ACGGoods – Many super cute acrylic keychains, standees, buttons and pins including some super soft plush pins, tummy plushes, rainbow holo stickers, trading cards, and more! (If you don’t know what some of those mean, give it a look-see to find out!)
Redbubble – Stickers in different sizes, t-shirts in lots of styles, phone cases, and more!
Teepublic – A lot of the same things as Redbubble tbh, but some people like this one more!
INPRNT – Very nice high-quality art prints, focused on paper goods (prints, stickers, posters, cards, etc.) and not “merch” like the other stores above (no mugs, pins, or t-shirts).
Don’t Pick Up Strange Aliens – Very cute and cuddly and innocent. This was one of many intriguing participants in Otome Jam 2026; a couple of others from the jam that I also bookmarked to play are Love’s Young Dream and Abracademia, but I didn’t get around to playing them. 😭 And looking at the list again, now I also want to play Starfallen Strength, Our Light Affliction, Mysterious Thief Emerald, and Ember Sands… GAH! This is the whole reason that I’m supposed to have a “just play something, anything, just for like 20 mins a day, just do it do it do it the backlog is too long!!” habit, but I’ve clearly fallen off of it again. 😅
Watching the BF Play
Live A Live – (My representative image here is one of the countdown illustrations from Square-Enix’s twitter leading up to the HD-2D remake release – it’s cute!) Only Oersted’s route and Final Chapter were left to do after last month. I was very, very grateful that @wreckscalibur hadn’t been spoiled about key turning points of this game so the exciting moments came as a surprise for him. You know a game has a good ending when you’re cheering “YEEEAAAAHHHH!!!” during the climactic moments of the final battle.
Fairune 2 – Fairune dares to ask, “What if Hydlyde was good?” LOVE this developer; other good Skipmore games I can recommend in particular are the first Fairune (the series is bundled together on Steam), Kamiko (one of the first digital games we ever bought when we first got our Switch), and Synopsis Quest (very silly browser game). Love to have a quick and snappy little adventure with satisfying progression – though this is larger than you’d expect. When you first start, there’s an overworld map that you gradually fill out, as well as an ‘underground’ map where all of the caves are, and I remember assuming, “Ah, these two maps are probably the scale of the whole game.” NAY. There are MORE OVERWORLDS. And even more after that! Tons of very fun little secrets to find all around.
Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons – My childhood game was Ages and I’ve never seen Seasons in full. I like the Subrosians, they’re silly! Very interesting seeing the different versions of the items that upgrade in different ways between the two games (both games have a Roc’s Feather, but only Seasons gets the Roc’s Cape; and both games have Zora Flippers, but only Ages upgrades it to a mermaid tail, etc…). It made me wanna reread the Zelda manga that I have, too, so you’ll see that in the later section!
Casual Gaming
Anthropeum– As in “anthropology.” Try to guess where in the world an artifact (sourced from The Met Gallery’s collection) came from, and from when. I’m okay-ish at the where but terrible at the when. 🤔 I tend to just default to 1 BCE for everything unless I know otherwise.
Huekle – A bunch of color-based puzzles?? Sometimes I can’t tell what the controls or instructions are. But it’s so stylish to look at and there are SO MANY daily games here that one or two meh ones aren’t so bothersome.
Rebusly – A daily rebus puzzle (one of my favorite kinds of puzzles! and rare to find in daily/online format) based on a news headline of the day. Your hints are snippets from the article.
Spellsword – It’s hard to get a screenshot of this one because there are about three different word games wrapped up in an adventurous little story. You get a cute little intro, combine parts of words to identify the “enemy” you’ll be fighting, then you string letters together to do damage to its HP bar. Then the enemy fights back, but you can defend if you unscramble an anagram quickly enough. It’s not REALLY all that much like playing an RPG but just having a little bit of flavor or a theme of the day makes a basic word game more fun. The “story” actually continues a little bit further every day.
Threezy – Similar to the card game Set (which can also be played in your browser) but the cards get replaced instead of staying on the screen. If you don’t know of Set, it’s a little hard to explain, but you have to find sets of shapes that are all the same in some dimensions (shape, color, fill style, quantity, etc.) but different in at least one other dimension. It’s hard to explain in words but starts to make sense once you’re looking at it and giving it a try. I was excited to find a new online variation because sometimes a different choice of shapes or slightly different rules can be all it takes to make something new and refreshing lol.
Reading
Manga Classics: Jane Eyre – I never covered Jane Eyre during school, so this was a read purely for satisfying my curiosity. As with other Manga Classics I’ve written about in these summaries, I enjoyed reading Sparknotes study guides after finishing the comic for deeper understanding. I know that the Bronte sisters have a whole library of wonderful books – are there others that you’d recommend I should check out next? 🤗 (I thiiiiink I’ve already read Wuthering Heights in school, but I barely remember anything from it.)
Swordheart by T. Kingfisher – I have other T. Kingfisher books in my Want To Read list that I’m still willing to try, but I didn’t jive with the humor in this one. If the witty exchanges were more like just one (1) quirky observation from the heroine and one (1) clever response from the male lead as the action moves them along, it would be bearable, but it’s the fact that every conversation is 3-5x longer than it needs to be because each participant must make a witty remark about the witty remark that the other one just said. I don’t mind “quippy” protagonists; I like Murderbot, and I like Saturday morning cartoons from the 80s. If it were simply that the characters said their funny line and then the momentum moved forward, I’d love it, but nothing ruins a good joke like dragging it out. I certainly might be in the minority here because this book has tens of thousands of positive reviews that all praise its humor. Like I said, I’m going to go ahead and try other books from this author because overall I like the D&D campaign-like adventure.
Honeysuckle Cottage by P.G. Wodehouse – Listened to this as an audiobook (free on youtube because most P.G. Wodehouse books are in the public domain!) while doing crafts outdoors. Very silly and charming and only an hour of time investment. You may worry about the protagonist’s behavior and attitude toward women, but don’t worry, it has a good ending, which is that the woman doesn’t end up married to this miserable guy lol.
Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons – Gee, Oracle of Seasons, how come Mom lets you have two categories? Well, because both the game and the manga are really good, that’s why lol. Why not read along? 😄 Every time I reread one of the Zelda manga volumes, it just reminds me that one of these days I have GOT to check out the massive Twilight Princess series sometime. And because I own this physically, it’s another comic I could enjoy outdoors in the sunshine. ☀️ There are some fun new dynamics present in this adaptation that aren’t in the game, such as some familial background for Link, the fact that Link joins and travels with the dancing troupe for a while, and eventually you get a whole little adventuring party with Ricky and Maple on the quest alongside him.
The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz – The protagonist of the first book (which I read last year) was a Miserable Man, now the POV has shifted to a Miserable Woman, and it’s remarkable how similar the two of them are considering how much she despised him. There’s some morbid satisfaction in watching a Massive Jerk build what they think is an impenetrable fortress around them, but the weak foundation crumbles and we get to watch all of the consequences of their actions come crashing down and bury them. I guess observing that sort of glorious train wreck again was what made me want to check out this second book, although interestingly things don’t turn out as terribly for the female protagonist as they did for the guy, somehow, other than all the murders I guess?? These aren’t protagonists to cheer for, so this is very much a “What if this happened, wouldn’t that be messed up” kind of story.
Watching
Pretty Boy Detective Club – I… thiiink I enjoyed this? What a strange story, with a strange mood. It’s a bit less of a detective mystery than you’d expect, more like just a bunch of weird things that happen involving their school… odd that most of the dialog of each episode is delivered through monologues (either the heroine’s inner thoughts, or very very long and roundabout deductions from the other Detective Club members that somehow always point toward government conspiracy). I liked the Artistic Genius guy (wearing the oversized lab coat) because the rare times when he spoke were always very impactful.
An Observation Log of My Fiancée Who Calls Herself a Villainess – This is SO STINKIN’ cute and funny, then, as most things do, makes a serious swerve in the last third. Emotions get a little high, but it’s a comedy so it keeps making gags to keep things light. I loved all the pretty clothes! And if you’ve read/watched any otome isekai villainess anything, you already know how this kind of story goes, but it was interesting for the main POV to be from the male lead this time around, and that the heroine was genre-savvy as well! (The heroine’s name is ‘Heronia’ btw, which made me laugh.)
Casablanca – I’ve seen this before (many years ago, and I didn’t remember much from it) but it was a new watch for Wreckscalibur. Watching Casablanca is one of the most constant ‘Ohhh, that’s where that reference comes from’ experiences you can have, haha. And afterward, it’s required viewing to check out some classic parodies, like Looney Tunes’s Carrotblanca, and who could ever forget all of the magnificently-adapted Casablanca scenes in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank? (that’s a link to an entire movie btw. enjoy.)
The Great Mouse Detective – This is like the inverse of Casablanca in that it’s something Wreckscalibur watched as a kid, but this was my first viewing of it. It’s great, love it! Had no idea about Vincent Price as the villain, who naturally had some great songs as most Disney Villains do. The surprise guest appearance of Basil Rathbone’s (posthumous) voice as the human Sherlock Holmes speaking off-screen was also a great cameo.
King Arthur & The Knights of Justice – Ok so you know how I read the recent Princess Gwenevere & The Jewel Riders comics in the pastmonths? The publisher of those ALSO did a similar comic series for THIS OTHER Saturday morning cartoon, and THERE’S A BONUS CROSSOVER CHAPTER BETWEEN THEM. So the two cartoons themselves, despite being about King Arthur and Gwenevere, aren’t actually related, but the modern comic adaptations are. So now I’ve got to watch this nonsense (affectionate), just to learn & understand a little of what the comic is going to be and so I can ultimately read the crossover. It’s good nonsense!! We only watched two episodes but that was all it took to download all of them and put it in our shuffled nostalgic cartoon playlist on our TV (btw I highly recommend this practice, it’s great when you don’t know what to watch, just hit shuffle on the folder). It’s about a football team that gets isekai’d into King Arthur times and they all get dumb (affectionate) superpowers. They hype themselves up with the chant “Knights! Knights! Knights!” in the same way you’d say “Lads! Lads! Lads!” and Merlin has the same voice actor as Doctor Light from the Ruby Spears Mega Man series. Everyone should watch this.
There were two manufacturers I recently tested plush items from; the first was Wooacry and the other is Vograce!
Vograce is a bit more well-known as manufacturer of convention artist booth-style merchandise, since they have been around for longer. Just like Wooacry, Vograce also has a SMETA certification ensuring ethical labor practices & fair wages, and an FSC certification for their paper and wooden products that ensures environmental sustainability.
Things are a bit more open-ended when you submit designs to Vograce compared to Wooacry. With these character plushies on Vograce, you can add any sew-on details you like, such as ears, hair tufts, ponytails, wings, and tails. On Wooacry, you are limited to the ear & tail styles that are selectable in the listing and cannot restyle them yourself (they provide a decent spread of kitty ears & tails, bunny ears & tails, etc., but you can’t make a custom shape for your character’s unique ponytail or dragon wings or something).
This open-ended customization leads to a change in the upload process between them as well. On Vograce, the file you upload must be in PSD format with its layers intact, the reason being that you need to have created enough room for bleed as well as indicating the sewing lines for those custom sew-on pieces yourself. It can be tricky to get the right bleed amount and make some vectored outlines if you aren’t familiar with the tools in your art software. So there’s a bit of a trade-off of more complicated file preparation if you want fully customizable 3-dimensional extra bits on your plush when you go through Vograce, as opposed to the simpler upload process of Wooacry (where you can add basic animal ears and tails but none of your own shapes).
Tbh, the communication with the Vograce team was a little odd… they ask you to include a mockup in the PSD file you upload, which I did, and they still got something wrong when they showed me the “here’s how it will look, what do you think?” mockup from their end (the bunny tails were backwards, with the shading facing in rather than being visible on the back). 😐 Like, what was the point of me putting time & energy into making a mockup at all if you were going to make your own mockup, and incorrectly at that…? Oh well, I’m grateful that they sent that message because I could point it out and correct them, but even just that little bit of back-and-forth communication caused a longer delay before production started. If I can avoid it, I’d prefer to stick with ordering items from Wooacry in the future instead of Vograce just because they’ve got their process so streamlined (an advantage of having only those basic animal ears/tails to choose from – the whole team is familiar with working with them and there’s no chance at all of extra bits or bobs to worry about being sewn backwards or upside down).
Anyway, here are the pics of the plushies I designed!
Subjects: Eloise (the bunnygirl) and Rosie (the pink-haired guy), both are player-created characters from Xenoblade Chronicles X. Product: Custom Stuffed Toy Keychains Plush Toy keychain [sic; this is what the product is called on Vograce’s website lol]
Even after the small hiccup during production, I LOVE how these little guys came out. THEY ARE SO SILLY LOL. I carry my little pink guy around with me even just moving around the house. He sits next to me while I am working at my computer and I hold him while I am watching TV and I just squish sqiush squimsh his big silly face.
Since the bunnygirl got ears & tail sew-ons, I went ahead and gave the other guy ears & tail as well, just to make them match and because how could I resist making my gwumpy guy into a cute bunny?? Eloise also gets to wear her ears and hibiscus accessory simultaneously, which is impossible in the game since you can only wear one headgear at a time. Such is the beauty of custom products with full creative freedom!
Here they are from the back:
Those are the bunny tails that apparently were too confusing in my mockup… 😐 And the light gradient shading that caused the problem in the first place ended up being barely visible at all on the physical product in the end… 😅 Such ado over nothing at all.
Anyway, if you want chibi character plushies in this shape, you’ve got to go through Vograce for now.
But wouldn’t you believe it; on THE VERY DAY before I received these in the mail, Wooacry announced that they will also have chibi character plushes like these available soon, although the overall shape is a bit different:
Wooacry’s version looks like the head is less wide, with more definition for the jaw line (there’s a whole extra piece of fabric for the neck/chin), and a larger body with a more rounded shape to the arms compared to Vograce’s tiny starfish-shaped body.
I’m grateful that Wooacry is adding this because I’ll be able to have all of my chibi plushie dreams fulfilled through them rather than struggling with Vograce to make my own sew lines in the PSD file and needing to make corrections during production. I like so many of Wooacry’s other products that, once this new printed plush is available, I can get basically everything that I want through them rather than splitting orders between two manufacturers.
I’m really looking forward to when they make this available! I’ll probably make more Xenoblade characters to test it out! 😆
I finished watching what’s available of the 4Kids English dub of Tokyo Mew Mew (which they changed to “Mew Mew Power”) recently and I LOVED IT to pieces.
I felt that form of nostalgia for something I never experienced, the feeling being transported back to watching Saturday morning cartoons, and I could TELL how formative it must have been to other kiddos who watched it as it was airing. The sort of thing that inspires kids to make up their own magical animal-based forms and twirling around during recess to act it out. Or inspiring kids to wish they were a cat?? I’m telling you, watching that dub made my mind teleport back to that time. 🛝
I also experimented a bit with this art style, trying to invoke how Sanrio depicts human characters when they collab with an anime franchise (example here). That’s where the reeeeaaally wide-set eyes are coming from haha. o______o (← she looks like this to me)
Maybe I’ll check out the more recent Tokyo Mew Mew New sometime, but I actually have what’s remaining of the original run to watch with subs, first. Man, 4kids really cut off right before things went off the rails, with Ichigo transforming into an actual cat and being able to talk to cats. 😸 I love every minute I get to sit down with this show lol.
If you like this art work, it’s available on keychains, stickers, t-shirts and more on ACGGoods and Redbubble!
I’ve been posting a bit here and there about opening a new store, but haven’t fully dove into promoting it quite yet, and the reason for that is because I wanted to order some products for myself and touch them with my own fingies before I can faithfully recommend the items for other people to buy.
Just recently, I received my first order from Wooacry (the manufacturer that produces the goods sold through ACG), and wow, it is cool to see my art work printed on this super cute, soft & squishy stuff! I intentionally ordered these specific items because the soft plush goods like this are what I’d like the focus of my store to be. Although, of course, you can also find small & simple art prints in the form of stickers, trading cards, and postcards with my art as well. And Wooacry’s most popular products are their acrylic keychains and standees, which I’ll make available, too. I didn’t feel the need to “test” the quality of those with samples, since there are hundreds of other artists using this manufacturer with plenty of photos where you can clearly see that the acrylic is plenty sturdy and the printing quality is crisp, clear, and colorful.
So my attention is on Wooacry’s soft, plush items today, which are my personal favorite things in their catalog, and where I think the soft colors and cute & kawaii art style of my work really makes the most fabulous, tactile impact. 🌻
☝️ Before all else, I wanted to point out how open and transparent Wooacry is about embracing human labor rights and sustainability! View their announcement about their SMETA certification here (an audit that ensures ethical labor standards, safe factory conditions, and fair wages), and their announcement about FSC certification here (a responsible forestry certification that ensures sustainable wooden & paper products). You can view more about their ethics & environmental responsibility certifications on their About Us page (under the ‘Create Freely, Sustainably’ heading). 🌟
Now, let me show you what I bought! \(^o^)/
Subject: Mama Pitch from Kirby’s Dream Land 3, drawn by me! Product: 10cm Plush Badge
This is a plush pin!! It’s constructed like a “can badge”, the usual sort of round metal pins that you commonly see, but covered with the same soft pile fabric used for plushes, and with a thick layer of padding underneath. This leads to a VERY soft pin that is SO satisfyingly squishy – an awesome stress relief or fidgety toy that you can attach right to your bag or shoulder strap to comfort you throughout the day.
I’m sure you’ve already observed this, but THE SIZE IS HUGE!! 😱 Which is exactly the impact I wanted to make with this design. Mama Pitch here needed to be larger than her baby bird, Pitch, so that I could display them side-by-side.
This pin is so big, it completely covers my palm! It’s 4in/10cm in diameter. This isn’t even the largest size that Wooacry offers – you can construct these up to 16cm. I can’t see myself needing to make anything larger than the 10cm one, and even then, only for super-special jumbo designs (maybe a giant pizza pin?!).
Subject: Pitch from Kirby’s Dream Land 3 (and a few other Kirby games), drawn by me! Product: 5.8cm Plush Badge
This is the plush pin size I will focus on for most of my products. It’s a reasonable 2in/5.8cm, and is made with the same soft pile fabric and layer of padding inside. The smaller size is a little more convenient to hold and smush, making it somewhat more satisfyingly squishy than the larger size, even though the cushy padding inside is the same.
I’ve already made a note to future me to keep important details such as eyes even further away from the edge of the bleed line indicated in the print file. 💪 I did stay inside the warning lines with this piece, and even then, his eye slid further over than I expected, so it’s just something to keep in mind for future.
Now for a not-so-soft item that still manages to be very fun to fiddle with…
Subject: A Heart-Star, the collectible item rewarded after each level in Kirby’s Dream Land 3, drawn by me! Product: 5.8cm Lenticular Round Badge
It’s hard to photograph the shifting design, but I think you get the idea. In the game, this object morphs between a pink heart and yellow star, and I thought making a lenticular pin would be the perfect way to capture that. (´▽｀人) It turned out reeeeaaally cool! 🌟 This item is available in my shop right now – you can purchase one for yourself if you like it!
Here’s a video that shows the transforming image a little more clearly:
Finally, here is the scene that these three items create together:
My artistic vision that inspired me to illustrate these items in the first place was to recreate a scene at the end of a level in Kirby’s Dream Land 3, where Kirby reunites the baby bird Pitch with his mama, who rewards Kirby with a heart-star. (There are many similar scenes at the end of every level, I just picked these characters in particular because I wanted to draw chonky round birds).
What do you think, did I nail it?
I just thought that this would look super fun on the bag that I use for attending conventions! Now I have this tribute to one of my most inspirational video games (the pastel colors and crayon textures of Dream Land 3 really made an impact) right on my bag. Squishing the soft birdie pins will give me a lot of comfort and fidgety satisfaction while the bag is sitting in my lap during panels.
(Btw, the bag itself is from Bodyline, and the Kirby plush is an official keychain that a friend gifted me!)
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Now for a couple of extra items that I wanted to test out and touch with my own hands before I make similar products available:
Subject: Rocky from many Kirby games but particularly Kirby Air Riders, wearing the Pilot Cap accessory, drawn by me! Product: Squeaky Manju Plush
The video contains text captions that reflect my thoughts, but I’ll summarize the key points here. This product is awesome if you want to depict a character that’s perfectly round! It’s satisfyingly big to hold and squish using both hands with a grip like a really big hamburger. 🍔 I’m particularly proud of the white fur of the pilot cap wrapping neatly around the front and back half of the pattern.
On the underside of this plush, I created a kinda weird quadruple-foot phenomenon, but that’s the fault of the way that I drew the front and back print files and not at all the fault of the manufacturer. Just something important to keep in mind for future projects!
^ Drawing the feet like this caused the error. If I make anything similar in the future, I think I can just not draw the feet on the back side at all and it will look fine. If anything, it goes to show that the bleed template indicated in the print files is VERY accurate! The feet are chopped up in exactly the way that those triangular cuts indicated. 👌 …Well, it’s easy to understand that in theory, but difficult to wrap your head around how it will get constructed in 3D while you’re doing the actual drawing. 😄
Subject: An original Mii Warrior named Walnut, from Miitopia, drawn by me! Product: 9cm Mochikororin Plush
Speaking of wracking your brain to envision how a flat drawing will wrap around a 3D shape, creating the art assets for this one was roooouuugh for me. 😅 It turned out soooooo cute though. 🥺 His BIG OL’ EYES are soooooooooo saaaaaaaaddd 😭😭😆
The shape of this plush is sooo funny. There are definitely some character designs that befit this cylindrical shape more than others. Apparently this style is called “mochikororin” but I will be calling them “tummy plushes” (and relegate “mochikororin” to tags and search keywords rather than in the product name) because I think that’s more generally understandable. And much like the “manju” plush, it is exceptionally satisfying to GRISP this creature in both hands and smuuush it around (I tried to exemplify this in the video).
The only “mistake” here is that the belt didn’t line up perfectly across the seams, but y’know, I don’t think that’s all that bad. Slight misalignments are a normal and expected part of the manufacturing process and there isn’t any amount of optimizing the art in the print file that can possibly avoid it. I’m also taking notes for future projects to make the eyes a bit smaller and closer to the center, because stretching the face across a convex shape stuffed with fluff will make your art unexpectedly wider than it appeared on your flat computer screen! 😆
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In summary, I’m really really happy with everything I ordered!! The short pile fabric used on all of these products (other than the lenticular pin) is incredibly soft. I CANNOT STOP TOUCHING AND SQUISHING THEM!!
The images printed clearly, with ever so slightly softened edges (caused naturally by the fabric fibers) that I think works very well with my cuddly art style (artists who want their art to look crisp at all times might not like it as much, but Wooacry provides plenty of metal badges and acrylic products to befit that preference). It’s a unique quality of Wooacry’s service that their factory prints in RGB colors, which most of the time will accurately reflect the vibrancy of how your images look on your computer screen. (CMYK printing is vastly more common and often turns out darker and less saturated than you expect.)
In short… I AM SO EXCITED TO MAKE TONS MORE CUTE & CUDDLY STUFF!!!!!!!! \(^o^)/
“A mission together at last~” This Krystal turned out the cutest in my whole series of these little Star Fox chibis, I think. 🥺 She is VERY smol and her eyes are SO big and bright.
I’m still adding more items but please give a look to what I’ve uploaded so far on my new shop~ These Star Fox pieces look great with the starry rainbow holo or silvery mirror finishes that I could put on some of the pins and trading cards and things!
