♫ Le Piccadilly - Erik Satie

New year, same old me but new notebooks!

HAPPY 2026!

After musing about the previous year in my swanky new hobonichi and truly, what an actual shit show that was; I decided this year will definetly have to be a "all-frills no-buy" and "I am going to be a Chinese monk closed door cultivation in my cave" year.
Well...
I do have one pen lined up for purchase but that was only because it was supposed to be a last year pen but the group buy got pushed to this year haha

I think I really did reach pen peace? Unless Lamy decides to drop another crazy LE colour combo this year I think I'm safe(???). With my dream pen in hand I really do feel satisfied~✦

Anyhoo, in McElroy podcast bro's fashion, I have named this year my "Twenty Building Bricks: Let's go from the ground up!" year.
Which is a nice look inside my insane naming prowess (Please laugh at my leaflet pub name, I spent an entire week on it and now I can't stop laughing)

I don't think it's as crazy as it looks? I think I'm pretty lean compared to some other notebook users, though I digress, I didn't draw in my sketchbooks and swatch books...but most of these are carried on from previous years, I just swap out hobonichi covers for a new look once in a while!
I only bought two new covers for this year the Makoto Matsubayashi clover and the Mr Saturn lenticular both in A6. Not gonna lie but I mostly decided on the Makoto Matsubayashi cover because I could design a better outfit for my Ho-boy-nichi ehe~

haha look at my son~
Maybe I'll try a media journal with my Mr Saturn cover, I really do need to note down what I'm reading/playing (lookin at you where winds meet, I took a little break to try and finish Qinghe exploration and now I've forgotten everything that happened in Kaifeng kajfsk)

Oh! This year I decided to decorate the front cover of the actual hobo book! (👉👉 at cover image) I usually slip both cover pages into the outer cover (oh god cover this cover that) but I saw someone just slip the back cover in and I was like "I'll be yoinkin that idea~"

The past few years I've been drawing less despite having more time to do so and it's honestly been draining me in more ways than one. I really miss the days we used to draw out OCs and RP in chatrooms or over skype because I feel that truly was one of the main reasons I drew so much, it was so fun to create with people.
I've always wanted to make art and design work, but I've just been really going through this slow agonising shounen anime "I need to become stronger" arc but it also happens to be a "the anime caught up to the manga" filler arc??

SO! I am making it a point this year to git gud. I'm going into a metaphorical closed cultivation for my art! I'm definetly lacking in many art departments (cries in 3/4 facing the left, hands behind back pose) and I want to use the opportunity to use up sketchbooks, mess around in other mediums and just study art more because I see how some artists work and the light is hitting the cones and rods in my eyes but my neurons are not activating!!!!

But my first major event this year will be Animaga Sydney in March so if anyone's heading there, feel free to visit me! I'm planning pretty much all new merch and hopefully some original stuff because honestly, it's my OCs that keep me going the most. I'm actually not that good at drawing fanart haha though who am I kidding, I'm so rusty at art these days haha (sweating in Animaga posting countdown posts already and I am NOT prepared heeho (´∀｀；)

Hope everyone has an umazing year of the horse! I hope I can keep up with this leaflet, occasionally posting updates and hopefully it creates I nice log of my improvements! Ganbarubaru!!

Have a nice smile,