Who is Koneko-chan?

Posted on 3.3.2012 by Dashi

My, what big teeth you have!

Who is Koneko-chan? And where did she come from? These have been the two questions I’ve faced surprisingly many times ever since I started to post pictures of my character Koneko-chan to my online galleries in 2008. Well, I decided to go ahead and finally tell you little bit about her and her short 3-year history!

The first thing I should tell you about her is that she was originally a cast member in my old webcomic, Priestly Blues. The first three pages of the comic were published in a Finnish anime/manga magazine called “Animelehti” back during the summer 2008, and despite the fact that the comic wasn’t published further, I continued to draw it for my own amusement. Eventually, I kind of dropped the comic, mainly because other projects came along, but Koneko-chan still remained a very frequent subject of my sketches and drawings. I am pretty sure I have drawn her the most out of the cast of “Priestly Blues”.

So, subsequently, Koneko-chan kind of gained a life of her own, and I have developed her further. She is no longer only a cast member on “Priestly Blues”, but a super star of her own little universe. She is easy and fun to draw, and when I get myself into an art block, I usually draw her to get out of it. She is also my excuse to draw different types of clothes and develop new coordinates – mainly, but not exclusively, lolita fashion related stuff.

I have also been asked what Koneko-chan is exactly. What species is she, if any? Well, many have guessed her to be a demon, and they are not too far off either: in the original comic, she actually was one. Nowadays, however, I refrain from calling her that. She is a pretty little girl, who yip yapped so much bullshit that her face begun to turn into a giant mouth. Gossip by gossip she begun to grow huge, sharp teeth and eventually discovered that she had no face anymore. I like to play with the idea, that she is a pretty nice girl with a very apparent dark side. Also, the name ‘Koneko-chan’ has raised some questions. In the comic, she was a stereotype of a Japan loving teenage girl, and I think she is a bit of that, still. So, she has chosen to call herself Koneko-chan, while no-one knows what her real name is.

But whenever someone asks me about her, I’d like to tell them that she is a fun loving, a bit of a bratty girl. She is very confident, passionate and a tiny bit delusional. She isn’t ashamed of what she is, even if some might think she should be. She loves cute things, animals, dressing up and doing her hair. She is also a huge fan of japanese fashions such as lolita and gal, and loves to dance to Korean pop music.

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The Tracon Experience 2010 – 2011

Posted on 30.9.2011 by Dashi

Tracon VI is finally over – or at least the actual convention part is, and as I had no other Tracon related obligations aside from my own task as a graphic designer, I’m beginning to be pretty much done. I don’t have much to say about the actual convention, as it was mostly a blur that passed really quickly for me, but what I can talk about, is my overall experience as an organizer to the convention.

 

I joined the organizing committee during Spring 2010. Back then, I did a little helping on the graphic front of Tracon V. It was fun, as I didn’t have too much to do and the committee people were being very nice towards me – as they have been to this very day. I wasn’t employed at the time, so I had time to do a little something on the side of school. And during the summer vacation (2010), after Tracon V had been held, I was chosen to be the head of graphic design for the following year’s convention, Tracon VI. Things started slow and steady and the committee seemed organized in the beginning.

However, as I was employed on Febuary 2011, my time for the convention begun to grow scarce. Not only, because I was working, but because I was lucky enough to be employed as a game artists, so all of my time, free and working, was spent in Photoshop.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda

In retrospect, I think continuing the task at Tracon expressed poor judgement from my part, which I am sorry for, but I didn’t want to leave my work unfinished – I wanted to complete what I had started. Further in retrospect, I also have a lot to learn about sharing responsibility, as I executed majority of the graphics for Tracon VI. This was due to feedback Tracon V’s graphics had gotten prior to VI. There had been many suggestions from the congoers that the graphics of Travon V weren’t as coherent as they maybe should have been. So I took to heart that everything that was put out, should look like it belonged to the same convention.

This proved to be surprisingly hard when several designers worked on the same product, but do not necessarily see each other in person at all. This again, is something I could and should have helped, since I was chosen as the leader of the team. Instead of doing everything myself, I should have actually lead my team, which didn’t happen until the last stages during the past summer. I do blame my somewhat timid and insecure personality for this. However, getting more into practicing leadership gave me some space to grow as person as well as a designer. I feel as though I’m no longer as afraid to state my opinion as I was prior to my Tracon VI experience. And this is a huge deal for me. It has helped me lots with my work outside of Tracon.

But All in All

Tracon VI was a very colorful spectrum of different emotions for me. At times it was fun and at times it was exhausting. It was also very rewarding on a personal level – the feeling of your work getting printed out and seeing (for example) the congoers carry it around the convention centre in the forms of cosplay competition badges and convention pamphlets, is something I find hard to describe. But it feels very nice! You feel like you’ve done something to help thousands of people have a good time, which is the one of the major reasons why I enjoy what I do.

And even if I don’t necessarily think myself to be the best person to offer aspiring convention organizers advice, I wish to address something! Earlier on, I addressed Tracon as a project people ‘do during their spare time‘. While this is true, and it usually shows somewhere in the organizing process, don’t be fooled. Before taking part into convention organizing (which is a world that can be accessed more easily than you’d imagine),  people should consider that while the organizers are not often professionals, the level of the produced product is always expected to be just that – professional. Thousands of people attend these conventions and they pay actual money for their experience. My opinion is that it is the organizer’s responsibility to offer them a convention worth the money they have paid, and more, so that they keep coming back. This doesn’t mean that convention organizing can’t be fun, which it also is in many ways, but this is just my two cents as a congoer and an organizer.


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Yes, we did Desu!

Posted on 21.6.2011 by Dashi

Me as Traconess. Picture by Laggy.

For those who aren’t familiar with the matter at hand, let me enlighten you by telling you that Desucon is a Finnish anime oriented convention. It has great, beculiarly dedicated following amongst the Finnish animu community, and seems to be most anticipated and/or discussed anime convention in Finland every year. I think this has to do with the fact that the said convention breaks the Finnish norms by not acting very modest, and underlining its superiority amongst the Finnish anime conventions in general. And as I have attended all three Desucons that have been held so far, I think that Desucon’s loud voice is usually matched with a very well organized convention – year 2011 being no different from its predecessors.

Last year, Desucon seemed the be growing in many ways, but now the organizing committee of the convention had decided to tone down to growth; less tickets were put on sale compared to 2010, and the overall experience of 2011 was very much the same compared to 2010. But I do think that in many aspects, this a good thing, since Desucon 2010 was one of the most well organized anime events I’ve ever been to. And I’m happy to see that in 2011, Desucon is comfortably adjusting itself on the peak of the quality pyramid. Even if I couldn’t really get around the convention center (Sibelius Talo) much, because of my work at the Tracon booth, Desucon seemed to offer something on every minute of its 30 hour duration. People could attend lectures and panels on different subjects – as well as play video games (particularly rhythmn games of many sorts), sing karaoke or just chill in the grand hall, where our Tracon booth, too, was kept. My voice has been worn out for a couple of days because of all the all loud talking I had to do when competing with the very loud audio that was playing in the grand hall every now and then. The loud audio in the grand hall was pretty much the only negative thing that occurred in convention – at least for me. There was also some confusion about the booths in the beginning of the convention, but that kind of stuff tends to happen, so I didn’t think much of it. The main thing was, that he had booth to begin with.

And as I said above, I was pretty much tied to the said booth, where I was selling tickets to our upcoming Tracon convention as our girl mascot, Traconess. I had a blast wearing the mascot costume, even if I felt very self-conscious about it at first. And not least because I forgot my Tracon wand at my apartment back in Tampere, and had to cope the convention without it. I was a bit upset with myself at first, but then a figured I the wand was the least important part of my costume. So even if I was a bit sad that I was so forgetful, no actual harm was done.

"How could you leave me behind?"

Despite my missing cosplay limb, people seemed to recognize my costume a whole lot! Even if many asked if I was cosplaying someone from Sailor Moon – which is totally understandable. Traconess is supposed to be sort of a … parody/generalization of a magical girl, after all. Many took my photo, and I felt very flattered by all the attention I got! So, thank you to everyone who photographed me or just came up to our booth to have chat with us, or – best of all – bought a ticket to our convention! I will be dressed as Traconess in other conventions as well, and hopefully those times I won’t be forgetting my stuff all over Finland. So, stay tuned for a magical Tracon magic wand. Maybe I can forget something else in exchange next time around. In the meantime, here are some of the few pictures I took in the convention. I’m so obviously no photographer. And these people obviously remembered all of their stuff. :,D

I also wanted to mention that despite my general lazyness with going to the convention after parties, this time I decided to join in the fun. Thank you so much for Yoshh for keeping me company in the dance bar “Glow”, where the after party was kept. Even if I’m not much of a party girl, it was fun to observe fellow con-goers in a different environment. Maybe I’ll participate again next year! And in addition, I wanted to congratulate the winner of the EuroCosplay Finland preliminaries, Asagi, whose Male Scout (Garanado Espada) cosplay was gorgeous! I really enjoyed the Cosplay show, which included his performance, and it was the only program of the convention I was able to attend. Also, Rimppu should be thanked for her awesome job at hosting the Cosplay show! Well done!

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Transformers: Prime

Posted on 5.6.2011 by Dashi

As I am bad at introduction posts, I decided to go straight into business and kickstart this blog with a post about my current obsession, ‘Transformers: Prime’. Being a Transformers fan who got into the whole thing through the live action movies, have been overly enthusiastic about the upcoming third movie of the franchise. Granted, I do not think Michael Bay’s directing work to be spectacular, but I’d still put the first Transformers live action (which I saw during summer 2007) into my top ten of favorite movies ever.  I have no other reason for this, aside from enjoying the film just too damn much. And after the live action movies, I’ve tried to get into the animated series as well, but unfortunately none of them have really grown on me despite my efforts. After all, I am a visual person. And I have to say I haven’t always enjoyed the visual output of the older animated series of the franchise – not even the‘Transformers: Animated’, which was very different from its predecessors.

Transformers Prime (Hub Promo)

However, a few weeks ago, while browsing trough the newest TV spots for the third live action movie (which will be coming out on the 29th of the passing month here in Finland), I ran across a clip from the new animated show, ‘Transformers: Prime’. And I fell head over heels with this series immediately after a few episodes. To the current date, I have watched and re-watched the episodes (that have come out thus far in the US) for approximately 6 times. And boy, do I love this animation or what? I take it that it’s obvious that my love has to do with the overall design of the series, but I also love how several of the characters are written. At the moment, I’m playing favorites with Starscream, Soundwave, Knock Out and of course, Optimus Prime. And hence, I’ve been doing a lot of fan art sketching recently! Few of the pieces have even been completed thus far! Take a look!

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