Hakobore

"Five Worms" Pencils cont'd (and Book Announcement!)

So the cat's out of the bag now, the two new comics I've been working on ("Dogshell" and "Five Worms On a Line") is for a short comic collection that's coming out in print next year with Glacier Bay Books!
This is my first full-length publication totalling around 200pg all together.

My past works "Pearl Hunting", "Coppélia et Swanilda" and "Lala" will be the other featured stories in the book, so if...

I won a grant!

A quick, jolly news that I won the CLNZ Contestable Fund Grants to write a short comic next year, so stayed tuned for that in 2026!!

Five Worms on a Line Pencils

I took a half-assed break for about a week before I started working on this piece.
One of the regrets I had for Coppélia et Swanilda was that I didn't get to draw a lot of dancing scenes because I had to move the plot forward. With Five Worms I hoped to focus on practising and experimenting drawing the actual dance sequences.

Waitress Uniform Study 40

I only have 4 more uniforms to draw for this series!
Really trying to finish them all within the year!!

Batch 10:

Chain: Mister Donuts

Reference:

Dogshell Finished!!

I finished drawing and typesetting all of Dogshell!
I'll be starting on my second, slightly shorter comic soon after for this secret project...

Dogshell Inks continued

It's show week! Will be dancing almost everyday for rehearsals and the actual show this week! Hoping to squeeze in as much work as possible around the rehearsals and warmups before it.

Dogshell Inks Continued

The work is now going into spoiler heavy areas so there's not a lot I can share rn but I promise I'm making progress haha
Very nearly 2/3 done with this one.

It's also market season where I table at xmas craft markets almost every weekend, AND show week for the dance studio I go to next week! I'll be going to rehearsals and performances pretty much every day for our adult ballet piece. I feel very relaxed about the upcoming performance compared to what it was like when I was in high ...

Waitress Uniform Study 39

Chain: KFC

Referece:

Dogshell Inks Continued

I had a lovely beach day with a friend yesterday and I was very glad for the plan because there was sad news just a day before, so it was a much needed distraction.

The let's player team I've been watching since around 2017/18 had one of its members leave the group after 15 years together. Even though I wasn't watching their content as much for a few years now, their dynamic as a group was a constant presence in my life since I moved back to NZ from Japan when I graduated uni. That'...

Dogshell Inks Continued

I picked up a few comics from SBCF, this is the first year I wasn't participating.
I recommend Lovebirds by Alex Cara a lot, it was super sweet and made me tear up a little bit!

Dogshell Inks continued

Going slow but steady!

I managed to apply to a residency and a grant recently, and am waiting for the results that will come out in November...

Started Dogshell Inks

Still struggling with disordered sleep, but recovering very slowly...
Work schedule is all over the place now so I've just resorted to doing whatever I can in the moment disregarding the original plans I had.

Waitress Uniform Study 38

Slow work week, going to apply for another grant.
Honestly kind of in disbelief that I'm still doing this series, aiming to finish it this year though...

Chain: Shakey's

Reference:

Back to thumbnails

I finished the pencils for Dogshell, and am doing some thumbnails for Paloma Just Across.
After these thumbnails I'll start pencils on Five Worms On a Line!

Also, just a heads up that my posts may have irregular scheduling for a while due to my sleep apnea getting worse recently. I'm still aiming to post once a week, it just may not be on the Sunday that I usually post!

Setback

Late post for last week since I was hit with a mysterious fatigue that lasted all week and set back my comic drawing progress.
Strangely though, I'm getting my motivation back for doing sketch doodles that evaded me since around 2018. Hoping this stays because I feel like I'm improving my draftmanship a lot by doing them.

Dogshell Pencils continued

I was hoping to finish the pencils this week but I still have 8 pages to go...!

Bonus sketches I did to unwind:

Dogshell pencils continued

Almost half way through the pencils for this piece!
It's getting little warmer in NZ recently, Spring is in the air, I can't wait...!

Dogshell Pencils

Moving on to pencils now that the thumbnails are done!

Crossing my fingers that having my online shop open won't take too much time away from me to work on these comics.

Shop Open!

My irregular online shop is open again for 3 weeks (until September 21st) with new stuff!

Patrons get a code to knock 10% off all sticker orders as usual :)

CODE: STICKERJOYS

Shop Discount Code

Hi all, just a quick informal update that I'll be opening my online shop soon with new products (new comic book, new stickers, new postcards, etc) and thought I'd share my patron exclusive discount coupon early just in case.

A proper announcement for the shop opening will come soon, with the discount code reminder too.

CODE: STICKERJOYS
10% off all stickers!

Waitress Uniform Study 37

Only one study drawing this week as I used all my time finishing the comic thumbnails!
I'm on to penciling now!

Chain: KFC

Reference:

Five Worms On a Line Comic Thumbs

Another somewhat ugly post due to working on thumbnails!
The second comic I'm working on is called "Five Worms on a Line"!
The thumbs I draw that don't require a client or editor to look over is SUPER bare-bones and rough for me, because only I need to understand what is going on in the page. The upside is that it saves me time, but the downside is that it's not a very pretty thing to share.

Some sketches I did and posted on social media this week as a bo...

Waitress Uniform Studies 35 & 36

I finished the thumbnails for one of my comics! It ended up being 30 pages... I think I'll start on the thumbs for the second comic while my brain is in thumbnailing mode.

Studies batch 9:

Chain: Coco's, Denny's

Reference:

2025-08-10 04:27:18 +0000 UTC View Post

"Dogshell" thumbnails

Not a lot of pretty things I can share right now unfortunately, as I'm working on the thumbnails for one of my comics, and my thumbnails are not the pretty kind...

"Dogshell" is going to be around 20+ pages I think!

Concepts and study for new comics

Doing concepts and studies for 2 new short comics!
The second image is figure studies from Sara Anstis's "Dogshells", a drawing that inspired me for the new comic idea.

Sara Anstis
Dogshells, 2024, pastel on paper

Patreon switched my page to adult/18+ category

Hey all, just a heads up that Patreon out of nowhere automatically switched my page from All Ages to Adult/18+ because I assume they flagged my comic with topless mermaids in it.
I tried to appeal because this seems absolutely ridiculous, since I highly doubt it would've been flagged if it were topless mermen instead of mermaids.

The attempt to appeal ended with an automated response basically saying I need to remove all images with sexual content/nudity (in my case just nudity if i...

The books arrived!

The printed copies of Love Condemns Her have arrived! I'm pleasantly surprised that it took so little time to get here, I thought it was going to take at least a month.

I'm very happy with how it turned out, so I thought I'd share a little sneak peek with my patrons :)

Here's the front and back cover.
I chose a textured paper with little flecks of silver foil in it for extra flavour. (It's quite hard to see in photos.)
I wanted to play around with foiled text for the title ...

Waitress Uniform Studies 33 & 34

I was struggling really hard with the anthology comic thumbnails (Paloma Just Across), but then the deadline got extended by 5 months so I'm going to shelve it for now and work on other comics that needs to be done this year!
Luckily I settled on a story for one of them in my head so I'll be moving on to thumbnails next week.

Chain: Casa, Fujiya

Reference:

2025-07-12 21:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post

Redraws for Love Condemns Her print version

Thank you to those who switched tiers to the Special Thanks List in time for this project!
It's now sent to the printers and I should have it with me in the next 2 months. I'm actually so excited and pleased that I finally got around to doing this project!

Here are some (non-comprehensive) pages of the redraws I've done for it, I think they all look pretty seamless and natural as it can be.
Not all the elements I redrew will be seen on the printed version, as it is designed to be ...

Waitress Uniform Studies 31 & 32

New Zealand is cold and wet everyday it's starting to dent my mental wellbeing. This happens every year and I try to combat it with vitamin D pills but there's gotta be a better way...

On another note, just a reminder that I've added a new Special Thanks Tier List project!

2025-06-28 21:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post