Thanks. I’m sure I’ll be getting over it soon. It’s just your typical con-crud. Won’t take more than a day or two to pass.

As for Banzai… well… I wasn’t sure if I was going to pester you guys about it. I’m usually pretty quiet regarding personal matters but this has really been weighing heavily for a while.

Allow me to start by saying that rudragon was a delight to share a table with. We had a really good time together and I’m sure it would have been far worse had I been alone.

That being said, it was a disaster. I’ve been going to Banzai for eleven years and this was the second-lowest sales I’ve ever had at this con and the absolute worst for sales of my own merchandise. The only way I managed to pull any profits was by offering printing services to Ru. Without the money we got from prints, I wouldn’t have even covered the cost of the table, let alone the cost of materials. This is why I am depressed. I put SO MUCH into preparation for this convention and despite my added efforts, improved products and all that I have learned, I keep doing worse each year.

Logically, I know that a lot of it is circumstances. The past four years, they have put me in the worst tables in the Artist Alley- an easily overlooked corner that really breaks the flow of traffic. I complain every time but I keep getting stuffed back in there and my sales have never recovered. I remember when I couldn’t possibly make enough plushies. I was churning them out so fast, they were abominations by my current standards but they were still selling for 25-30 dollars. I invest in better fabric now, stitch the mouths and eyes with careful accuracy and give away the ones that don’t meet my standards- and I can’t even sell them at 15. I went to the convention with twenty one plushies. I returned with nineteen. And one of those sales was a PITY sale from my neighbor.

I’m just… done. I hate coming home depressed from what used to be the highlight of my year. My last three conventions have ended in disappointment and depression; and I’m paying to do this as my costs are beginning to outweigh my profits. I don’t know what changed. Have I gotten worse over the years? Or have I graduated from being so bad it was cute into being blandly mediocre? Regardless of what the cause is, the plain truth is that I just don’t fit into the convention scene anymore.

I will not be returning to Anime Banzai in the foreseeable future. There will be no more Kitteh plushies. That is a chapter in my artistic life that must come to an end before it eats away at me anymore. I will still be at Unthrocon in two weeks and depending on how that goes, I may do that convention again next year but my years at Banzai are over and what plushies are not sold at Unthro will be sold online as the last of the Kittehs.

I assure you, this is not a brash decision made by a bruised ego. Damaged as my ego may be, this is a decision that has been a long time coming. I’m not a professional artist. That much is abundantly clear. And I should stop pretending to be one. I can’t sell craft or prints in a real, competitive market so I should just quit now. Maybe in a few years if my work improves I could try again but for now I need to retire from conventions. I have to do this for myself before this depression takes any further hold on me.

-TB