marikyuun

Hello everyone!

I'm not sure how many people still follow my account or even read journals anymore. I feel like dA has been absolutely crushed by other social media websites like Instagram. I feel like this is a shame, because they are not websites focused on Art. While that may be a good thing, because it makes you reach a bigger audience, I feel like 80% of said audience doesn't really get what I do and can't be considered an "artistic" community. Does this make sense?

It's now been 8 years since I created my DeviantArt account (August 2010) and, while this page holds many precious memories from when I was a little wimpy kid (I am now a wimpy adult hehe), I can't help it but feel like I'm walking in a desert around here. Most people who watch me (I recently hit 1500 watchers, so thank you!) seem to be unactive accounts that will never see my work again, and that makes me pretty sad. However, I love dA and I really want to stick around, you know?! It's very frustrating to see how many people have left this wonderful community...

I have thought of starting over, creating a new account over here, but I feel like it would be a waste, since I still have a few months of core membership to use, adding to all said precious memories this account holds.

That is why, for the time being, I guess I'll stick around! Over the past few years, I haven't achieved anything particularly interesting with dA _{other than meeting a few people who later became very close friends, of course!} so I kind of feel like I have nothing to lose if I stay. Like I have said before, I will try to keep this account as active as I can, from now on!

However, I will only post finished digital drawings over here, which means I will be less active than I am on my Twitter or Instagram, which you can follow for more regular updates, if you want to! I also have my adoptables account, maridopt 


Now, some life updates!

I recently finished college and got my degree in Technological Chemistry (which is an area between Scientific Chemistry and Chemical Engeneering), but I realised it is not what I want to do with my life. What I want to do is draw! I would do pretty much anything to be able to draw characters and illustrations for a living, so I decided to do something about it.

I decided I will try to study abroad, in Japan, as it is the country with most opportunities in the Manga/Character Design field. I will now spend these next few months studying both Japanese and Mathematics, as those are the required exams for the scholarship I want to apply for (there is also English, but I am not worried about it). I also want to use this time to improve my artwork and explore new things with my drawings, in order to have a better portfolio for when the time comes. It sure will be a challenge, but I am ready to work hard!!!

Recently, I attended a convention here in Portugal (Comic-Con) and had a booth at the Artist's Alley. It was a lot of fun and it was very refreshing to meet a lot of nice people who were eager to spend money on my art or already knew me and my OCs from Instagram! Here's a picture of the booth!

_{(idk who the photographer is, sorry I can't credit, but they took and posted this picture without my permission and it was just sent to me!)}

Well, I think that's enough updates for one journal entry! If you made it until the end, a big thank you! Even if you don't usually comment on posts, would you mind commenting on this one? It would be very important to me to know who still hangs around and reads these boring posts hahaha;;;;

See you soon!!!

Follow my new account here
I will post adoptables and your usual kawaii chibi stuff! Please give it a watch if you want to!

Follow my new account here
I will post adoptables and your usual kawaii chibi stuff! Please give it a watch if you want to!

Hello everyone! As some of you may know, I attended a convention this weekend, which I've been attending for 3 years now, here in Portugal called Iberanime-OPO. The con happens twice a year: once in Lisbon (IA-LX) in April/May and once in Porto (IA-OPO) in October. As usual, I shared a booth with my cinnamon-roll buddies, KirameKirai , O-hikaku and HllR0 (who I met for the first time irl!!!) 
So, some watchers here and followers on twitter suggested I'd make a journal explaining how the con went and what I did there, so that's what I'm doing now.


This was part of the merchandise I made. Some prints, stickers, bookmarks and notebooks (couldn't make keychains this year).


And this was our booth!!


I will be very honest and possibly a little bit rude, but to be honest I feel like this IA was the worst one I've ever attended in my life. The organization was awful (as usual), the Artists' Alley was terribly placed (also as usual, but this time it was even worse as we were facing the fucking toilets, even though we had one of the best spots there) and what shocked me the most was: I did not have much fun. This con is usually pretty bad but to be honest I usually have a blast there with my friends, we shout a lot, we draw a lot and talk to our customers a lot. Well, that did not happen this year. I spent the whole time begging for it to be over or simply to sell all my stuff so I could leave the booth and get some fresh air. There weren't as many people as there usually are (not even half, I believe) and I did not make any profit from my sales. Good thing I didn't have any losses either. I sold enough to pay for the trip and prints but didn't make enough to save to fix my tablet (which died btw).
I don't even know what the heck happened this year, but it seems like people weren't motivated. Every time someone passed by our booth, they'd just ignore it or even bump against the structure we had for the prints, not apologising in the process. People were simply rude, asking us if "they could take some bookmarks for free" or if our merchandise was "all we had", as if it weren't good enough. That kind of hurt me, but oh well, I guess that's about 80% of the weeb/otaku community.

Now for the good parts of the event:

I daresay that the Artists' Alley of this IA edition was the best I've ever seen in any Portuguese con. People were selling legit quality stuff and it feels like everyone improved so much it's totally unfair that we sold like half of what we usually do. I decided I'd only buy fanmade things this year and to be honest that was the best decision I've ever made.


Here's some of the stuff I got from the other artists and the Rin Kira made for me for my birthday haha!! But seriously everything was so cute I only regret not having bought more stuff... Definitely next year!!!

This year, the invited singer was Piko. He's sung several anime openings/endings and you probably heard about his VOCALOID with the same name. Yep, it's that one. His concert was ok and even though I couldn't see it because I was at the booth, I literally sprinted there when he decided to sing the Digimon Adventure opening Butter-fly. That was a very beautiful moment in my opinion hahaha;;;; I'm a dork...
After the contest I went there and gave him some goodies from our booth. I don't speak Japanese very well but I think he understood what I told him and even said our drawings were amazing so that was great!!!


Here's his autograph and the group picture me and other fangirls took with him!! He was really cute and I was impressed with how nice and patient he was despite being visibly exausted.
It was also very fun to stay at Kira's house! His family was very nice and his dog is adorable!!!


So, to conclude, what mattered in the end was being with my friends because the con sucked lmao! Let's see how the next one goes.

Thanks for reading~
Mari

Seriously, what the heck happened to the prices for premium/core membership??

It's totally understandable that DeviantArt needs the money received from buyers to keep going and that the community has grown brutally after 15 years of existence, however, I don't think it's understandable how much the prices for core membership have risen. When I first joined this website (august 2010 - 5 years ago), the prices were much more reasonable and I managed to buy around 50 months or so of premium membership, only with point commissions (I charged about 200-500 points for each one, which is around 2-5€ a drawing... yup), while using the beautiful sales (like those buy-1-year-get-2 promotions) that I haven't seen in ages now. What I mean is, I don't ever remember having to pay 4000 points for a premium membership before. I don't even think I've ever had that many points, and I managed to buy over 2+ years of PM. 

Since dA is so proud of how much being a "core deviant" means, and how much we contribute to this website, I don't find it reasonable for the prices to be this high. I use this website to post my art online, like so many others... That's the way we contribute to this community. I always try to help the ones who ask me to, whether it's giving a critique, or answering questions, or even livestreaming when asked to. Why did the prices rise so much? Weren't the prices from 3 years fine? Does this mean this website which I love is becoming something merely for an "elite" who's willing to pay such ridiculous values just to have their gallery a little prettier and less ads? I am disappointed in DeviantArt, and this makes me really sad.

I'm grateful I did all those point-commissions, even if it meant to undervalue my art. At least I won't have anything to worry about for the next 2-3 years. 

Thanks for reading,

Mari