face isn't there to impress anybody. Heck I have to deal with it myself every morning in the mirror, if I even chose to look at one....sheesh.

SuperUltra

So its 3am in the morning, I'm tired, I've watched the same Lonbu video tape 6-8 times in a row now I can repeat the lines practically, but I was in the ZONE.

I took the original Fat Ultraman illustration I did and changed it up alot more. I feel I've changed this character up enough to where he looks unique, and mixed in the Superman elements into it as well. The cape's red adds alot more dimension to the picture, but I added 2 more colors, bringing this print to be the total of 7 Colors.
Red, Dark Red, Blue, Dark Blue, Light grey, Dark grey, and black...making it a much more challenging print for Tom to do next.

The colors have yet to be pantone matched, and separated, but I'll do that some other time. In the meantime, please enjoy SuperUltra before it gets changed any further.

First Color Yellow

Tom did a great job of printing the first color for me. I reviewed his work last night and the yellow to me jumped off the page.
The drying racks full of Enfu prints seemed like I've partially completed step 1.

Tom showed me how he coated the photo emulsion and he burned the next screen for me to see. Tonight he will pull the blue color, and I'm expecting great things.

First of many!

xmas card finished

Since its my first time actually making a postcard, it was a really fun mini project to tackle.
Making the postcard was the easy part though, writing everybody and distributing the cards will be the next challenge.

I've decided to make a print out of these cards as well, not as big as the Tako Truck but its definitely still an Enfu print.

I'm really suddenly wanting to purchase a panoramic camera. This camera will take 120 degrees as the lens actually rotates along a pivot and the film (yes film), and does not run on batteries. This will be great for me to take subway or train station pix in Japan for quick environment reference for illustrations! The problem is it takes film and is $350, not chump change.

One Note

I just wanted to plug this Microsoft Software I'm using for my side business. One Note is like Notepad, but with steroids. You can drag and drop images from the web (which also includes the web address as a link), you can DRAW on the pad, and you can add audio and video files.

This program has emmensely streamlined my work flow for Enfu.

I carry along with me all the time a little notebook to jot down ideas that come up in my head while driving, and info I find out through research of talking to curators, wholesellers, and other artists. I then go in One Note to organize my thoughts out in the open. I'm a very visual person and like to see things in daigrams, and not just in bullet points. I take my ideas and scour the web for images to illustrate the idea I'm going for for an illustration, add my notes next to it, and basically fill out my ideas even more. And, to top it all off, I don't have to save, it automatically save its in its own file structure.

Currently I don't have a need for audio and video files as of yet, but I can see myself talking into a mic for audio notetaking as well.

For a visual person like me who processes externally, this is PERFECT.

Late nights

Recently have been staying up really late working on the illustrations. Getting close to finishing the 2nd illustration, mainly its purpose was to be a design for a Christmas card, but now its looking like it'll be Enfu's 2nd print. I've decided to include within the screenprint my signature or hanko. The hanko is designed to be both a 'K' and the Katakana "Ke", which signifies both my American and Japanese side at once. The thing with the katakana "Ke" is, is Katakana is used for foreign words, and I'm viewd as a foreigner to most Japanese anyway, so its totally fitting.

Since now I have shows to work up to, I'll have lots of illustrations that need to be pumped out and printed. One every other month is the goal that I'd like to maintain, at the bare minimum, but at the rate I'm going I think I'm going to come out with 2 per month. I'll need to stay at that rate to prepare for the Fresh Flours show I hope to have sometime in the summer.

Making postcards is a blast. I'm learning alot from all this preparation to self promote. Marketing is tough. Especially when most of my time is spent producing new stuff, I don't like to spend time marketing. But, making this xmas card with a little plug about Enfu is taking care of 2 things at once.
IF you want me to send you an Xmas card and I haven't already asked you, PLEASE email me your mailing address, as I'd like to send you one. I had customized the card so that it can be both an xmas card and one of those artists' cards to promote their shows...but on mine I have no real shows to promote....except the Scooter show in Jan. I gotta get more info on that...yeah. So far 3 shows lined up. Jan-Scooter Gallery, April-Emerald City Comicon, and sometime in the summer-Fresh Flours (hopefully!)

Oh, and another thing about my first prints:
If you want to preorder the Tako Truck please email me at ken@enfu.com. I'll reserve you a copy. You'll be the owner of the FIRST in many Enfu prints.

xmas cards

This weekend I was preoccupied with making xmas cards. The wifie doesn't get back till Dec. 20th, so I need to have them designed and ready by the time she gets back. Even if we sign like madmen the cards, we'll not make it out by Xmas. But to the Japanese, New Years is more important, so as long as we make it by then, we're golden.

As I was thinking of the kind of card we'd like to make, I was also thinking about if I could possibly make the card a screen print in the future. So I thought I'd create a card with Enfu in mind, making it another hybrid piece. I came to the conclusion that depicting snowmen would be sorta cute and easily culturally polarized. Since the stereotypical Frosty the snowman and a Japanese Yukidaruma (Snowman) are depicted differently, I thought I'd put them together side by side as a comparison. After mocking up a couple sketches I came up with something I liked. I was inspired by a postcard I recieved from Giant Robot (Asian Pop Culture mag that I love), which depicted a snowman and a cute boy opening presents in a style I thought I could mimic. Also inspired by a fellow classmate who made his own postcards for xmas. The by product is SnowDaruma, my next piece. I'll post a pic of it later.

Since I'm developing many pieces at the same time, few have made it to completion, but when they are complete I'll hopefully have a lot ready to print.

This weekend I also went and visited Fresh Flours, a hybrid Japanese local flavored cafe. They were looking for artists and it would be the perfect place for me to have a show. I'm in queue for a show there, so look out for that news in the future!

Abandoner

I notice now with the wife gone I fall into sort of a routine living without her.
I get back from work and either work out or make dinner, sit in front of the TV with my laptop while I scan life drawing sketches or work on Enfu. I've been doing that for almost 2 weeks it seems.

Since putting the ultraman aside for a bit, I've been working on the next piece, don't know what to title it yet, but its an illustration of telephone poles on the street. Sounds bland...cause it is..but the interesting part is that this piece should be a 2 piece piece, if you know what I mean. It'll be cut in 2 but they belong together as a set.
It'll be interesting to see if I really CAN pull this off.

Every time I walk into a book store, I find myself wanting to buy 3,4 art books and magazines. Gotta stop the craving. I actually carried a book half way to the checkout lady and then last minute abandoned my sale by leaving it on top of a pile of totally different books. I told myself I probably could find this at Half Price Books.
Item abandonment seems rampant now that I think about it. You walk into a safeway, and in the canned food section someone abandoned their intention to buy Oreo Cookies by placing it on top of the cans way in the back. One location you can view this spectacle in full blown force is at the checkout counter. Amongst the batteries and gum, if you look closely, people leave jars of spaghetti sauce, and other orphan food products hidden within the fray. I am an abandoner, I thought, as I placed my $40 almost purchased art book about screen prints on top of a Bio of Mao at B&N, ....and I'm not ashamed.

more research

Tonight I went to sign up for the Vera Project's screen printing DIY class. This will help prepare me to be able to (if I wanted to) screen print in my garage. While I was in Seattle I thought I'd stop by and visit the artwalk scene. Since it snowed, there weren't very many people. I didn't see very much what I was looking for, other screenprint artists. Where are they in Seattle? Gott dig deep I guess. Dropped by PaperZone to research how to package my prints after they've been made. Saw some plastic sleeves, but instead of buying them I chose to look up the URL on the sticker. Its much better to go thru the web to buy stuff because in the end its cheaper and you can get exactly what you want. Still teetering on the topic of whether or not I should include a COA (Certificate of Authenticity) with my works, as I'm still a nobody with no history in the art scene. It'll also add a bit to my cost of production.

Since the wife is away in Japan, I get to do whatever I want. That means late night TV with icecream. hehe

ideas ideas ideas

The problem is I've got a lot of ideas that I get excited about and I tend not to follow through till the end. I have been for the past year fixated on ENFU, and I hope that excitement doesn't fade. I'm anxious to see this print get made. My screenprinter Tom has my full confidence in printing Tako Truck well. It should be done Mid December.

I was notified that a wedding present was being sent to me and that I had to pick it up at home. Wow, somebody is still sending us presents from Crate and Barrel?? WOW. It was the bookshelf I've wanted! So putting that together totally helped me clean up all those misc. books and magazines on the floor. hehe Thanks Keiji and Trinh!!!