Visual Kei

It's always exciting to introduce new sounds to your itunes playlist. It's hard to find things for me to like, I'm very picky about new stuff. But I gave this genre a try. It's called Visual Kei, it is not at all in the mainstream in Canada. I've never even heard of it until quite recently when doing my own research. It's a genre with many types of different sounds, but with one theme: to dress to impress. The videos I've attached are super inspiring, almost as if they were inspired by early Marilyn Manson videos and totally ran with it and made it their own. I haven't seen anything like these videos in Canada or the US that I know of. Anyways check it out, let me know what you think.

Bike N Tattoo Review

This weekend's Bike N' Tattoo show was a great success! It was our first time at this venue and we made a lot of new fans. We even had a few returning customers from the Montreal show excited about the new items. At one point a 17 year old kid came up to me and showed me his portfolio asking what I thought! It's funny cuz I used to be that kid before. Another interesting thing was contrary to all the conventions we've done last year, we had a lot of wholesale inquiries. Many tattoo shops and small boutiques also a really big goth store in Montreal came up to us and suggested they wanted to work with us! So all this is very exciting news.










Even though there were many slow times during the day it just gave Dora and myself time to be creative. We reworked on paper and made lists of all the ways we want to tune up our booth so it will be more visually exciting this year. Also we came up with a concept for this months new design which can look pretty interesting once I start working it out. Dora had some great ideas for a tshirt and hoodie bundle, and we figured out a way to bring back the paintings at a much more affordable rate. We look forward to presenting all our new ideas to you at our upcoming events this summer.









One of our vendors Sin City Tattoo and Piercing Shop was two booths down from us and one of their tattoo artist's Melissa (whom I went to art College with) won Tattoo of the Day on Saturday. So congratulations to her!

Muazo

The secret is out, we're coming to the UK. Here is the link to Muazo.co.uk the online store we'll be available at. Take advantage and save on shipping if you're local to the UK area. The stock should arrive within the next 2 weeks. We're currently furiously working on printing up as well as preparing for our first tattoo show of this year. So go check out the site, bookmark it even and I'll let you know when our items are available there.

In the Lions Laier

The girls at the Lions Laier Boutique in Castlegar, BC seemed to be having fun with our items. They took these gorgeous shots of our tshirts, hoodie, and tote bags. If you're in the area please do go by and check them out. Click here for directions.

British Invasion

What to talk about? I've mentioned on Twitter that yesterday we signed on with an online store in the UK. We will be getting them a ton of tshirts within the next few weeks. I will post up a link to their site as soon as our banner is posted there. I have no idea how much the cost will be over there but all you UK locals will save on international shipping and won't have to wait as long as 3 weeks to get your merch :)

Also we've just signed on with another group from the UK, a band called Sa-da-kO. I will do a solo post about them soon enough with pics and links. We have come to an agreement to do their band's merch, it will be our first crossover project and I think it'll look pretty badass. The concept is those old godzilla movies, will be awesome.

For now I'm printing like crazy preparing for a Tattoo and Bike show next Friday. Dora is studying hard preparing for her finals which are going on this week and next. It's craziness, but we can't complain ;)

Cancer Bats Pics

Dora took some great photos of the Cancer Bats from Friday night. Their set was siiick. I saw them a long time ago open for Every Time I Die back when they had just released their first album and I didn't know any of their songs. So it was really awesome to see them now. Our photos of Thursday and BMTH are kinda sucks. Although I was really close to the stage for Thursday, I might post the video if it looks ok. Anyways, it was a great concert, very happy to have gone.

Alborde.com

Great article Dora and I did an interview for a few months back. Happy to hear what people are thinking about our brand. If you're willing to read it here is the link: www.alborde.com

Taste of Chaos Tonight

Tonight is my first hardcore show in 2 years... I haven't seen many acts making their way to montreal in a while, I remember a time when Every Time I Die, Terror, and Throwdown was a 15$ concert. And I had to make a decision between seeing The Chariot or Dillinger Escape Plan/Horse the Band because they were both playing the same night in different venues. Now the scene is borderline dead, and all the bands have turned to alternative rock bands. Anyways, I'm looking forward to tonight.

My Day Job

You've all seen my Akumu Ink work, and I've talked to you about the fact that I have a fulltime day job as a published children's book illustrator. But I've never showed you what I do. The books I've worked on at my day job can be found at chapters, indigo, walmart, anywhere where they sell children's books. Here is a robot from a series of robot sticker books, puzzle books and magnet books I worked on.

The 2009 Akumu Ink Tour

Get ready to see us alot. We've got 8 conventions lined up across Canada.

Custom Items

This weekend I've finally got to doing a little update to our Custom section on akumuink.com. I will refine it with time but I just want you to know that if you want custom art in the form of a painting, or our designs printed on something other than what we're offering, it is possible. I also want you to know that we're not your standard tshirt company, that only lives within the confines of the limited stock they carry. I'm an illustrator, not a graphic designer. I draw, paint. silkscreen myself, so I can afford to get creative (within reason) and work with you to give you what you need. I'm also great friends with a good printer who prints banners and car decals, so whatever you need I can get it done. Here's a pic of the Custom section, click on it to go to it:

Breathing New Life

So over the last few weeks I've been slowly replacing the product pictures. As we prepare for this summers shows we are slowly preparing to have enough stock. So I took a few pictures of what we have, hopefully I'll eventually be able to replace all the photos with updated photos like these.