Hiyaku Studio

Sooner or later, I'm gonna post about Hiyaku Studio's activities, so I figure I'd best explain what it's all about first and foremost.

Formed in 2006, Hiyaku Studio is an artist circle based in Auckland. Our style is heavily influenced by Japanese manga culture, always has been and always will. Although there are some remarkable talents within our group, for the moment Hiyaku Studio is strictly nonprofessional. All our projects thus far have been carried out with our own personal interests in mind.

What we do is we collaborate each year to create a body of works to present and sell at the annual pop culture event Doujin Overload. This may vary in the form of doujinshi (fan comics), prints, posters, bookmarks, etc. Our feature product is always an artbook, and it is this which makes up the bulk of our workload.

Regarding the members of Hiyaku Studio, we currently have five. We originally started with four when the group was formed in 2006, which was made up of myself, Simon (Ethird), Jeri and Kody. Our fifth member, Claire, joined up earlier this year in 2009; and we're expecting a sixth to be officially announced in the coming weeks.

On that note, we are still open for new members. We're not taking this too professionally since we're basically just a bunch of young, like-minded artists who collaborate for the joy of it; but we do expect applicants to at least specialize in manga (art-wise) and be around our level of skill (or above; that would be pretty sweet haha). If you're interested in taking part in our projects, feel free to contact me anytime. Being a resident in New Zealand is a plus, and a resident of Auckland is a plus plus.