This time I'm on time for this post!
today Marks the 6th year since I started drawing. Unfortunately, it wasn't really a good year for me again in drawing. This year again I did very few full illustrations, a bit of that was due to making a new doujinshi though. So for the first few months of the year I didn't draw any full illustrations, except the cover... so you'd think after the doujin I would have more time, but it was the opposite, as every times before, Once the doujin was done (and after I did my Christmas and new year illustration), I got kinda burned out and stopped drawing for a while.
Then DAM made a contest on Pixiv, the theme was Touhou and
music. I actually entered the contest, and obviously didn't win, but
I'm still pretty satisfied with the drawing I did for it.After that I tried to work on my art, and of course I got discouraged. lost my will to draw. I started a ko-fi account, hoping that people tipping me to draw them a doodle would force me to stay motivated, it worked for a few weeks, basically all my friends trying to help, but then it died... I never did push it though. I'm really bad at this kind of marketing, because I don't feel like my art is really worth paying for... so I feel into another art block....
and that one lasted for a long time. and I think I am probably still in it. I registered to comiket again hoping that having a doujin to work on will get me out of it, but I still don't know if this is a success or not...
as for progress. I think I showed progress in the beginning of the year, the art in my doujin is definitely better than thee ones before, and I also got faster. I got better at just drawing by eye without using any 3D models for the body shapes too. The problem is, after the 2 art blocks, I don't think I ever got back to the level I was at the end of the doujin.
Anyway, here's my own favorite drawing per month of the last year.
Please take a minute of your time to vote on which was your favorite drawing from me in the last year, I'm always happy to see the results, and if you leave a message, it can help me get better.
When we planned this trip, the only thing we had planned at first was just to go see the OSK Sakura Night Sakura Taisen Collaboration in Kyoto. (which was a very nice show btw! I might do a quick post about it at some time. some weird mix of cabaret and other stuff, with some Sakura Taisen songs and the voices actresses). We had to sleep in Kyoto, so we tried to think about what else to do around it, and while Kyoto isn't really THAT close to Toyosato, I still proposed it, and we decided to go. I had wanted to go there for years, ever since I learned it was possible to visit it, and it was finally my chance!
At that point I didn't even know there was a birthday event going on that week-end. We found out like 3-4 days before leaving when someone noticed on the guided tour of the school (that we had reserved) website, it said the auditorium was unavailable for visit. I quickly remembered it was sometime used for events and checked ToyosatoTeaTime website, and yup! there it was! It's Mugi and Ritsu's birthday event! Even better! a nice coincidence!
The next day, we learned about the horrible news of what happened at KyoAni, we though about cancelling the tour a bit, felt almost insensitive to go visit K-On! holy place right after this tragic incident... I already talked about this in my last post, so I won't say more about it here. But in the end we decided to do it anyway. We also added a trip to the KyoAni studio to pay our respects to the fallen and their families.
The day after going to KyoAni and watching the OSK Sakura show, we woke up around five and took a very early train toward Toyosato via Hakone.
Right when stepping out of the train you can already feel you're in a good place.
No sign of K-on! stuff so far, but we get inside the building of the station itself and it's already there, a map of the city with the Toyosato Former Elementary School taking the spotlight.
As soon as we step out we're welcomed by this really shy Azunyan hiding behind a post.
The K-on presence in the city doesn't seem as big as it is for Lucky Star in Washinomiya or for GuP in Oarai, but still there was a lot of shops with posters and more of these pedestrian boards on the way to the school
MIO! Don't cross the street with your eyes closed!!!
And then we reached the school, the very beautiful and well maintained school.
Since we had taken the guided tour we headed to where the library used to be, it's now a building with a cafeteria, and places to eat and socialize, as well as a K-On! goods museum, more on that later since we didn't get to see this immediately, our tour guide arrived and we went to the front of the school. To be noted here, when we singed up for the tour, they asked us if we wanted one that focused on the architecture or K-On!, we said "a bit of both". So we expected a bit of both, but the whole tour was 100% about the building history and the architecture, not a single K-On! word was said. The guide even tried to make us go pretty fast trough the K-On! club room, but I just ignored it and took my sweet time in it. The information he gave us was interesting, but I really wish there would have been a lot more of "so this is where this happens in the anime".
The Hare and the tortoise is a really important theme throughout Toyosato.
The Hare and the tortoise are ready for the race
But of course the tortoise won!
So apparently this stairway is pretty important in "I want to eat your pancreas"
Then we finally reached the mythical club rooms. I think the right one was the jazz club room, and the left one the Light Music club room, obviously, complete with Mugi's tea sets and kitchen, along with the cosplay rack.
Because of what had happened a few days earlier, the boards we're filled with words of love for Kyoto Animation.
After that the visit continued, since we took the tour we had access to some rooms that are normally closed to the public. The science classroom was especially really nice, and way too advanced for an elementary school. We also visited the Guest room, a recreation of an old classroom and the kind of museum for the architect. You can see pictures from this in the full album that'll be posted below. This post is already picture heavy and I haven't even reached the birthday event yet!
After that we headed towards our last stop of the tour, the auditorium, because of the event we couldn't go in, but we were allowed to go to the second floor, and rested a few minutes there while watching the band doing rehearsals.
After that we headed back to the starting point, the old library, where the tour ended. We walked around in the library and saw the temporary memorial set up for Kyoto Animation, full of flowers.
We then headed in the K-On! good museum, you can see all the pictures in the full album, but here's some of my favorite
After resting a bit there, it was time to go to the Birthday event.
The event was in the auditorium, and because of the events preceding this, started with a minute of silence for KyoAni. The party was a bit hard to start because of that, the main host seemed to have hard time with it, but another host took over and got things started anyway.
The even was super nice, they started by talking, then brought out the wonderful cake. It was really a nice cake.
And then... They proceeded to cut the cake, in what was one of the most dramatic cake cutting I ever witnessed.
After cutting the cake, they took it away outside, and let everyone come to the front to take pictures of the shikishi's, the Standees and other items they had on display.
After that everyone went outside to eat the cake... I just started a Keto diet so I didn't eat any. I even had to refuse the offer from someone who offered me his part. Thank you so much again ^^;
After a while, everyone went back inside, and the Mini Live started. I unfortunately don't remember the name of the band, I'm pretty sure it had "tea time" in it's name though. They did 5 songs, I don't remember the first one, but it was a Tsumugi character song, the set list was:
Unknown Tsumugi song
Drumming Shining My Life
Listen!!
U&I
Singing!
God Knows
God knows? yep, that was pretty funny actually. After finishing their 5 song set, they got an encore. It was apparently the first time it happened to them so they had not prepared another song. The bassist was also new to the band so while the other members knew Fuwa Fuwa Time (which was requested by someone in the crowd) they couldn't play it. So they ended up choosing God Knows, which everyone was of course ok with! (Poor guitarist). The live was really fun. I filmed some parts of it, you can see it here.
After that, and until the end of the event, we played some games to win some prizes, first was Bingo, then there was some JanKen battles, and there was also a big dice with only mugi and ritsu's faces on it, and you had to guess which one it would fall on.
Even the standees were up for grab, I so wanted that Ritsu standee, but I didn't get it.
After that they announced the date of the next event, the YuiAzu Birthday Party.
Aparently they always end their event with a big call from everyone to say "K-ON! DAISUKI!" (I Love K-On!) but because of the events of the days before, they changed it this year to "KyoAni DAISUKI!!". and on this call, the event ended and we left.
There was a couple very nice Itasha in the parking of the school that I took picture of on my way out. The nicest one being the really cool K-On! one with Yui on top.
And that's it for this post!
I hope you enjoyed it. There's a lot more photos of the school, the event and the Itashas in the full album, please check it out too!
