New Designs, Upcoming Events, and New Products!

Heyyyyy, lovelies! I know, I know, I’ve been bad about keeping up with my blogs this month 😭 First week of September was Saboten Con (which went amazing by the way! I'll do a recap in next week's blog), so things got pretty busy there for a bit! And then the other two weeks after that, I admittedly…. just forgot. Sooo, I’ve set up calendar alarms to try and remind myself earlier, so I can have them posted weekly, as promised! But rest assured, I haven’t been distracted from my goals, I’ve been working on new art, planning new cosplays, and uploading sticker listings to my Etsy and my shop here!

This past weekend, I did a big photoshoot for all my on-hand stickers. I took over 1000 photos! Of course I won't use ALL of them, but still. Sorting through 1600 photos takes a lil' bit, yanno? I’m trying to get at least one photo for each sticker edited, so that the sticker's listing can at least be accessible for purchase. And of course, more listing photos and even videos will follow after that. For the rest of this month, I’m prioritizing new apparel designs and adding stickers to my shops. Prints and buttons will follow shortly after that.

As far as new merch and art goes, I’ve recently gotten several new stickers in since Saboten! They include: Christmas Kougra, Grey Lupe, Faerie Draik, Sailor Mars, and Sakura Flareon. A Miraculous Ladybug sticker is also in the works! I'm hoping to have even more designs available for sale in mid October, when I’ll be vending at Arizona Fur Con. I’ll also be vending at UwUcon at the end of October too. I’ll work on restocking some low/out of stock inventory, in order to have my full art and merch lineup available at both shows! While the furry con will be slightly less cosplay-focused, UwUcon, will be a mix of both my art and my cosplay, since I will be there as a featured cosplayer. More info on that coming soon!

Speaking of cosplays, I won’t have a lot of time to make anything too big, but for UwUcon I was aiming to try and sew myself a Misa Amane cosplay. Also looking to finish out some more details on my Gothic Lolita Moka Akashiya outfit, and then maybe reuse a previous cosplay, such as Thorn from Scooby-Doo. I’ll keep you updated on what all I’m thinking as it nears! I likely won’t be in full cosplay for Arizona Fur Con, since it’ll be my first furry convention, plus I'll be vending, and I don't want to overextend myself. But I’ll still dress up in some cute fashion and whatnot, maybe with some fun animal ears, so that I can also celebrate the event in my own small way!

I’m hoping after October, I can dive back into some of my cosplay endeavors. I hadn’t been especially inspired to work on cosplay much this past summer, and early fall just always ends up being busy for me, heheh. But I started rearranging my sewing room this past Monday, in the hopes that a change in flow and scenery will energize my creative spirit. I still have lots of cosplay ideas and dreams I want to accomplish, and I also want to make a return to creating more tutorials and digital patterns. In November, I’m going to try to focus on updating my Merry Moon pattern and its tutorials to help people get ready for the holiday season. 🎄

This October is going to get pretty hectic for me, I've got plans every weekend, and am working my day jobs on the weekdays still. But I’ll try to keep myself on top of posting regular, weekly blog updates for y’all. Apologies, again, for the delayed post. I do hope you all have been well, and I am so excited to be bringing you all sorts of new art, merch, and cosplay content. 😁 Hope you have a wonderful weekend, thank you so much for all of your support and encouragement!

~Momo Kariño

OH! And before you go... something else I keep forgetting to promote is the Southwest Artist Alley and Vendors Discord! SWAAV for short, this Discord is meant as a resource for artists in the Southwest US to be able to network, give each other heads up about openings for various events/cons that are looking for artists/vendors, and to be able to give feedback to each other on cons, products, display tips, etc. etc. You can also use it to look for people to table share with (at cons that allow table sharing), splitting hotel rooms, finding a carpool, and so on and so forth. We even use it to plan community table games, such as stamp card rally games!

There is no expectation to participate in the SWAAV Discord if you join, it is just there for everyone's convenience so that we can have a more centralized location to talk about these Southwest-focused events. So don't feel bad if you want to join it and then throw it on mute, so you can just hop on in whenever you're looking for updates or connections! If you would like an invite to the Discord group, feel free to message me on my art Instagram @momokarinyoart Also, don't be afraid to leave a comment too letting me know that you've reached out, since a lot of new messages automatically get sorted into a hidden request folder. Hope you'll consider joining us! The more, the merrier ^_^