Alright, I don't know if this blog post entry going to be long or short, but I'll try to keep it short by stating that

Joining Doujin Event is at least a half-year long commitment

Which is something that I didn't think about since all this time I just participate on a whim, on a chance. Turns out, there are a lot of things to really prepare that it makes you feel that last minute joining or "impromptu" joining is borderline harmful. Harmful to your health, be it in mental health, physical health, and even in financial health. There are just too many things that weren't in my consideration and I do think that it's a great experience, albeit a bitter one.

Okay, lets start from the obvious, which is answering the "What are you going to sell at the event?"

Product preparation: "Wdym I need to draw?"

Because yeah, you'll need to sell something, right? But what if you don't have to sell? Or you don't have anything new to sell? That's where you need to make something. And guess what? Making things are apparently hard!

Most probably because you also have the side-stuffs you need to take care on. Like you have an actual job, you have commissions (good thing I haven't), you have any other goals (like grinding to improve your art quality), and many other things. The problem here is that there is just not much time. And guess what? Not every time your head wants to cooperate with you! There were moments where I just didn't able to produce anything despite already prepared myself for "working", y'know. And even more so, when I actually got into the flow, often times I ended up with making something that doesn't really relevant to what I want to make for the event. I admit there are some issues with me and myself on defining my focus and having control on the steering wheel, but even now I still don't have any solution for that.

But even if there are not much of the side stuffs, like, you're a moderately "free" person with a lot of free time, then there comes another variable: motivation. I found it often that I simply lack of motivation to make something because I don't know if it's going to be "worth" in the end. I would attribute this to my intention of "making something that I like" and "making something that I would buy myself", and the way that the doujin event or art market works, is that you sometimes need to follow the market, and possibly making something that's not to your likings. Though, you can still make stuffs that you really like and just show it to everyone else. I mean, that's the essence of doujin event.

But for sure, the problem here is time. For example, you want to make an artbook project or manga that spans around 24 to 32 pages. You'll need to realize that: 1) The pipeline for each project type is different; 2) 4 months is simply the bare minimum, and; 3) You can't rush things up. I currently in my miserable state as I'm trying to finish something that would worth 40 pages under, idk, 3-4 days? And I think that's just stupid. But I have no other options. Decision has been made. But what I think that I could improve is that I need to define better parameters for the project and also properly set up my own pipeline so that I can have a comfortable framework to work with.

And then, in the middle of preparing my stuffs, I realized the other big thing.

Financial planning is hard since there is production cost, logistics, travel, and accommodation

I'll be blunt, joining doujin event is costly. You'll never know about the hidden fees that adds more into your headache and not mentioning the splurging that you'll do for yourself. After all, being in an art market surrounds you with amazing products others created, and without realizing, you would have spent more than your carefully-crafted budget. But let's breakdown one by one to see what problems they might create.

Production Cost

To say about "production cost" which is to say about the cost of making your products. What types, how much, vendor selection, and having test product or QA-ing, will determine the total of your product cost. Vendor selection is the most important part here since not only it determines what type you can create, the price for each product, they can also determine your deadlines. Mostly, the deadline is around one month prior the event here, but this is for the vendor that "specializes" to doujin event or art market participants.

Logistics

Easy, this is the cost of the things that supports your product, like the display and stuff.

Travel

Either on local (in your city) event, inter-city, or even international, travel cost is just as important. From the cost of getting into the venue, and the costs in-between, these should be in the consideration.

Accommodation

This includes hotel and food. Research is as important to minmaxxing this section.

Truly, having financial planning and proper budgeting is important to decide whether joining and committing into an event is feasible and possible.

Verdict: Commitment is hard

I haven't talked about mental health because not gonna lie doing all of this alone is going to give a big damage to your mental state. With the pressure of producing something, the feel of uneasy for using your money, and effectively put a big block of "occupied" in your calendar for several months, it's truly something that you need to commit.

Looking back at the times, joining C106 really did a big blow on me for the entire 2025 because I wasn't ready for the new environment, I already occupied with local events, and going to Japan is not cheap.

2026 will be the year that I will finally conquer myself into having a better planning and better framework so I can still put out something new to the table.

Source: https://x.com/rikak/status/1972579406389674255/photo/2

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Activity Report: Being A Doujin Event Activist #1