Les rouages
Inspiration - This style was not only a dream of mine but also inspired by Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid's first ending. It was around the 1 minute mark of that ending they showed little stickers of there characters and I really liked the way they looked and also the artstyle of the anime. The Artstyle always had this warm feeling to it and I wanted to replicate it some how. While examining their artsyle I noticed they use the color brown for their line art and it is that same brown that I use for my stickers now.
December, 2021 - Paper Play started as a fun little dream of an artstyle I had back then, dreaming of making a children's book artstyle just for the fun of it. The first attempt was made back in highschool for an art project that just so coincidentally was for a children's book. As you can see the first version of Paper Play didn't even have a white border nor its style, this was really off the dome and in the moment with no prior prep or planning, it was simply in the moment.
July, 2022 - It wasn't until the year after I attemped to create anything related to it once more, this time I had a better vision of what I wanted though. Still with no concept art or practice I gave it another go. I remember this taking me forever since I was still trying to make it look good all in one go. I still didn't have what I sought just yet but this time I remembered to add the white borders and it was an idea that was going to stay.
October - December, 2022 - First year of college, we were tasked to make a comic book of sorts and so I thought way to go at this than the Paper Play artstyle. Being in college I knew I couldn't turn in half baked work, I had to put some real effort into this. I remember waking up at 5am and staying up till 5am the next day just to "sleep" for 30 minutes and drive back to Campus. It was rough but my class really loved what I had here and thats when I knew I had something going on here. 2 months later we had another assignment to make another comic book and this is when I actually set down and started to make concept art and sketches of my work.
July, 2023 - Its been a while since I've last done one but in the meantime I experimented on and off with this style trying to figure out, what colors to use andn kept a file explaining my process and made it into a "how to guide" that I still use to this day. I woke up and randomly wanted to make a sticker for my friend on a whim and so I did. This sticker became my standard for every Paper Play sticker to come.(Check out my boy Artie the guy who I drew for - https://x.com/ArtieDoko)
December, 2023-2025 - I started to make more for fun and found that I could make this into a little business of mine. My art college actually had these little fairs in winter and late spring where we could sell our work. Its pretty hard and competitive to get in and being rejected twice did kill my motivation to continue on a bit. It wasn't until around late 2024 to early 2025 that I decided to take things into my own hands. I wanted to do and make everything myself. It was a bit nerve wrecking but I little by little I did more and more until I got everything I needed. Now the only thing holding me back was myself
Present(July 2026) - And here we are, full production in house, the art, the cutting, the lamination, and shipping all done by me. I never imagined creating my own website nor making tiktoks to help advertise, but I felt it was a nessacary step if I really wanted to take this seriously. I want to give my thanks to my parents and my friends who supported me along the way, with all the encouragement and positive feedback they have given me to get to this point. Thank you.