Post-Christmas update!

It's been a while. After finishing up school, I had a lot of cleaning, cooking, and drawing to do. I've been working hard on Dastardly Lemondrops, my HP doujinshi project. I've drafted five chapters, and I'm working on final pages for the first chapter. With a lot of work, I'll be ready to start posting pages in January.



Aside from that, I've been having a lot of trouble with blogger. It will not let me follow any new blogs, and I've had trouble making comments. I only hope this post works!

For Christmas, I made mince pies and a chocolate yule log. Both tasty recipes come from Title's Busy Kitchen, a website I definitely recommend to anyone who likes to bake or cook. I'm not that great at cooking, but both of these came out pretty well.

Graphic Novels class Presentation

As one of my projects for school, I chose to do a presentation about how I make manga--mainly because I really miss drawing. I put together some pages based on my original story for the video. They feature characters from a culture based on early medieval Germania going out on a hunt.

Eventually, these characters will be part of a big project that I'll be posting online for free, but I feel like I need to improve first. Dastardly Lemondrops is still coming up soon, though^_^.


Graphic Novels project. by =hono-masao on deviantART

Livestreaming now!

masaowanwan on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

I'll be inking some original manga pages! Feel free to watch! I'll be uploading some video of this, later.

Moving to Japan with a dog.

This is my six-year-old Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Mint. I may be moving to Japan as soon as 13 months from now, and I've been trying to find out about how to move him with me. I've found some helpful information about how to avoid long quarantines and how to prepare for a plane trip with him, but I've only seen information about actual airlines that go between North America and Europe. I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with taking a dog big enough to not be able to ride in the cabin to Japan and what airlines they used!

Sketches for a new old project.

Perhaps a few people who know me know about this Harry Potter doujinshi project that I've been working on for a while. Slowly, I've been getting my thoughts together and typing up the story for this thing. It's actually been a few years, but now I'm finally drafting pages and finalising character design.


HP sketches. by =hono-masao on deviantART

I think I'll make a Smackjeeves account for it, and I'll also be posting it on MangaBullet... possibly deviantArt as well.

Christmas Pudding 2011.

I thought about buying one this year, but I've heard the store-bought ones are disgusting and flavourless. Besides... I love making this kind of stuff from scratch.

This is the first year that I've actually made Christmas pudding on "stir-up Sunday"... That being said, I forgot to stir it anticlockwise, but it's already steamed-_-. I know it's supposed to keep forever without going off, but I didn't put very much peel in it, and I heard that was vital. It's saturated with sherry in its basin, right now, though, and I replaced the grease-proof paper on the top and bottom. I'm worried that I didn't let it cool long enough before putting it back in there, though...

Any adviceXD?

Printing your own Doujinshi:

Hi! Pirrip here! I've written up a little guide to finding a company to printing your doujinshi, so you can take them to conventions and sell them. You can find my original post on my tumblr, but I'll just go ahead and re-post it right here:

I'm not an expert, but maybe my experience can help you. Masao and I have begun to draw doujinshi, so we can print them to sell at anime conventions. Doujinshi literally means "Self Made". Whether it be fan or original art, if you make it yourself without a publishing company, it's doujinshi. Drawing doujinshi is really great if you want to be a professional comic artist or mangaka(manga artist) one day. It gives you the opportunity to get some serious practice in drawing or producing work before you're ready to embark on bigger projects. And like many doujinka(doujinshi artists), you may want to pay homage to a series you admire.

Assuming that you've already put in a disgusting amount of time finishing all of your pages--whether it be on paper or drawn digitally--you will need to resize your pages to fit a standard size, or decide to print your book in a custom size. This gets a little complicated because printing companies do not always have the size you will want to print without charging you extra for a custom size. So with that in mind, I will share with you the companies I use to print, and what sizes they offer:

KA-BLAM (in Orlando)

• Standard Size: 6.75" x 10.25"
• Manga Size: 5" x 7.5"
• Magazine Size: 8" x 10.5"
• Custom Sizes: Yes
• Adult Content: No
• Minimum Order: 1

SIPS Comics (in British Colombia)

• Standard Size: 6.625" x 10.25"
• Custom Sizes: Yes
• Adult Content: Yes
• Minimum Order: 100

There are other printing companies out there, but these are the ones I use. Ka-Blam is great because they offer more standard book sizes and don't require you to order more than you need if you think you'll need less than 100, which could save you a bundle! And the quality is really very good. Make sure that you are ready to upload all of your files to them digitally at least one to one and a half months in advance of when you need them. You'll need to upload your images as TIFF files at 300dpi. Ka-Blam will also print posters, hardback books, and other things. You can visit Ka-Blam for more details.

Sips is great because aside from printing very high quality books, they will allow adult content. They are also extremely personable, and willing to answer any questions or address any of your concerns very promptly through email. If you are interested in printing explicit Yaoi specifically, there are very, very few printers in the U.S. that will allow printing this kind of content. Sips is in Canada, and although I live in the U.S. they were able to mail my order back to me in less than a month. They also offer reduced prices if you're planning on printing a lot of books. Sips can print PDF and TIFF files between 250dpi and 600dpi(really high quality). You can visit Sips Comics for more details.

Both companies will let you print books in full colour or black and white(greyscale), but keep in mind that colour will be more expensive to print than black and white. As well, both companies allow for page-bleed--so your frames or drawings can go all the way to the edge of the paper.

WHATEVER YOU DO do not print with FedEx Office/FedEx Kinkos. You might be able to find someone who works there willing to help you put together your book, but there are a number of drawbacks to this. It's relatively expensive. They are not a comic printing company, so they do not know what paper would work the best--so you'd have to know what paper weight and texture you need up front. The quality is less than optimal. Cutting the paper to your planned size is a very dangerous endevour--they literally cut it with a machete-style paper cutter. If you are planning for the page to end at a specific place, good luck. Something might get cut off in a weird place.

If you draw seriously and want to start making doujinshi, Doujinshi Edu on deviantart is a great resource to see what other artists are doing on their doujins. You could browse through the galleries there and meet other artists. And most are happy to answer any questions you might have. As well, you can ask me anything here on tumblr.

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My doujinshi circle is called Corgi Nub, you can find it on Facebook. We are Pirrip and Masao on deviantart. And we're planning two new doujinshi collaborations with Shadi and KawaiiPV.

Here are some shots of our books if you're curious(the printing looks amazing in real life).

This is from our Axis Powers Hetalia fanbook printed by Ka-Blam. It features Germany, Italy, Poland, and Lithuania.

This is from our Gundam Wing +18 doujinshi printed by SIPS. It features mecha fighting AND yaoi.

Our Loveless Doujinshi was our first doujinshi(it's the white cover with the pink butterfly design at the top)... and printed by FedEx Kinkos... And the quality isn't that great, so I'm not even going to upload a preview. We may reprint it in the future.

Post AWA update.

Wow. It's been a while since I've updated. You can blame AWA. We had a lot of last minute things to get done, and I had to put off some illustration projects in order to do them.

Artist alley was a turbulent experience. After all the trouble we had with it throughout the year, I shouldn't be surprised. All of those unfortunate experiences aside, our biggest problem in AA was location. The island setup of artist alley meant that only the people around the edges of the room got any real traffic. That being said, we actually had a pretty good year. I feel like a lot of big things happened. Most of all, our friends made it a great experience. I don't know if it would be worth it without them!

Pirrip (along with two other people) was told that he was doing the art for the AWA programme book. His art got pushed into the pages of the book, but we were just glad that it was in there. It was a real privilege. The coolest part of it was that someone took the designs he did for the AWA mascots and made sculptures of them out of junk metal! It was incredible! I only wish I remembered to get their name so I could credit them, but if you were at AWA or Dragon*con, you may have encountered them.



(Why did they want me to pose next to them, and when did my clothes get so big?) I thought it was completely amazing. We weren't expecting to see Pirrip's art brought to life like that! In case you haven't seen, these are his designs for the characters:


AWA Mech Pilot by *Pirrip on deviantART

AWA Pandamech by *Pirrip on deviantART

I still can't believe it happened. It feels really surreal.

I also wanted to show this beautiful artwork by zeiva on deviantArt that was commissioned for the cover but not used. I know it's because they didn't give her the right theme, but I think this would have made a gorgeous cover.


AWA Commission by `zeiva on deviantART

As for the one they did use, this is the artist that got it^_^:


Anime Weekend Atlanta 2011 by ~gaijyn on deviantART

I guess it's no one's fault, but it was disappointing for us, and I'm sure zeiva must feel similarly.

Pirrip and I helped our friends Jacks, Eveshka, Tal, and some others host the yaoi panel, too. That was a whole lot of fun--they did so well, no one could believe it was their first year! I wish I had some more pictures so I could show you how awesome they all were. I only have some that a friend took of me><. And I'm in my England cosplayXD.


I'll definitely post some more when I get some better photos that include the REAL hosts. They were so kind to let Pirrip and I feature our newest doujin there.

Before I go, I also wanted to show the two commissions I got the entire time I was at AWAXD. See? We didn't get any traffic. But I'm very appreciative to the people who commissioned these.




See you next time! Hopefully, the next entry will be more prompt.

Dragon*Con update.

Just last weekend, we went to Dragon*con in Atlanta. We got to spend time with our friends Eveshka and Tal, and we ended up playing this awesome card game called 7 Wonders. We also went to a bunch of panels; most of them were art related, but we went to a few from the Brit Track as well. It was so much fun, but even though we were on a break, we still ended up sketching all weekend.

Pirrip did some original character sketches for a story we're working on:


Original Characters for novel by *Pirrip on deviantART

Also from Pirrip, some Phantasy Star 0 fanart:


PSZERO: Rodeo Drive by *Pirrip on deviantART

One more from Pirrip, a little Monster Hunter Tri:


MH3 Barioth Armor by *Pirrip on deviantART

Now I, Masao, didn't end up posting any of my sketches to dA. Mainly because I want to turn a lot of them into actual illustrations<3. This first one is just a page of sketches I did, though. Snape playing Gameboy, and orange I sketched and ate, and a fellow con attendee waiting in line to see Sylvester McCoy.

Later, though, I sketched this Snarry drawing. The details aren't tightened up, yet, but I did what I could without a ruler and the plans I had laid out for how I wanted Hogwarts to look.



While at the con, Eveshka and I talked about displaying an illustration I had done for her of her character Jedah. I decided that I wanted to redo it because I had done the first one years ago. Here's how it's coming along.



See the original?


Commission for Eveshka. by =hono-masao on deviantART

Well, thank you for reading. Hopefully we'll get to update again soon. I have some commissions that I'm working on right now, so it's time for me to get back to work! Woof!

First post!

Hullo! This blog represents the doujinshi group CorgiNub which consists of artists Masao and Pirrip. Most of you seeing this probably know who we are already. For those of you who don't, we are artists who love drawing doujinshi but are also working on ideas for original manga. We also draw illustrations and love to make art in general.

For instance, this is a sketch by me, Masao, that I really want to make into an illustration. It's of one of our original characters, Caren.



We'll be using this blog to update you with sketches and WIPs of our work. We'll also be talking about our experiences at conventions and other events and keep you updated on our major projects. I hope you'll enjoy reading our blog<3!