Enfu

Enfu Blog moved to Enfu.com

2009-03-05T21:30:00.001-08:00

So I have finally made the move from Blogger to another blog service which I could integrate into my online catalogue much better.

So from now this site is merely and archive and shed shell of the mere beginnings of enfu. For all new updates and latest prints please go to enfu.com.

Thanks.

In the future.

2008-10-31T16:09:00.000-07:00

So after a nice 1 hour wait on the tarmac taxing for take off and the insuing 10 hour flight with toddler plus the one hour ride to the in laws place we were thoroughly pooped. It essentially takes one whole day to travel and that is only across the Pacific Ocean.

Our annual pilgrimage back to Japan always puts things back in perspective for me. When I was a kid and we went back to Japan we would always go back to the city, Yokohama or Kobe. It would always be hectic and people would move twice as fast. These days when we go back we go back to the countryside where my in laws live. The pace of living is much slower and this is a very different Japan. Most people think of the techie night life cutie schoolgirl anime gundam sushi cities of the semi future, but my laid back experience these days remind me of the countryside from the land of Totoro. Rice patties, trucks delivering goods, and neighbors dropping off gifts of fresh pulled from the ground edamame.

We will spend a couple days in the a Shibuya hotel to meet up with friends and take in the city life. More pics to come....

Giant Robot Issue 56

2008-10-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

So I did an illustration for one of my favorite magazines Giant Robot.
I've been a fan of the mag for a while now. Its always a great empowering voice of us Asian Americans among other groups.

The illustration was for an article about Bamboo and how its infiltrating all walks of life. The article itself reminds me of when my father in law cut down some bamboo in his yard in Chiba and made plates and sake cups, even a sake pouring carafe.

He just took a saw and cut down a couple stalks, and I helped him sand the cups. Its as green as you can get, but the only problem with using bamboo was that the bamboo cups would get dirty as it decomposed after a while, so its essentially on a time limit unless there is a way to dry them out and seal them.

So without further stalling here is the illustration below.

Also it was the first time I had made it a priority to pull some ad space out for Enfu. Coincidentally its debut is in the same issue that I did the above illustration.

Giant Robot, Fronk, and RabbitHoles

2008-10-24T02:41:00.000-07:00

Giant Robot's online store has my print available.
These guys are great please support them.

Back a couple months ago Bungie artists did the Artists' Alley at PAX and a fan posted one of my signed prints on his blog.

Again, what I do at Bungie and what I do for Enfu are different, but both keep me really creative and artists need to create constantly. Rarely do I mention work on this blog but for some reason recently its come up a couple times.

RabbitHoles 3d motion holograms are super interesting, and may be a way for artists like myself and many others like me in the game industry to print work which integrate their 3d knowledge. I may consider this something I would like to do for Enfu at some point as curiosity always gets me to want to try new mediums. An example from their site is here below:

The artists below are Laurent Pratlong and Pascal Blanche.

Anaglyph of me at the Enfu show at Kobo

2008-10-21T23:28:00.000-07:00

At the Enfu show this last August I met an interesting artist named Kiyoshi Toda. He handed me a business card made out of nice washi paper that looked like it was hand torn and it was a piece of artwork in and of itself.
He also had this cool looking camera with two lenses side by side. Since I also dabble in photography I immediately took interest. He took a picture of me and later left a print of the picture at Kobo for me! Thank you Kiyoshi-san.

You need 3-d glasses to view this anaglyph, so pull one out of your pocket and view this image. Very interesting.

Prints comparisons

2008-10-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

So I took some macro photos of the recent "Nihon Town" prints.
I wanted people to clearly see the difference in print quality...as much as one can without actually physically seeing it.
I would urge you to physically see it by buying all of them :).
But honestly you'll miss out on the texture and the full experience of seeing the transparency of the pieces.

Danny Choo, PAX, Bellevue Blue C

2008-09-20T15:53:00.000-07:00

Lots to update, should probably update this blog more.

In the "Nihontown" print I included the Dancing Storm Trooper from Danny Choo.
Since I included him in the piece, I sent him a print and he kindly featured it in the background of his post on "Kagami Hiiragi", and "A Week in Tokyo 25".
Thanks for the plug Danny! The below image is from Dannychoo.com.

I normally do not post non Enfu stuff on this blog, but recently I went to PAX to sign some artwork I did. The fans loved it, but I also loved being there it was great fun. I went two days and got to see all the games on the floor, and its looking more and more like E3. I've included a picture of us signing at the Bungie booth.

Also my last post was about the window treatment in the first floor of Bellevue Square right along Bellevue Way. Blue C Sushi will be opening their store early 2009 and my mural was used to dress the windows. Thanks guys!

Bellevue Blue C coming soon

2008-09-13T01:44:00.000-07:00

Akimatsuri at BCC came and went again this year. It went well thank you to all those who bought prints at the show. I see this fall festival as the biggest gathering of Japanese nationals in the area. Whereas the Obon is probably one of the biggest gathering of Nikkei, and few nationals show up, Akimatsuri alot more nationals show up from my observations. My initial reasoning for this must be that nationals relate way more to this type of gathering than Obon. I may be wrong in this assumption, but what do others think, have they made this same observation?

Also Blue C Sushi is coming to Bellevue! Blue C hung a window treatment which includes images from the latest Nihontown mural.
Bellevue downtown is growing like crazy and living in Bellevue myself I see the constant forest of building cranes growing out of the Downtown landscape its crazy. When Blue C comes it will probably be the next Kaiten Sushi hotspot in the area. Look out Marinpolis!

On other news Giant Robot LA, SF, and NYC now carry my Nihontown prints!
Blue Bottle and Kobo are my main two outlets in the Seattle area which carry my work, but its great to have Giant Robot pick up some prints, thank you Eric Nakamura!
I wish there was a Giant Robot in Seattle! hint hint.

Kobo Show

2008-08-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

The show was awesome!
Thank you everyone who was able to attend for your support, it means a lot!
Also I'd like to thank Kobo for their part in preserving Seattle's Japan Town, and their efforts to keep in tact the historical Higo store.
At the show I revealed "Nihon Town" the screenprint version.
It took a lot of love to create these panels, so being able to finally reveal them was very satisfying.

More pictures of the whole process of making these panels, and more pictures of the show here.

Blue C Sushi Mural

2008-07-27T07:56:00.000-07:00

So the day came and went, Blue C Southcenter opening. It was a great event, friends and family of Blue C were invited to the Grand Opening, sushi was flying everywhere. Viewing the mural blown up to 5ft x 25ft definitely hits you more than looking at it on paper or on screen.

I'm working out the details now, but I'm offering 4 different versions of this print to meet the needs of varying collectors, and to make my work accessible to many:

1. "Nihon Town" (Poster):
6"x30", with a 1" border (8"x32" total dims)
Open Edition print comes unsigned
Printed on 90# Mohawk Cvr paper
Retails for $20

2. "Nihon Town" (Archival Limited Edition Print):
6"x30", with a 2" border (10"x34" total dims)
Limited edition of 500, comes signed, embossed, and packaged with certs like my other
screenprints.
Printed on Moab Entrada Bright White, 300GSM paper
Retails for $100

3. "Nihon Town" (Stretch Canvas Print):
12"x60" canvas
Limited edition of 250, comes signed and branded on back wood frame with certs
Stretch canvas with Matte varnish
Retails for $500

4. "Nihon Town" (Screenprint)
Five 2ft. x 2ft. slabs of 3/4" thick bamboo veneer
Hyper Limited to only 3 editions
This print will have a distinct look compared to the other versions
Retails: Undecided

The first two prints should be available to purchase online after the Kobo show on 8/15.
Also I've thrown in the image of the postcard for the Enfu show at Kobo, which will be held at the Higo branch in the International District.

For now I've got to get working on the screenprint version and the compilation piece that will be like a key to explain all the parts of this weird mural.

Also looking ahead a bit to September I'll also be attending the annual Akimatsuri.
It will be on September 6 (10am-6pm), Sept. 7 (11am-5pm).
Its run with very passionate volunteers of the Eastside Nihon Matsuri Assocation which is a non-profit organization dedicated in preserving and furthering the arts and crafts of Japan.

Introducing... "Nihon Town"

2008-07-21T00:52:00.000-07:00

After much blood, sweat, and tears, Enfu's first pano piece.

Much more work than ever anticipated, much respect to those who even attempt complicated scenes or panos. It takes a lot of patience, troubleshooting, rework, and detail managment.

Also I will now look at Where's Waldo pieces a LOT differently for sure.

I want to thank a bunch of my coworkers who have given me tons of great feedback on how to improve the image along the way. Its great to get outside perspective on a piece you're too close to.

So this piece was done for Blue C Sushi.

They are opening a branch in South Center, just south of Seattle.

So in the piece you can see there are plates of sushi, their logo on one of the signs, and the color template for the sushi plate types in the signs as well.

But on a personal level this piece is filled with many of Enfu's nybrid nippop themed pieces, and simply a vast combination of both cultures. There is only a growing rift I see between the two cultures of Japanese Nationals and Japanese emigrants (Nikkei people), and Enfu is about exploring and preserving this quickly changing 'subculture'.

I will be making a companion piece to this pano to describe in detail the hidden meanings of many things within the piece, but until then you'll have to decifer them on your own.

So this piece will be revealed first at Blue C, but slightly after will be showing at KOBO on August 15th, which is Enfu's first show ever.

There will be prints as well.

Revealing the first Enfu Pano....

2008-07-03T02:36:00.000-07:00

...and maybe the only Enfu pano.

Its been a long month and a half.

I've been working hard on a mural project so I've had my head to the grindstone.

Its been a while since I've done such a complicated piece. So far most of my pieces have always been isolated images of my hybrid pieces created mostly out of my lack of time and an inability for me to stay focused for a long time on any one subject before losing interest.

I remember back in high school I painted a mural for class, and I chose a nature scene. I felt ambitious and painted a forest, a desert, and an ocean scene. At the time I felt it was really complicated because I tried filling it with so many elements. And that took me a good 60 hours to paint.

This piece has passed the 60 hour mark and I'm still not finished.

I hope to reveal a print of this for my Kobo show in Seattle on August 16th ...only a month away.

Well without going too much into it I'm just going to post the image.

Emerald City Comicon 2008

2008-05-11T22:48:00.000-07:00

This year's Comicon was a blast.
I didn't plan as well as I wanted to, so next time I hope I'll be more prepared.

I met a cool artist named Katy Hargrove:
http://tangrala.blogspot.com/
She is a fellow artist who works in the video game industry, it was encouraging to see more and more game artists come out of the woodworks.
Companies such as Bungie, Arena.net, Loose Cannon, and Valve were representing to my knowledge.
Her cute little paintings were really great I snatched up a couple prints yay!

It was a great turnout on Saturday, but Sunday being Mothers' Day it seemed a lot slower.
It was nice seeing people react to my work in many different ways. Its really awesome getting to see how people connected to different pieces and how they could relate to them.

Giving Linocuts a try

2008-04-14T00:04:00.000-07:00

So after attending Rei Morimura's woodblock demo at the Azuma Gallery, I felt like I was able to give linocuts a shot. Instead of making another official Enfu product, I decided it was best to test the technique on a drawing I've already done.

I found trying to transfer the image using a t-shirt transfer was not the way to go. It didn't transfer the image onto the easycut mat like I wanted it to. I think next time I should simply transfer it using acrylic medium gloss.

I also cut the other two colors and made a poor atempt at doing a test 3 color linocut but my registration was totally off. Learned the lesson of needing to register all 3 images correctly. I wasn't able to do so because my transfer technique was so horrible to begin with. Oh well at least the one color looked okay.

I also should try this with oil based ink because I hear it just transfers better and the colors are more vibrant. Using water based acrylic ink gave me a low qualtiy transfer.

Also my selection of paper was a good toothed penny bond paper. I'll try it with Kozo paper next time.

2 new Bamboo Veneer prints done!

2008-02-24T21:51:00.000-08:00

Well after a long grueling process I'm finally done with the 2 new prints.

"U-Bin Box"

Edition of 25

4 platinum

6 A.P.

"Ase Cola"

Edition of 25

4 platinum

6 A.P.

Here is my new desk setup, giving me ample drying rack real estate for future projects.

Signing, numbering, and branding all the goodness.

Adding a coat of polymer to each piece, taking a day to dry, then applying a coat of UVLS varnish, then on top of that another layer of Matte Varnish. Each piece has 3 coats. Since I do these in batches this process really is a labour of love.

This is a picture of the prepped sanded block with its second screen of color.

3rd color applied.
I had to spray the transparencies with polyurethane so that the ink does not smear in the polymer coating.
Then I sprayed the screened blocks with polyurethane as well for the metallic platinum ink to retain its specularity after the polymer coat dries.
Coating each block in batches with polymer.
Close up of the signing process.

Finished product, its hard to appreciate the work that went into these pieces without touching and feeling the actual product. The matte sheen on the surface, along with its texture is really nice.

Near the beginning stages where I prepped these blocks for sanding and branding. This took all afternoon to accomplish, not to mention sore arms from all the sanding.

They are currently available at Blue Bottle Art Gallery, and will be available at Kobo soon.

Bamboo Veneer prep work

2008-01-03T23:02:00.000-08:00

So I recieved my metal hand stamp and branding iron.

Time to test it out.

I initially would've liked the brands to have come out more consistently, but I had to wait for the temperature to be the right amount and apply the right amount of pressure. I also found that prepping the veneer by sanding it would've made the brand look better.

The hand stamp turned out great, in my opinion.

So I guess I'll probably have to do significant prep work to each piece of veneer before applying the screenprint on it.

1. Sand corners, sides with coarse paper, and surfaces with fine paper.
2. Fill hand stamped signature with polymer and sand surface.
3. Screenprint. Polyuerathane layer sprayed to seal inks from polymer.
4. Add layer of polymer (dry for one day).
5. Add second polymer layer (dry for one day).
6. Add transparency gradient layer plus polymer (dry for one day).
7. 2 polymer layers (dry for two days).
8. 2 layers of matte varnish. (dry for two days).
9. Hammer in frame hook.
10. Apply Certificate of Authenticity.

The actual time it takes to create this look after the screenprint itself takes a week...not counting prep time before and after.

This is just what I'm thinking it will take to finish one piece. We'll see if this really will work.

2007 in Review plus preview of next 2 prints!

2007-12-30T23:06:00.001-08:00

For the past 2 months or so I've really been looking into developing the higher end prints which will be printed on bamboo veneer. The edition sizes will be way smaller. Enfu's bamboo veneer line is coming very soon. I've already prepared 2 cool prints and a box of nicely cut veneers to introduce this line. This line will be made of 6x6 3/4" thick bamboo veneer. The first layer will be screenprints, the next layer will be covered in a thick layer of polymer, on top of which will lay a transparency of linework, halftone gradient, and normal gradient (adding slightly more depth than screenprinting alone). On top of the transparency is another polymer layer and a matte varnish. This new line will probably be considered mixed media since it isn't a screenprint alone.

"Ase-Cola"

Well thanks to sites like Engrish.com many of you know or heard of the Japanese drink Pocari Sweat. I've had the drink since I was a kid and its great. I never really thought about the fact that I'm drinking a drink labeled sweat, but it obviously became a butt of many jokes here in the US. I thought why not label it with the Japanese word for sweat 'Ase' so the Japanese would know how weird it is. Also, since the fruit flavor Acerola is common outside of the US, and it sounds like Ase Cola, I decided it would be funny if I gave the drink that flavor.

"U-Bin-Box"

I initially came up with this simple hybrid a long time ago as its fairly easy to combine such iconic well recognizeable items on the street. I found it interesting how different a simple design of a post office box is to different cultures. Funny story: The common US post box shape looks similar to what garbage cans look like in Japan. So similar in fact, that I knew of a Japanese native throwing away garbage in the post box.

This is my 3rd year since I've started this blog in 2005. I guess its now a habit for me to blog my years' lessons regarding Enfu.

-When you buy art you buy time.
A friend of mine owns original Hiroshige works. When I first saw it hanging in the room I could not believe it! Wow!!! An actual Ukiyoe from Japan preserved in time. He told me that when you buy art you only buy the right to enjoy it in your lifetime. The artwork will remain long after you die and it will simply just get passed on. So the money you pluck down for a nice piece of work is your rental fee for enjoying it in your lifetime. I never thought of art like that....put things in perspective for me.

-People buy prints for different reasons.
Some people buy the print cause they simply like the design, others because they understand the concept or can relate to the subject matter. I'm just thankful for anyone who digs my stuff enough to shell out their hard earned money.

-Nikkei? Whats that?
Most people don't really care about why you create what you do. Most people could care less about the Japanese American culture, or Nikkei culture. Even many Nikkei don't really care about Nikkei culture in my opinion. The Nikkei community is dwindling, and its hay day like in pre WW2 times is long gone. So my effort to include Nikkei themes in my work feels at times to be more of self preservation of a 'dying' culture.
Don't confuse Nikkei culture with Japanese culture. Nikkei are not Japanese, just of Japanese descent.

-You don't have to be Japanese to create content which is 'Japanese' and be successful.
Take the artist tokidoki, who does cute little characters which adorn Le Sportsac bags. They are great designs. I like the little drawings. But he is Italian. Not Japanese. Does this really matter? Do I care that a non Japanese person uses Japanese females adorned in tatoos of Geishas to promote his work? When I think about it the Japanese used an Italian plumber who has the notable 'italian' accent "Its-a-me, Mario!" to promote their game, so I guess all is fair game.
Now take Yumiko Kayukawa. She is a Japanese national making great art in the Seattle area. Her works also portray Japanese females in sexy poses along with other content of course. But she IS a Japanese female.
Although as an artist who appreciates simply good art I can appreciate both successful artists' work.
BUT I still feel a bit obligated to mention that it bothers me for some reason.

Back in Action

2007-11-19T21:25:00.000-08:00

Well its been about 3 months since my last post.

Which means I'm about due for another series to be out soon.
Alot has happened in the last 3 months:

Enfu attended the Akimatsuri in early September. Got to meet lots of great people. I noticed a lot more people responded and reacted to my pieces in comparison to the crowds at the Comicon. Also the first time Enfu accepted credit cards at a convention.
We worked very hard and finally shipped our game Halo 3 and partied like never before. Best Buy at midnight on September 24th. 3 busloads of fellow coworkers went to sign stuff and thank the fans.

I really wish I would've gotten to sit and talk with Bill Gates but it was not the place nor time so I just had my friend take a picture of me posing like an ass.
Went on a month long vacation to Hawaii and Japan to recoop. Took a massive amount of pictures, and had a lot of fun with my Lomo camera taking panoramic pictures.

Also while in Japan I got to meet a true Bizen Potter who had his own Noborigama (slanted fire kiln) built on his own hill. He was an apprentice of Bizen Yaki pottery. They do not add coloring before they fire the items, but color using natural age old techniques of placing wood or different types of grass, using different temperatures etc. When we visited he was on his second straight week (24/7) of tending the fire! It was almost at 1000 degrees C. I really was inspired by seeing a true craftsman practicing his trade.

So now I am back in Seattle and Enfu is on the up and up. Sales are doing surprisingly well and Enfu will have its first show at Kobo in Summer 08. Emerald City Comicon this year will also be a blast which is in May 08. They are moving to the Washington State Convention Center this year, which is a much bigger venue. A bunch of coworkers will also be with me so I am super excited for it.

So now that I am really motivated for producing alot of new work I'm doing a lot of R&D for possible materials to print on.

I was thinking of printing on bamboo veneer but I am currently looking for a good supplier. Calling around and looking for stores which carry what I am looking for is like a very slow treasure hunt.
Also printing on thicker pieces of wood with a thick layer of resin would also look sweet. So I went to Home Depot, got Lowes to saw the pieces cause Home Depot wouldn't do it, sanded, primed, and sanded some more. I created a silicon mold in which I will have to pour the resin in but I need to paint the wood to test it before I pour it.

R&D always takes up a lot of time and alot of time discovering ways not to do things. But every time I spend time doing this kind of thing I learn a ton about the process and it is very rewarding.

As for the next piece I have not decided on what to do next so I'll keep that for my next post.

Enfu @ Kobo

2007-08-18T23:23:00.000-07:00

Kobo on Capitol Hill in Seattle now has Enfu on display. They are an artisan gallery carrying a vast amount of other fine crats and designs from Japan and the Northwest.
Thanks Kobo for all your support!

Daruma Series finally finished!

2007-08-12T23:59:00.000-07:00

After a lot of work, finally this series has been packaged and good to go. With the help of close friends we were able to package the whole series within a couple of hours. Phew! If I were to have done them myself it would've taken 3,4 late nights doing this myself. So for those who helped I'm really greatful.
Need I mention they have also already been hand delivered to KOBO and Blue Bottle?
Here are the much awaited pics.
They aren't even available on my website yet.

"DARU-MIX"

$50

"Mini Daru Series V1.0"

$35 for pack of 6

$7 individual

$15 rare platinum version

Rare Platinum version.

"Darenga"
$40

"Darumi"

$50

expanding outlets

2007-08-03T00:53:00.000-07:00

Enfu is currently available at 3 stores.
Blue Bottle
Gallery 1988
Kobo

These galleries and boutiques have given Enfu the support and exposure needed. I am very greatful for these opportunities. Thank you very much from Enfu.

I visited the Bellevue Art Fair this past weekend, and was inspired by the local crafts and other artists who have been pursuing their own craft. Thanks for the inspiration ya'll.

Daruma Series sent to print.

2007-07-24T22:50:00.000-07:00

This is a sneak peak as to what the open edition Mini Daruma series will be. Darumas come normally without eyes. When you set a goal, you paint in one eye, and when you complete a goal, you paint in the other. I have alloted a space on the bottom for people to write in their own goals. Also there are a total of 6 version of the Mini Darumas so far with its own unique kanji character symbolizing the nature of the goal. The one below is the kanji "Tomi", which means wealth.

These are what the next main Enfu limited edition prints will look like.

Finally the series has been sent to print. The final colors have been decided, and now it will be in the hands of the fine craftmanship of Steve Horvath.

Unfortunately my printer Tom Dewar who has exclusively been printing my Enfu prints has moved on to another career, so he will not be available to be my printer. I have decided to go with Steve Horvath, who is the owner of D&L Printing in Ballard, Seattle. His craftmanship and attention to detail is amazing, as his client list will attest to.
There will be a version of these prints that will replace the gold with silver, so that there will be a rarer silver version of these prints which will be available if requested.

Daruma Series WIP

2007-07-07T18:16:00.000-07:00

So I've been slacking again in my blog posts, but I've still been working at home on my next series.
These are my works in progress images. I'm working out the basic compositions of all the pieces at the same time.
Currently I'm planning on 3 pieces around 10"x13" with an edition of 50.
Then for the first time Enfu will release a few open edition mini prints!
I've not come up with names yet, but here is a bried description of the prints:
1. "Daru-tryoshka" Simply is my image of what a child born of a Daruma doll and Matryoshka (Russian) doll would look like. This image shows the beginning stages of the creation of this image, starting from a sketch.
2. "DaruMix" Different arrangements of both Daruma and Matryoshka before they become conjoined.
3. "Darenga"- This image is a combination of 2 children's toys I played when I was a kid. One was Jenga a familiar game in the US. The other is called Daruma Otoshi. Daruma Otoshi is a game where you are supposed to hit the blocks on the bottom with a hammer without toppling the top block. Jenga is where you pull a block from the bottom and put it on top before it topples. I had arranged the piece to be more interesting, so there are Daruma's on both ends and tried to arrange the piece similar to a Jolly Roger pose.
4. Open Edition Darumas - will have several different versions with different kanji on the front, and an area to write down your goals, and possibly have the eyes removed so you have to draw the eyes in yourself.

Qee named street date?

2007-04-25T22:29:00.000-07:00

"Tako Kichi" is what Enfu's Qee will be called.
Thanks for everybody's input.

On other news Enfu has been approved to sell works at the Akimatsuri this fall at BCC. By then a few new sets will be available to purchase...be looking forward to it.

Looking forward to my next print. It will be based on the Daruma doll. The series I'm planning will have a combination of Daruma and....drum roll....
matryoshka dolls.
This one'll be simply wierd looking.

Help me name my Qee!

2007-04-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

Well since Enfu's conception, it has come a long way. Qee's Toy2R has decided to mass produce my custom design Qee figure! Something I mentioned in my last post. I now need a name for this figure and am asking my readers to help me out. Please help me name my Qee. It was based off of my "Tako Truck" print, which is the first ever Enfu print.

Previously posted images of the back and front.

Also in other great news Blue Bottle Art Gallery has been selling alot of my new vehicle prints. The great thing about serigraphs are that they are affordable ways for me to distribute my works, but also, I get so attached to originals I don't want to part ways with them. In this way Blue Bottle does a great job presenting my works for the collectors out there who appreciate art. Thanks Blue Bottle!

In developing news. ENMA's annual Akimatsuri (Fall Festival) which happens every fall at BCC's campus is in the process of considering Enfu as an exhibitor! This is great because Enma's efforts in spreading Japanese culture is aligned with Enfu's efforts to portray my perspective of my experience of Japanese American east meets west themes. Enma and Enfu sound really close huh?

okay enough..now lets think of a name!

Comicon a success!!

2007-04-02T23:57:00.000-07:00

So this year's Emerald City Comicon was great for Enfu. Not only did we well alot of prints, but I met some awesome people.

I learned alot this year at the Con, and am very excited to do it again next year.

I met a lot of very cool people and some wierd ones as well. My favorite was this dude dressed as a tiger walking around, ....priceless.

Milton Cadogan, Lorraine, and Robt Mclees sitting next to me was a great encouragement, time flew by quick. They did some awesome sketches on request, and a couple times a line formed for them!

My very first sale of the Comicon went to Robert Khoo from Penny Arcade! I've been a big PA fan ever since I got into the video game industry, so it was a great surprise. I've always admired their work with PAX and Child's Play.

My daughter made her first ever Comicon appearance as she cheered her dad on...more like drooled on dad.

Thanks to Michio and Bunny Trail's Yukari Enfu was able to run smoothly from set up to tear down.

"SaKeG" first made its apperance at the Comicon but is now currently available from the website. It debuted strongly and both "SaKeG" and "SaKeG Q" combined were my second best selling prints!

Thank you for all your support!

Enfu getting ready for the Comicon

2007-03-29T07:37:00.000-07:00

So SaKeG is almost ready, in fact, it should be done today.
I've decided last minute that there will be 2 versions available. "SaKeG Q", and "SaKeG D", one is a Quad print, and the other a dual print. They will both look a bit different, and will give the collector a choice in which one they'd rather have.

In other news, remember that Qee I entered into a contest almost about a year ago? Well I got a call out of the blue with great news that they've decided to mass produce my Qee!!! Wooow. Totally out of the blue. With that Enfu will soon have its own collectible figure based off of the Tako Truck illustration, which is suitable because its the very first illustration for Enfu. So for those who think ahead, grab up "Tako Truck" before they're all gone.

This weekend is the Emerald City Comicon. I'll be going there sitting next to a couple Bungie work buds of mine. Frankie also kindly said he'd mention it to the Bungie Nation in his weekly post. We'll sign anything Bungie if you bring us something to sign as well. Lorraine and Milton will be doing some sketches for people, and it will be a blast.

I'll post SaKeG pics probably after the Con when I've got more time. Till then the first people to see them will be the Con goers!

Almost screen ready

2007-03-08T23:59:00.000-08:00

So the 3d rendering is simply a reference for my simplified screens. I love this stage in the development of these prints. Its the most fun and freeing part.

Here is my work in progress. Almost done. I'm trying to get these done before the Comicon. This is still a work in progress. I'll tone down the red in the Sarukaze winery texts and add splashes of wine in the background next iteration. Fun to come....

This will be Enfu's first Quad-Print, sold in a set of 4.

What a deal!

SaKeg narrowed down

2007-02-25T08:50:00.000-08:00

I've decided to not go with 6 shots, but of the 6, I picked 4 which I thought would be doable.
This will be Enfu's first Quad print. The problem with this piece is that it needed to be interesting from all sides, and it had to potential to carry alot of information from every angle.
Rendering this piece in 3d beforehand was a fun excercise, and its a great tool for preproduction of a piece. Before I even touched the mouse to build this in 3d however, I spent time sketching with my trusty brush pen on my favorite paper: Penny Bond.
After I got something I was happy with I rendered it in 3d, and got many composition shots I liked.
The next step is to take these images and make it work as a screenprint and give it some Enfu-ness.
I'm thinking potentially to get these done before the Emerald City Comicon...but we'll see if I can pull this off.

introducing SaKeG!

2007-01-23T00:15:00.000-08:00

Yeah yeah the names of the pieces aren't as creative as I'd like...but hey, the conent of Enfu stays the same. As always, its going to be something Japanese combined with what I would consider to be an American equivalent. So with that said for like the 500th time I had this in my head a long time, but just never got down to prototyping it. A Sake barrel seen many times in Sushi shops is called a Sakadaru. Wine is held in Kegs...well ...barrels really, but I wanted to make the name work so there. Initially, I thought a beer keg would look awesome combined with a Sakadaru, but I thought it over, and it isn't really the same thing...Sake and Beer...at least Sake and wine are a biiit closer.
The character on the Sakadaru reads 'enfu', which can also be read 'sarukaze'.
Anyway, this design was mocked up in 3d, with the intention of it becoming a screenprint in the end. The design is temporary, I'd like to have it more elaborate, as designs or sakadarus are really normally elaborate. I will have to consider the composition of the pieces, whether or not to make these all seperate mini prints, or in 2 series of 3...hmmm.

Vehicle Generation 1 revealed....

2007-01-16T07:56:00.000-08:00

The new prints are now available online and at Blue Bottle Art Gallery.

The new prints are actually doing really well so far, and it hasn't been but a week since they've been out!

I've already got a huge queue of prints that are in the process of being created. You can see my process in how I've created my previous prints.

2006 in Review

2006-12-25T11:58:00.000-08:00

Wow, it seems a lot happens every year. 2006 was definitely a big year.

-Attended my first Comicon.
-Turned 29.
-Got hired at Bungie.
-Had our daughter Erika.
-Printed 'Super Ultra', 'Gnomuki', 'Denshin Poles', and 'Enfoodle'.

My initial goal for print production was 1 every other month..which is 6 per year. I was off by 2. I have as many of you know in the line up 3 more, which were initially planned to print this year, but its looking like it'll be early next year.
I've still got tons of ideas ready to be printed, the only thing holding me back is time.

Looking forward to a great 2007!

Vehicle Set Generation 1

2006-11-28T21:38:00.000-08:00

Okay, so the look has drastically changed over time. I figured that silver on black would be too contrasty. The blend pulls will be something to add variety to each print as well. I'm hoping it'll turn out well, and I'm not sure the layout will work or not until I check with my printer. We'll see. I'm much more happier with the look of these than the others.

2006-11-15T22:30:00.000-08:00

Here is the updated image, with the same treatment....
Its hard to find time to draw when you have a kid....

2006-11-14T23:04:00.000-08:00

I'm still wrestling with unifying the looks of the three pieces, I'm thinking that smoke and gradient effects will help. Also, since 3 of them will be on the same print layout, deciding to flip the orientation of the Semi Truck was tough, but it will help when I try adding a layer of blend color to the screenprint.
I've gone back and forth with paper color as well, as I toy with the layout of the print and just what I felt looked good.
I'm liking the silver ink on dark green or black right now..but a third color is being decided on.

And I'm unveiling the third vehicle in the what I'd like to call my First Gen Vehicle Set. I figured, it would be more fun to release these prints in smaller batches instead of holding them off till I have 8 or 9...its more fun too.

This time the edition size will be smaller, and therefor much easier to manage. woo hoo!

Here are the wips.

2006-10-05T00:54:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest of the vehicle series, making DenBus fit the same style as the other one.

Deko Tora update

2006-09-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

So I've updated the illustration to give it more of a handdrawn look to the image. I really wasn't too satisfied with the clean straight lines as they looked way to straight and less hand drawn to me. Besides, it looks way different from the look of DenBus, and they are supposed to be a series.
I'm not completely 100% on this, but close....

DecoTora

2006-09-21T00:49:00.000-07:00

Here is a work in progress of the second in the set of vehicles for the next series.
Its a cross between a semi you'd see on I-5, and a decorated truck you'd see on rural roads in Japan.
I swear you'd hardly believe it even if you'd seen one, but its like a carnival all lit up, its totally a subculture similar to American Choppers or Fast and Furious ricers.
I wanted something other than a side view of this truck, so with the help of 3d I was able to set up my perspective, and i'll be adding tons of things here and there to bring it over the top.

Bungie crunch

2006-09-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

The past 2 weeks we went through what we called a baby crunch at Bungie, working 15 hr days for 2 wks.
But at home we were going through our own baby crunch getting ready for our daughter. Many trips to Babys R Us and a baby shower later, we now almost have the whole baby room set up, complete with a new coat of paint.

Which I'd like to say is my excuse for not getting any Enfu work done, but thats not true. Still pursuing completeing my vehicle set, I pulled out my archives of the preproduction sketches I had made for these vehicles.
I'm currently struggling to find out what will unify these pieces other than the content being vehicles, the color and paper. The DenBus illustration was a simply side view, and the next illustration is of a semi truck all pimped out all in the Japanese trucker subculture. I mocked up the composition in 3d and am working on an agreeable camera angle. I'd ideally like an angle which will show all the features of the truck I'd like to show, but also this angle will distrupt the unity within the pieces, so I'm kind of worried.
I'll post WIP pics on a later post.

The Bungie website has posted my profile finally.

http://www.bungie.net/Inside/MeetTheTeam.aspx?Person=Taya

Also the Qee that I had submitted didn't win anything. But all the artists got
reconized here:

http://www.qeester.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6900

Google!!

2006-09-02T01:45:00.000-07:00

Ok,
So this isn't all too related to an Enfu product, but there is something really awesome that I stumbled upon tonight that I'd like to share.
Google.
I've been a big fan of Google since the search engine...but its waay more..way more.

I was introduced to Google Earth from a coworker, and we were all amazed at its capabilities. I was a fond user of Mapquest before...Mapquest is dead to me now. Never can go back. Then I used Google Earth to measure the distance of our occasional walks we took in the summer. Using its easy to use path tool I found we walked 3.3 miles. Google Earth is great...get it.

Then I started using Gmail. It was great...my hotmail account all but in a week became useless to me, except for IM. I now use Gmail.

(Then I quit Monolith and now am working at Bungie, which is part of Microsoft. )

My love for Google now makes me a borderline traitor. But I still love it.

I discovered 3 more things about Google that I am planning on integrating into my life. Really...into my life.

1. Picassa. I was looking for a good way to store and sort all my digital images....I looked into Flikr, but I didn't want to join no Yahoo. I joined Yahoo for the chat a while back and used like twice and never went back. I figured..hey if Yahoo has its picture sharing place, I bet Google has one too! A couple clicks later I found myself downloading Picassa. IT IS AWESOME. Get it. A very easy to understand interface, no hassle, it does it all for you, and it looks pretty.

2. Google Calender.
I only have Outlook at work, not at home, and use Gmail and MSN IM at home. Google Calender for me was a great little scheduler tool for me.

3......drum rollll.....

SKETCHUP!
http://sketchup.google.com

I make 3d environments for a living for crying out loud. But sketch up was still a very professional 3d application for the average joe. I wanted to test Google's track record in my book for creating yet another product which to the end user is easy to understand. So I didn't view the tutorials. I got as far as building the general shape of my condo complex and placing it in Google Earth!! WOW!!! I started watching the tutorials....WOW WOW WOW!
Of course SketchUp still has a long way to go depthwise in comparison to Max and Maya, but still using this product inspired me to gush about Google.

I never thought Google would impact my life this much. I thought it was merely a search engine....but now that I use it to plan trips, for my mail, for scheduling, and for my own little toy 3d modeling interface...(ALL FOR FREE), I can't help but write this blog entry.

DenBus WIP

2006-09-02T01:41:00.000-07:00

So I haven't updated this blog...cause I've not been making much new stuff for Enfu.
BUT, I have created the draft for my first in a series of vehicle pics "DenBus". Its a combination of the Metro Bus we see here in Seattle, and a regular run of the mill commuter train in Japan, with a bit of the Shinkansen (bullet train) elements in it.
This is still a work in progress, and the red is a color I'm not going to stick with, but this is what I have so far.

quickie car sketches

2006-07-08T17:22:00.000-07:00

Sat at Pete's Coffee in Freemont staring at the cars lining up at the Freemont Bridge. I found a nice spot which I was able to view the cars stopping at the intersection waiting at the light. I figured that this was the best place to do quick car sketches all within the time of the light, which took about a minute to change. Figuring out which lines make a car within a minute time was really challenging.

Something I observed...people don't like to stop at the line, many people stopped a whole car length ahead of the line, which totally blocked the cars making left turns. Also, cyclists are idiots...they expect to cars to yield to them no matter what. Even when it was obvious that the cars had the right of way and they were crossing on a red, they still had the balls to go right on ahead. It seemed to me from observation that they almost expected the line of cars to stop for them, and some of these guys weren't even wearing helmets! In the period of 30 minutes, I saw 3 cyclists stop cars in the middle of the intersection and almost caused accidents.

Qee Enfu

2006-07-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

I entered into a Qee designing contest recently. I apparently 'passed' the initial art screening....kewl...
Then a couple days later this Qee figure was on my doorstep.
I thought I'd start off the 4 day weekend with a little bit of suweet tasting Enfu honey so I got off my ass and first figured out how to paint this sucka.
I've never painted any of my figures to completion before, so this was a new challenge for me.
I first had a couple designs flushed out digitally, but I ended up with one of the simpler designs as I didn't want to over comit to something I've never done before.
I wanted to base the Qee on the Tako Truck illustration I did, so I initially wanted to paint with acrylic, but decided that waiting to have Tom (my screenprinter) mix the paints would take a while so I just went out and bought some spraypaints, primer, and matte finish.
I first took apart the Qee by putting it in hot water and pulling the pieces apart, then I primed each piece, masked out the white areas and painted it blue. Basically masking and painting the yellow, and going over with a sharpie pen and a black poster paint pen.

The hardest part by far was putting the pieces back together. I used a blow dryer to loosen the plastic parts after cutting a v shaped notch in the knobs, but even then it was tough.
If I ever get a chance to do another Qee I'll have the confidence to execute a bit better on the painting, but for the most part I'm really satisfied with the outcome.

I'll turn it in and see if it gets Enfu anywhere. Wish me luck!

Enfu update, alot is happening

2006-06-26T22:54:00.000-07:00

Well since the breather alot has happened.

My wife is pregnant with our daughter.
I left my job at Monolith to move onto Bungie.
We painted the interior of our townhouse.
We took our honeymoon.

So in the meantime I still think about Enfu and what I could be making, but unfortunately life has taken me on a bit of an Enfu detour for a bit.

Here is a tidbit from our honeymoon.

Well while on our honeymoon we visited many galleries on the Big Island and Oahu. The usual dolphin or other what I call 'old people' galleries..are all over the place. There were a couple neat pieces that interested me here and there, however, it was so humid I could barely concentrate on the pictures themselves.
I dropped by Chinatown in Oahu, but I barely had time to commit to gallery browsing, as it wasn't on our things to do...but I was able to visit a couple of galleries and could see that the Chinatown scene was a bit younger.

On another note. Some observations I made in Hawaii. There are too many Japanese tourists there. Although us going was only adding to the problem, I somehow didn't like to be seen as a Japanese tourist. I mean...I've only seen this many Japanese people in Japan. The whole beach waterfront with all the stores were being frequented by mostly Japanese nationals. I'd wager that almost more business is banking on their buying power than all other Americans. Anyway, I came to relax and the hustle and bustle of many Japanese walking by made me think of the restlessness of Tokyo and it threw me off a bit.
The Big Island was way more laid back and was a place to take it all in.

Our friend took us on a single engine cesna and he allowed me to take off, manuever, and land the plane!! It was definitely a fun experience. Of course he had control when I lost it, so we didn't crash and burn, but when he showed us what it felt like to experience zero Gs in that little piece of metal the size of my Scion XB I thought we were going to die. I'd do it again.

Breather

2006-05-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

Well, the past 3 nights have been about taking the 400 prints, signing and numbering, hand embossing and hand rounding corners on each of the prints. What I found was that embossing an 18pt. thick paper is much harder than a 100lb. thick paper stock. MUCH harder. It was way harder to get the enfu emboss to stick out, I had to do multiple squeezes as hard as I could to get it to look good. To top off all the red palmness I got from squeezing the heck out of the embosser, my thumbs were numb pressing the corner rounder stamper. I had to physically rest my fingers after each and every print. After a couple prints and figuring out I couldn't physically accomplish this amount of prints at this rate, I took a rubbery tape measure in my hand, placed it in between the button I had to push down and my hand, so I didn't have to strain my fingers. This worked really well, which made me able to push the button without putting so much weight on my fingers.
I found a nice milk crate which fit all my prints perfectly and made my own print stack library thingy. Awesome....looking at that stack of packaged prints made me feel a sense of real accomplishment.
Now that I've gone through this process for the 3rd time, I feel like I've gotten what I need to know out of this process and am able to completely free up my mind space for letting more creative ideas occupy my head before it gets commited on paper.
I'll be taking a breather before I print my next batch of prints.

To give you guys a hint of what I'm thinking about next:
5-8 pieces that go together, all vehicles in my head on greenish paper, using some metalic inks. This will be a test to see if I can really get a cohesive look down which will tie all the pieces together. I'm up for the challenge.

This is the most fun part of Enfu. Transfering what I see in my mind's eye to a physical manisfestation of a print which I can share with many people.

"Gnomuki", "Denshin Poles", "Enfoodle" done!

2006-05-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

So the prints were done late last week and I finished signing and numbering all 400+ prints. I thought my hand hurt till I started hand stamping all 400+ prints with the enfu logo. ...sheesh...that was a lot of work. Then I rounded the corners of the mini prints (with the 1" border vs. the 2" border ones) with a corner rounder thingy...but since the stock was a heavy 18 pt. thickness it was really really hard to do. So my hand hurt like a *****.
They are looking real sweet if I say so myself..and since they are a bit smaller than the first two prints they will be a bit cheaper:
"Gnomuki": $40
"Denshin Poles": $50
"Enfoodle": $40
I also finished up the certificates of authenticity yesterday for the 3 prints. Now I'm waiting for the vinyl envelopes to stuff the prints in to complete the package and I'll be ready to update the main site!
The prints mainly come with a 2" border around, but a 1" border was made for half of the Gnomuki and half of Denshin Poles. This 1" border version will have the rounded corners and I'm planning on having these ones available only through my online store, and have the 2" ones available at boutiques.

Enfu Gif 2

2006-04-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

I had such a blast making the Enfu gif animation, I revised it and put it up on the http://www.enfu.com splash page.

Its a good second attempt, but I see a couple things wrong with it. I'm contemplating making the splash page choose random enfu logo animations, wouldn't that be neat?

Also, my next 3 prints will be coming out as early as next week! Be looking out for the prints update in a couple weeks.

Enfu Gif

2006-04-21T16:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.enfu.com/images/Enfu_Anim.gif
I always had animating my Enfu banner as something I'd wanted to do for a long time. I had the animation in mind right after I had designed the logo itself.
It was a really fun project, and I'm in the process of refining it.

Layout of next prints

2006-04-14T01:15:00.000-07:00

After much messing around with varying backgrounds for "Denshin Poles", I finally found something I can be happy with. I haven't felt this happy about the outcome of a print as much as this print because of the challenges I faced making this print was much greater than the others by far.
"Gnomuki" and "Enfoodle" are the other 2 images that will be on the same run. Here is a sneak peak at the layout. Of course, these will be cropped and become separate images:

Electric Poles WIP update

2006-04-13T00:19:00.000-07:00

Well lots have been going on with Enfu I just have been bad about updating recently.

I had gotten a bit tired of working on the poles illustration so I went on to another illustration. Then I came back to it fresh again. This illustration was simply the most challenging of all illustrations as it had totally pushed me out of my comfort zones in drawing. I don't normally do line drawings of environments, which is ironic cause I make environments for video games. This is still somewhat of a first for me.

Here is the WIP of the poles.

Blue Bottle Art Gallery

2006-04-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate enough to be able to have my works accepted to the Blue Bottle Art Gallery (http://www.bluebottleart.com/artwork/art_taya.php).
Leveraging the momentum Enfu had built over the comicon, I was able to continue working on "Denshin Poles". This piece is by far more challenging than both the Tako Truck and Super Ultra as its trying to isolate parts of an environment, which usually is part of the background.

I took a break from this piece and brought almost to a finish the third unannounced piece.

I'll be trying to print the next three prints all on chipboard utilizing similar colors to help cut costs and to force me to make style decisions. Creating pieces that are also relatively smaller in comparison to Tako Truck and Super Ultra will also be a bit more marketable to the average collector as well.

At this pace it shouldn't take more than a month to get the next batch out.

Until then I'll wait and see how the public responds to my work and hopefully the sales will help drive another round of prints after this.

Thanks for all of you who are supporting Enfu!!

Comicon Day 2

2006-04-02T19:51:00.000-07:00

Today's Comicon I was told would be slower in sales. But in fact I sold more on the second day.
It was really slow in the morning as always, but picked up for me in the end. Super Ultra turned a lot more heads than the Tako Truck by far.
I ended up trading with a couple of other artists to get some great artwork.
I met super awesome artist Bwana Spoons, who also dug my Tako Truck work so we did a trade: http://www.grasshutcorp.com/
Also Karin Yamagiwa and Suzanne Kauffman had great pieces of work that I would've liked to spend more money on but had to hold back.
The comicon was a great experience for me being the first convention I've shown at. It was eye opening in many ways and I'm excited about putting out more works to sell for the next one.

Comicon DAY 1

2006-04-01T21:35:00.000-08:00

So today's comicon was quite eventful. Lots and lots of people showed up at our booth and liked the work. Sales followed, but not as expected. I didn't get to sell as much of the screenprints that I would've liked, but sold more of the other framed images.
My conclusion is that I think most of the audience at the comicon reacted in a postive way to the Super Ultra print. We got many smiles, laughter, pointing and double takes all at that print. But also I think that the price range was set a bit high for the audience.
I'm hoping to push more for the screen prints tomorrow at the Con. It was a real positive experience for me, and I've learned so much through talking with many interesting people.
Thanks for all those who attended and supported Enfu!

Emerald City Comicon Prep

2006-03-29T23:33:00.000-08:00

Well its been a while since posting, but things have been a bit slow in terms of Enfu progress due to some personal issues.

For the Comicon I've gotten each of the prints custom framed courtesy of my connection at Aaron Brothers in Bellevue! It will look great on the show floor. I've also prepared little info sheets for those who may have questions about Enfu who haven't come across my site yet.
I'll also be showcasing a select few of my vehicle prints as well because I didn't reach my initial goal of having 4 unique Enfu prints.

There already has been lots of people interested in attending the Con so I'm really looking forward to it, and hopefully will be able to do this annually!

Grassroots marketing, or spamming?

2006-02-28T08:56:00.000-08:00

So currently I'm learning more and more about the perils of 'marketing'.
One, I don't know how to do it and I'll be the first to admit it.
Two, I don't have really much funds to work with currently for marketing.

So what are my options? Craigslist and Ebay. I started posting ads in Craigslist last night targeting certain cities.

Seattle
Los Angeles
New York
London
SF
San Diego
Honolulu
Chicago

I figure I'm going to try to be diligent of reposting every so often to keep people coming to my site. I'm posting under collectibles, since there is no 'art' section. This is the section that seems to have the most similar items.

Discovering that ebay is deep and complicated. I've never sold anything on ebay, but have bought on ebay 1 time. I bought a hard to find PC Engine game I wanted to play. There are all these little tiny fees you have to pay to have all the extras to make your post shiney and attractive. I think I'm going to need to polish up on how to post stuff effectively, may need to find a Dummies book somewhere.

This is totally DIY marketing. I now understand why people hire others to represent them. Cause its a real pain in the butt.

Site up!

2006-02-18T11:19:00.000-08:00

Finally Enfu.com is up!!
My website designer simply did an awesome job implementing my designs.
So if everyone could spread the word, I'd really appreciate it.

I've been preoccupied with other things recently, so things have been sort of in limbo.

Also the good news is my personal site www.kentaya.com is also up and running again after recovering from someone hacking it and closing it down.

Denshin Pole 2

2006-02-09T23:11:00.000-08:00

Flushed out more of the details of each of the posts. Would like to add lights and possibly some signs before adding the wires.
I think the challenge is to find a good compromise as to how to fade out the back poles. I think I'll simplify the images more and change the poles so each is a bit more unique.

Denshin Pole

2006-02-09T00:20:00.000-08:00

Finally started to get around to the most daunting illustration so far for me in the Enfu Line. I've become comfortable drawing vehicles and people, but far lack working with whole environments. "Denshin Poles" is meant to illustrate the extreme complexity of the Japanese concrete utility poles in stark contrast to wooden poles with much simpler attributes. They will be 2 pieces meant to be shown side by side as a set. I've found that making such a complex illustration is challenging, and also, when elements within the environments are to be the main subject, its hard to separate them from the rest of the environment, as these are usually what are put in the background of other illustrations.

Here is a work in progress of my work so far.

Packaging

2006-02-02T12:38:00.000-08:00

So all the packaging arrived last night for Super Ultra. I spent like 3 hours while watching TV putting the prints in vinyl envelope sheaths with cardboard backing and a Certificate of Authenticity. So about 70 prints packaged and 3 hrs later I was pooped. Brainless work, but needed to be done. It was sorta fun.

Including the certificate of Authenticity to all prints, including the Artists' proofs, is something I didn't do for TakoTruck. So I gotta go back and include the certs in all those. I already had distributed lots of Tako Truck Artists' proofs without handing them a certificate, so I wonder if its too late to do so. oh well.

I think I'll need to create an artists' statement to display at the ECC, so I'll need to research that as well.

2 more months till the big show.

Production got it, Marketing, learning it

2006-02-01T12:37:00.000-08:00

So now that I've got 2 prints under my belt I feel like I've got the production side down. Down enough for me to go on autopilot.

Distribution is still a ? because I've not sent one online yet. Marketing I'm learning more about, the book I'm reading on Art Marketing is pretty helpful, but I've got a lot to learn. What I'm counting on alot is the niche I plan to tap, the Nikkei Niche. Which means I'll probably try to target press that will target this niche.

Shows are a way of marketing. I plan to be more aggressive with getting shows after the ECC. I need the dust to settle after I test the waters.

Inspired easily

2006-01-30T12:37:00.000-08:00

As Ikuko went to hot yoga, I drove around Seattle taking pictures of materials for work. I also ended up stopping by the Seattle Asian Art Museum. I saw lots of stuff in there that inspired me again. Lots of cool looking statues of Buddha and gods with thousands of arms and warriors to protect Buddha.

I was wondering..100s of 1000s of years have passed since the sculptor died and still people are still looking at this product in awe...its cool how art outlives the artist. Makes me be more careful of the art I make I guess if I think some kid 100s of years in the future will be looking at my artwork through a piece of glass thinking "what the fuck is this Truck?"

Also, still looking around on the net to see others who are doing similar things, and seeing their prices. I've noticed that shipping at a flat rate of $10 seems to be great for domestic fees but most people ship in tubes and roll their prints. I hate that prints are rolled, it ruins the quality of the print. I found only a handful who choose to ship flat. I'm thinking that shipping internationally will cost so much that I think I may simply have to charge that much to get their business. I'm also thinking of dropping my handling fee to $5 instead of $8.

I'd like to have Gnomuki printed on something other than white paper. I'm thinking either chipboard (beige speckled paper), or balsa or some thin piece of wood. There are lots of artists painting on or printing on mediums other than paper anyway..it'll be worth a look into.

Since I've now got 2 pieces, I've got to finish packaging Super Ultra, then I've gotta test the mailing system of UPS and USPS for shipping tests, then enfu.com will be fully ready to be marketed! When that is done I'm ready to make 2 more pieces before the Comicon and ready to go around to local stores seeking shows.

Gnomuki draft

2006-01-27T12:37:00.000-08:00

Well I originally intended for my utility pole illustrations to come next, but I was itching to get Gnomuki out of the way. Gnomuki is a piece I'm thinking I'd want 2 versions of. So I've made 2 versions of it.

I'll be making tweaks here and there with some shapes and lines, but this is the look I'm going for.

Second Print Done

2006-01-26T12:36:00.000-08:00

I'm excited that SuperUltra is done!
This will be my second print which will be finished for Enfu. Which means I'll probably need to order more supplies like plastic bags and cardboard backings. To get them ready to sell.

Nanae is doing a great job on enfu.com so far, it should be online fairly soon. Then I can start getting things shipped.

If the whole UPS printing label thing works well I'll get to prepare to test my first online purchase this month! I'm thinking I'll inlcude a clause asking for more money if this is shipped internationally, or make some sort of special arrangement. As of now..the steep number $65 for shipping to Japan is just mindboggling to me.

shipping with UPS

2006-01-26T12:34:00.001-08:00

So I went to UPS to find out more about shipping costs because thats the big ? mark for me.

I found that generally a flat shipping fee will cover me for all of the lower 48 states. But if I ship to Alaska or Hawaii I will lose money on shipping.
Get this...lowest rate to Japan for shipping my package is $65!!
What am I gonna do with this problem? Shipping is more than the cost of the product itself! I cannot charge too much or no one in Japan will buy it. Which at these rates no one will.
So I'm thinking its dangerous for me as a shipper to charge a flat rate for international shipments. I'll just have to leave shipping internationally to either some cheaper carrier ...which I do not want to do...or be up front with the shipping costs with the customer in Japan. This will mean that $50+$65+($8 handling fee if any)= no way.

Domestic shipments would look something like this:
($50+$10 flat rate+$8 handling+8.8% sales tax if in WA) = reasonable price for limited edition art print.

I'm currently still in debate whether or not I should charge a flat rate or not. I really like UPS and their tracking..and their $100 insurance coverage.

This is something I need to put more thought into.

Gnomuki

2006-01-26T12:34:00.000-08:00

So I was working on one of the 3 illustrations I have developing. Gnomuki is the hybrid of the Garden Gnome and the Tanuki statues one puts in gardens to bring life and fertility to it.

As I was coloring the image, I felt forced to add the distinctive red and blue colors of the Gnome into the image. I found myself playing with close to 7 colors. Not only does 7 colors complicate the image and make it look really noisy, its really expensive to have that many colors. So I tried to see what it would look like if I had only picked 3 colors. And it turned out that 3 colors looked pretty dang good.

Lesson learned, ...more is not always more.

It is turning out that "Gnomuki" is being developed faster than the "Denshin Poles" or "Deko Semi". I've gotta hurry and and bring those back to speed.

Also, after emailing back and forth to the advertising guy at Giant Robot, I found out that one of the founders at GR saw my Tako Truck image and thought it looked cool. I'm going to be sending them one of my Tako Truck Artists' Proofs as a gift and hopefully they'll like it.
We sent out 2 Artists' Proofs to relatives in Japan long ass time ago in the begninning of January and they still haven't recieved it. I'm thinking USPS was a baaad choice to sending overseas. I'm going to use UPS today to send my package domestic, so I can track it.

Super Ultra

2006-01-25T12:34:00.000-08:00

I dropped by last night to see Tom working hard on the SuperUltra print. He is doing a great job so far. He was applying the 4th color and I can slowly see SuperUltra taking shape. I think once the final black line art is placed, then things will be all good.

I learned a good lesson in the potential use of transparencies and how different colors on top of each other can affect the look of the colors beneath it as well. I believe this will prove useful when I overlay a slight gray as a shadow layer on top of lots of base colors. This will help me achieve a nice shadowy look, which leaves me with more artistic options to pursue.

As I'm developing the next 3 illustrations, I've realized I'm simply trying to use more colors, and colors are expensive in general per screen. So I'm hoping to minimalize too much color usage while still trying to get good results artistically. This proves to be a challenge.

Currently, since the hack, all my online presence is offline. No kentaya.com, nor enfu.com really up and in full force. I hope in the near future things will change and we can get storming on publicizing my site.

Anybody have suggestions?

Enfu R&D

2006-01-23T12:33:00.000-08:00

So since handing off the enfu.com site design to Nanae, and handing in Super Ultra to Tom, I've just been allowing myself to be lazy. Normally, I force myself to be super productive during my free time to work on Enfu 2-4 hours a night, and 5-8 hours on the weekends. But sleeping in and playing video games was good rest for me as well. I think I was just tired from it all and wanted to rest up.

Watching our Seahawks POUND the Panthers was truely uplifting. I mean we crushed them. We totally shut down their star reciever and our Dfense was like a brick wall. 3 interceptions and 3 sacks ( i think).

So with good sleep comes great motivation yet again, and I was developing my 3 next illustrations by creating lots of thumbnails and sketches. "Denshin Poles", "Gnomuki", and "Deko Semi" are my upcoming heavy hitters. I think all stages of making screen prints is fun, but the part I love the most is drawing them and coming up with the ideas.

While completing these 3 illustrations I'll be able to work on figuring out how to ship my product safely. I'm concerned about this because the prints I sent as gifts to relatives in Japan weeks ago hasn't even arrived yet, which has me beginning to doubt using USPS as my carrier of choice. I'm thinking of going with UPS so I can track my shipments.

hacked

2006-01-18T12:33:00.000-08:00

Well, apparently someone hacked my kentaya.com site. They hacked it so that it was a fishing site to scam people into putting in their credit card and bank card info or something like that. What sucks is I didn't realize someone did this to me until I got an angry email from someone who was a victim of this. He accused me of doing this and said I deserve to go to Jail, also in the same email he was apologetic and suggested maybe someone may have hacked into my site. So I checked and lo and behold my account was frozen.
After contacting ivaluehost and confirmed I was hacked into, I felt a bit relieved because they knew it wasn't my fault. The culprit may have been faulty (old) php forum code. I don't know that that means...but I know I'm not having my forum up there anymore...so when I replace my site with the new and improved kentaya.com, it'll be more clean and up to date.

All I can say is..shit happens. You need to have backed up your work and luckily I should have all my stuff stored up somewhere on my external HD. I mean crap has happened in my life before, and all you can do is bend over and take it in the ass sometimes. Here are some crappy situations in life I had to go through:

1) 4th grade, I was watching people play basketball on the playground, some girl ran into me from behind and my face gets smashed into a brick wall. Result: I have crown on my tooth, which to this day still poses issues dental health wise.....what can you do?
2) Had my car stolen, and broken into with stuff stolen 3 times, and drunk driver crashed into my car while parked at night. During the time I had a rental car while my car was being repaired I went through 2 rental cars break down on me on my way to work. OK, so I've had my share of car troubles.
3) I like this example..cause its sort of an act of God....Within a period of 2 weeks a bird crapped on me 3 times.
4) I've had $1,600 illegally used from my credit card which I had to report the fraud. I had them refund me, but for 3 yrs I unknowingly carried bad credit from a delinquient account from that con artist. Result: Keep track of your expenses, and don't piss off any shady looking waiters at seety restaraunts who may swipe your info.

All in all, being hacked into falls into a category of...I can't do shit to prevent it...I just have to deal..kind of event in my life. Oh well.

I'm thankful for all the days shit doesn't happen to me, and all the great things in my life. I hope all who read this are thankful for everything they have before some hacker, con artist, drunk underage teenager, bird randomly shitting on you,or 6th grade girl comes in and smashes it.

First Sale, First Show

2006-01-12T12:33:00.000-08:00

There had already been some people expressing wanting to buy Tako Truck, but I wasn't ready because I didn't make an invoice and Certificate of Authenticity.

Since the past couple days I worked on those things and finshed it, my first sale went to my coworker Steve Lee.

Also tonight will be my first real show. There are other artists there of course, and its not an Enfu show, but still a show nonetheless.

I'm still designing the site and making color adjustments. The main design is done, but the colors are hard to tweak.
The Super Ultra negatives are done and turned out really nice and registered, so I'm excited to get those off to Tom.

I'm seeing more and more that the business of selling your own art is very time consuming and very rewarding at the same time, cause you're in total control of the product you make.

Sis got married

2006-01-11T12:32:00.000-08:00

Well a lot happened this past couple weeks. The big thing was that my sister had a 500 people wedding. She got married to Tim, a Korean American brotha who has the look of some Japanese comedian. The wedding was really really nice, it was held at Bastyr University in Kenmore, the same place that Dave Mathews got married.
The reception was held at her Korean Church.
Afterwards we went to our new parents in laws' house to open wedding gifts.

Being exposed to this many Koreans reminded me back in the day in High School when I used to hang out almost exclusively with Koreans. This was due to me not really relating to the Japanese students at school. They were all exchange students who wore tight jeans and barely spoke, where all the Koreans were second generation like me, and were 'cool'.

Anyway, back to the wedding. We also took part in the Korean ceremony called Pe Bek (spelling?), where they dress up in traditional garb and bow to the relatives. That was crazy, but interesting. In the end Tim had to carry my sister on his back and run around the room.

While at the parents' home I mingled with the relatives, and immersed myself in some Korean food leftover from the reception. I was thinking..hey..they're just like us..but Korean. We like to drink and eat food considered wierd, and most all were bilingual or trilingual, and we share similar backgrounds.

Well participating in such a cross cultural event to me was eye opening and getting used to the fact that now we just expanded our family size ten fold, its interesting.

Bill of Sale and Cert or Auth.

2006-01-05T12:32:00.000-08:00

So I whipped up a Bill of Sale/Certificate of Authenticity.
The need for this to be created came from people actually wanting to buy the Tako Truck print.
On it I'm including information of the artwork:

Artwork Description:
Title: "Tako Truck"
Print Date: 12.18.05
Dims: 23" x 14"
Edition Size: 100 plus 18 A/P
Artist: Ken Taya
Print #: /100, /18 A/P
Publisher: Enfu
Printer: Tom Dewar
Medium: Hand pulled 3 color serigraph (screenprint) with archival inks on 100 lb stock acid free Astropaque paper. S/N by Ken Taya w/embossed 'Enfu' Logo

Not only that, but the bill of sale needs to include to whom I'm selling it to with their info and price paid etc. On the bottom I'm writing 'Artwork recieved in good condition' and a place for both the purchaser and artist sign.

There were no examples of a combined bill of sale plus certificate of authenticity on the internet..so I just made it up, but it looks pretty cool.

I may simply emboss over the 2 signatures as a seal that its authentic. Its an idea. The more official each transaction is, will add value to the piece itself, and this is all with the collector in mind that I'm doing this...as well as covering my ass for tax purposes of course.

I looked into buying pads of carbonless sales reciepts you can buy at Staples, or even making custom ones. But this was the easiest way to customize it...simply print it.
Now the problem is I gotta find out a way to make copies of it on site. Say for example I sell it to some person at the Comicon, i'm not going to print them another copy..i have to have some carbon transfer method somehow....

The actual act of printing out these invoices is drab and a pain in the ass. BUT, thinking about handing a filled out reciept to a happy customer is really motivating....and exciting.

up next on my agenda for Enfu.

Finish the Web design template for Nanae to implement..&
Getting the negatives for "Super Ultra" ready for Tom!

sales means I need invoices??

2006-01-04T12:31:00.000-08:00

Well well well, with actual sales of the limited edition prints coming up soon, I've realized that hey I need to make company invoices. I've never made an invoice before, so my wife had to show me how. I also looked on the internet and found a good template for artists. I spent some time last night creating custom Enfu invoices. How will I get the other person a copy? Jeez..so many details I didn't think about. Gotta get it together.....

Then I also began to think, some people usually include an "About the Artist" and actual documentation of artwork with the artwork. I don't know exactly how to write it, so I need to figure that out as well.
There is so much about selling things I don't know about, and will need to learn in order for Enfu to stay afloat. I'm hoping also that after I have an online store that I can really proactively start marketing to more people and communities who may show interest in the pieces.

Enfu Web Design

2006-01-03T12:31:00.000-08:00

I've learned a few things designing this:
Keeping it simple.
Color Harmony.
Coming up with something Enfu is about other than simply profit.
Defining Enfu with words.
Keeping it simple.
and Keeping it simple.

did I mention keeping it simple?

Its still a bit detailed...so I can trim the design down a bit more as well.

Happy New Year!

2006-01-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

Kicked off 2006 with a great party with friends.

I didn't have any resolutions to share with people cause I didn't really think about any, but after thinking about it for a bit, I would really like for 2006 to be the year Enfu takes off the ground. I've got many hopes and leads for shows and potential audiences for my work, that I think Enfu has great potential.

I have been thinking of what Enfu is really about outside of simply making a profit and publisizing my artwork.
I think what I feel like Enfu should be about is more than just those two things. The following could be a possible mission statement for Enfu:
Enfu is about empowering the Nikkei community by manifesting visuals from a bicultural angle.

My big picture plans for Enfu this year:

Jan. - Website will be complete and online, Print Super Ultra, Have my first REAL show (not enfu work though) at the Scooter Gallery
Feb. - Work on 2,3 more pieces and get ready to print, Prepare for advertisement in Giant Robot to launch online sales
Mar. - Print those 2,3 pieces, and prep for Emerald City Comicon (ECC), Giant Robot issue with my ad will be on shelves, hopefully get onlines sales at this time.
Apr. - ECC first public display of Enfu works (hopefully have 4 pieces ready)
May.- Work on 2,3 more pieces and print
Jun.-Aug. -Try to line set up Fresh Flours, Kobo, Panama Hotel shows sometime in Summer/early Fall
Sept.-Dec. - Have a solid library of 12 or so pieces done and printed

The big picture is to have at least 12 pieces done by next year. This will be to me a tremendous feat for it takes quite some time to prep one illustration. I hope to colaborate well with my printer Tom Dewar (who is awesome by the way), and together produce high quality works. Also with much help from my wife Ikuko, we hope to get the book keeping and logistics running smoothly.

So to sum it up, my resolution for 2006 is to maintain the current vision I have for Enfu throughout the year.

London Boots & Web Design

2005-12-29T12:30:00.000-08:00

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.

2005-12-27T12:30:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-26T12:29:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-22T12:29:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-20T12:28:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-19T12:27:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-16T12:23:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-16T12:22:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-15T12:20:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-14T12:19:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-13T12:18:00.001-08:00

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

2005-12-13T12:18:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-07T11:55:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-02T11:54:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-01T11:54:00.000-08:00

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!!!

IP problems

2005-11-29T11:53:00.000-08:00

Went to the printer to hand him the first ENFU print negatives. Finally got to this point, it took a long time to get here, and I guess I haven't even begun. So I guess this is the starting point.

I've included a small thumbnail of "Tako Truck", Enfu's first print.

I've been having second thoughts about printing the Fat Ultraman. I mean the Intellectual Property (IP) of Ultraman is in the top 3 IPs that make money. First its Mickey Mouse, Second is Charlie Brown, and Ultraman is 3rd!!...so this means I don't want to touch this issue with a 10ft. pole. Which to me means I've gotta change him up alot more or make it more of a parody. I'm no lawyer, so this is all simply derived from my own google searches. All this to say, ...I've gotta redo ultraman, what was supposed to be the 2nd ENFU print. sigh.

I guess I'll work on another idea and refresh myself. After putting so much time and energy into one thing and having to change it ...sux.

Looked into adding a certificate of authenticity for my prints..but you know what..? I don't think thats necessary for a beginning artist like myself. Maybe if and when I get big I'll have to add certs. Until then, sign and numbering and embossing the company name on the prints should be enough.

On another note, with Ikuko (my wife) gone, my house is slowly becoming a dump! Clothes on the floor, dishes left in sink, and toilet sorta getting that ring you get when you don't clean it...all u bachelors out there know what I'm talking bout. No its not the line for where the water SHOULD be..its just a big sign of how lazy you are....you being....me. Even after being married I've found that I'm leading a semi bachelor life. I'm taking my clothes out of the freaking dryer and not even folding...looks like I rolled around on the carpet before going into work, which is the story I've been sticking with.

With my recent addiction to Cash and Carry, I've been buying more food than I really need. Good thing since I'm a lazy ass its all frozen food and won't all go bad.

What is Enfu?

2005-11-23T01:28:00.000-08:00

Enfu was created to add structure and accountability for the growth of my artwork.

Campers

2005-11-22T11:53:00.000-08:00

Since I don't take my motorcycle out very often, I decided to take it for a spin at around 11pm, taking a break from my ENFU duties. I saw on the news a live report of the line forming at Best Buy for people wanting the Xbox360. So I rode into the parking lot and it was packed, I mean all the home depot parking lots were full as well next to Best Buy. People had out BBQ grills and cooking stuff, the police where everywhere, projection screens were pulled out and people were playing video games on the wall of Best Buy....dang. Dedication. I would not last. Props to the Xbox Campers.

My fat ultraman illustration is in the process of being changed. Its too much like ultraman and I don't want to be sued. First, I'll not call my piece ultraman, I'll change the colors, and lastly change the patterns which make him ultraman. That SHOULD be enough of a difference. (hope)

I've come to realize how much Kinkos sucks balls. To get high quality digital giclee prints, go to Ivey. To get screen print negatives on vellum, go to Reprographics Northwest. To make freaggin copies, to fax, or to do whatever else....last resort go to Kinkos. I only go there cause I get the 20% discount. shieeeet.

Miracle Shot!

2005-11-21T11:50:00.000-08:00

Golfed with Masaru and Keiji: Got my quota for a par per game. So far 3 pars in a row, cannot mess up my par streak.
The miracle shot came from my second shot from fairway 25 footer chipped in for birdie!! I was glad Keji was there to witness it. My overall score wasn't too great considering I played horribly on other holes.

Worked on my second ENFU illustration of a fat ultraman.