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Really, really recently, PM Lee announced that Singapore will be entering Phase 3 of our slow, steady country reopening in the face of the COVID19 pandemic. It feels really odd that an anime illustration studio would post so much about the pandemic but as it is, the pandemic hit us all.

Survival

Can you believe that we are coming close to one full year of the damn pandemic? It’s hard to imagine but we actually survived 2020! Sure, we definitely took a good number of hits on the economic front.

However, none of us got the virus ourselves and we still managed to keep everyone paid throughout the year. We didn’t hit the game-over mark and that is good enough for 2020.

TODAY, most of the team are still working from home, with just a small select of us coming back twice a week. We still have work trickling in and hopefully, come 2021, our revenue stream and productivity will go back to normal.

Unfortunately for the many email applicants we received, the studio will still not be taking in new interns in the foreseeable future. WFH is just not a conducive arrangement for internships.

Conventions

2020 saw the end of conventions. Large gathering of people are obviously a bad idea during a pandemic and frankly, I don’t see conventions happening for the first half of 2021 either. It is certainly something that we really miss since conventions are the time for us to get together again, catch up and spot new talents. At the same time, I must confess that it does feel a little liberating to not tie our annual schedule to conventions.

Should the global situation change for the better, we might not commit ourselves to too many conventions. Instead, we will further strategically narrow down on the number of conventions we attend. It will be easier on us to just attend the conventions in which we already had a personal connection with the organizers.

There is online conventions, of course. While CDS has not taken part in any directly, we will be more than willing to assist in one. Merfish Con took place just recently and I really applaud the grassroot organizer for taking such an initiative. To other aspiring online convention organizers, short of us directly funding the convention, please feel free to ask us to help.

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Project Updates

There isn’t as much to update this time as we are mostly stuck working on existing long-term projects. Usanekorin just completed a bunch of new artworks for Level99 Games’ Bullet. It’s really interesting and be sure to look out for it when it gets announced.

In the meantime, he also did a really nice artwork for #ENVtuber, Nova Sanguis. The artwork can be bought as a print or mousepad on her online store here.

WaHa has been stuck doing some character designs for quite a while. There isn’t much new on his end other than a couple of fun ‘meme-themed’ artworks for OtakuVS. These artworks were really fun though! It is always a pleasure to draw the dynamics between Cam and Ota-chan.

Poopiepuff had worked on artworks for Monsters of Murka, allowing her to indulge in even more horror-themed artworks. Otherwise, there are some other long term projects that she was working on that should be unveiled in due time.

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Desti has been working on our colouring book. It is almost done! We also made her take up a Domestika workshop on children’s book. With this new portfolio on hand, we hope that we will be in a position to work on some new frontier project.

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2021 comes

That’s that for now. 2020 is wrapped up and we will be looking to doing better in 2021. So much has happened… and didn’t happen. Moving forward, we will continue to be on the prowl for new work, be it in the anime art field or doing something outside of our usual comfort zone.

To all our followers, our clients, our family and friends, thank you for all your support in 2020. We could not have done it without all of you and your understanding.

Let’s make 2021 a more enjoyable year!