Five Months Abroad Zine
About
illustration ✶ print ✶ writing
Five Months Abroad is a self-published zine about my stay in the United States for my student exchange program in 2015. It's a small and personal story about coming of age, cultural identity and alienation in a foreign land.
The Process
I wrote the story and accompanied it with little doodles here and there but there was really no structure yet. A few challenges also cropped up. For one, printing color was expensive as it was priced per page. Because of that limitation, I either had to use only black and white or make the zine really short. Either compromise I did not like. I needed color to tell my story and I didn't want to be limited by the length of it.
Eventually I discovered this unique way of folding the zine. You only had to use one sheet, have it printed back to back and you got 16 pages of full color at the price of 2 colored pages!
Read the Zine below!
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Komiket Merch
About
illustration ✶ print ✶ stickers ✶ handmade clay pins
I frequently tabled at artist conventions like Komiket PH, StickerconMNL and BGC Art Mart. It was a good way of making new friends and being part of the local art community in the PH! Met so many amazing artists and it was great being around that creative energy.
I would sell stickers, prints, my zine and handmade clay pins!
Handmade Clay Pins
Made from air dry clay and hand-painted with gouache. These little pins were a fun experiment on how to translate my illustration style into something tangible and handcrafted. I also designed the pin backing and packaging.
First, I would mold the shape from the air dry clay, smoothen the sides and then let it dry for 24 hours before I could start painting it. After hand painting each pin using goauche, I would glaze it with varnish for another 24 hours. It was tedious but very rewarding work!
From top left to right: pins before painting, pins in various stages of production, hand-painted Pikachu pin, my pin display during Komiket 2020, and a photo someone sent me of a pin they bought from me on their bag!
Postcard and Stickers
The bulk of my con income came from stickers, a fun and accessible way for people to enjoy art. I also produced postcard prints of my illustrations!
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Gamer Girl GIF Stickers
About
illustration ✶ animation
I created some GIF stickers for gaming since whenever I wanted to post an Instagram story I found the gaming category to be a little lacking.
'GG' stands for 'good game' while 'GG EZ' means 'good game, it was too easy' as a sort of taunt to the opposing team.
To "hold the W key" means to play aggressively and seek engagements with the enemy as the W key is the forward motion on the keyboard. And 'Toxic' is for all the toxic gamers out there 😛
I uploaded the GIF stickers to giphy.com and they're now searchable on the Instagram GIF search bar! As of present, it currently has 14.5M+ views! View on https://giphy.com/chellirey!
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Personal Illustrations
About
illustration ✶ sketchbook
A combination of fanart and illustrations exploring coming of age narratives and otherworldly worldbuilding.
