STUFFED magazine giveaway

We just got our WonkyDolls back from STUFFED magazine.  Now we want to show how much we love all of our supporters.  We're going to give one of the STUFFED dolls away, for FREE!  As soon as we hit 25 followers on our blog, our first ever jellykoe giveaway will begin.
Make sure you hit follow to keep up with us.  ♥
UPDATE: we will be doing giveaways on our facebook page, follow us at www.facebook.com/jellykoe

We're adults! ...sort of

One thing that always bothers us at shows is when people look at our plushies and then say things like "oh, I don't have kids" or "my kids are too old for those."  We try to stress that while yes, a lot of people purchase them for their children, we don't make our WonkyDolls for kids.  When we design them, we have adult collectors in mind.   We also like to tell folks that we are toy collectors ourselves.  It seems that this is a foreign idea for most people. 
Well, lest anyone think we're exaggerating our own collection, we want to invite you to see some of our "house of oddities." 

Some of our plush collection.  Several are from other independent plush artists we met at shows

Invader Zim, Spawn, My Little Pony, Barbie Fashion Flairies

Majority of the My Little Pony Collection

The designer ponies- notice the pet net in the background broken from too many stuffed animals

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Friends With You, Disney, Peanuts, Futurama

 Like I said, this is just some of it.  There are toys scattered all over our house because we don't think anyone should ever be too old for toys.  And for those of you who don't know us personally, no, we don't have kids and we don't plan to.  All the fun stuff is just for us! 

Show Report- Ichibancon 2011

Ichibancon is a small anime convention in Charlotte, NC in January.  This is only its second year running, so we were surprised at how many people were there.  They are quickly going to outgrow that hotel.  We were lucky enough to get an Artist Alley table at the last minute. We were only there Friday and Saturday, because we had a prior engagement on Sunday, so our report can only be based on those two days.

Specs:

Jan. 7-9
Cost of table: $40
Juried: no
Tables/chairs provided: yes
Indoor/outdoor: indoor
Attendance: 1500
Profit: high

Pros
-The table was cheap
-The AA was pretty much the first thing there when people walked in the door
-Lots of our cosplayer friends were there
-They locked the room up at night, so we didn't have to take all our stuff back home.
-We were told there were good panels, too bad we couldn't attend any.
-We had several very nice, super enthusiastic fans. 
-Someone actually recognized us from STUFFED!  Not just recognized, but knew all the characters' backgrounds!  We felt so cool.
-Most people weren't put off by a $20 plushie.   It's hard to tell which conventions will have poor teenagers and which will have adults/people who save up for cons.  This one was really good for us.

Cons
-Bad con security.  The majority of the time, there was no one checking badges anywhere.
-No visible staff.  I only spoke with one staff the whole time we were there.  And he wasn't wearing a staff shirt or anything.  I know it's a small con, but I think I should always be able to quickly find a staff member.
-Super small AA.  9 tables.  No wonder the tables filled up so fast. 
-One of the tables in the AA was a con promotion table selling badges and retail merchandise.  Now, I have no problem with other cons getting tables to advertise, but seriously, when there's only room for 9 artist tables, please give them all to artists.   I felt that staff could have put that table in the hallway without being obstructive. 
-There was some problem with the lights in the AA.  They kept going out throughout the day.  That was annoying.
-The first day, the room closed an hour before it was supposed to.  It was ok for us, since it was slow and getting late anyway, but it still isn't fair to stop people from making money when they've paid for their table.  

 In the end, all of the bad things were just minor annoyances, and we still did very well.  This was a high profit show for us because of the low table cost and the fact we didn't have to get a hotel room.  We plan to be back next year. 

January limited edition WonkyDoll

As I spoke of in the last post, one of our resolutions for 2011 is to create monthly limited edition dolls.  We have tons of sketches laying around for WonkyDolls that haven't yet made it to 3D form.  Right now we have 15 WonkyDoll characters, which we feel like is a good number for us; a wide enough selection without stressing ourselves to make so many of each character. 
But we like to create, and we still get ideas for new plushies all the time.  So we decided to do a new design each month in a limited run. 
We're happy to say that we have our first limited WonkyDoll of the year, Furman!

He's small and cute and has a patch of fur on his tummy.  We'll only be making 5 limited edition dolls per month, so once they're gone, they're gone.  This is # 1/5.  We'll be taking Furman to Ichibancon this weekend, and whichever ones don't sell there we will put on Etsy. 
Of course, you can reserve one if you'd like, just comment below.

New Years Resolutions

Well, we can't believe 2010 is over, nor can we believe how successful it has been.  This was only our first full year of making a business out of art, and boy we've learned a lot!  Along with all our successes we've also had a lot of failures.  It comes with the territory.  We've used them all as learning experiences, and expect 2011 to be twice as great!  With that in mind, we've made some business resolutions for the new year.

1.  Finish the damn comic book!  We've wanted to do this for months, and never got around to it.  It's one of our top priorities for 2011

2. Keep all our WonkyDolls in stock, both at shows and on Etsy. 

3.  Monthy limited edition WonkyDolls.  Oh yes, this is exciting news.  More info on this soon.

4. Focus on our Clayed Man line more.  They've been so neglected.  I think a lot of people don't even know that it exists.

5.  Participate in 2 craft shows a month. 

We have a lot of ideas for our business, and things constantly change.  Even in one year, we've added several new characters, gotten into a magazine (twice!), cut some characters out of the lineup, added keychains, stickers, and magnets, then changed the way we did keychains and magnets, started a website (and then completely overhauled it), and added art to our setup.  We can't wait to see where next year will take us!