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May your month be filled with magical white squirrels [30 Apr 2008|07:28pm] May desktop calendar is up! http://meomi.com/desktops.html ^___^ 10 comments|post comment

Booksbooksbooks [23 Apr 2008|12:33am] ♥ We have a new limited edition book coming out with Rojo as part of their artist monograph series. 160 pages of color clouds, ghostly plants & happy spirits. You can now Preorder from the Rojo website (err, it's kind of on the right and down a bit... under Available soon) ^___~ It'll have some familiar cloudiness and many new ghastly images like monkeys playing triangles (egads!). Clickyclick above for larger goodness. ♥ Come visit us at the LA TIMES Festival of Books on April 26th.(that's this Saturday!!) We'll be hanging out at the Kinokuniya book store booth from 2 - 3 pm signing Octonauts books and looking goofy. Also, our new Octonauts book is now available for pre-order on Amazon! Stay tuned to our blog, we'll post some preview spreads soon! ♥ Thanks to lovely Claire who sent us this funny clipping from her local paper on the island. It's also really great to see all the attention Mukmuk is getting - we hope everyone will be equally devoted and passionate about Vancouver Island Marmots in general! Those little guys are just so awesome. ♥ and and and... just a little note to thank everyone who emailed us, sent us photos or questions - as you can see, we've been buried under a lot of work so we're still catching up on replying, but thanks for your patience! xo 11 comments|post comment

It's still April 1st in Hawaii! [02 Apr 2008|01:05am] April desktop is up! http://meomi.com/desktops.html Phew. wasn't sure we were going to make it in time this month. We're super busy right now, hanging loose in San Francisco. Have to be awake in a few hours to attend a shoot. And I'm slowly trying to indoctorate Michael onto classic Teresa Teng songs. ^___^ More... later... happy April! -- OH. meanwhile. -- Ms. M has lots of photograph prints for sale on her etsy store! I just got my order today in the mail and they look really lovely. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=2427 And Dan sent one of his Mr. Toast toys and it's awesome. It squeeks! Thanks Dan! http://www.theimaginaryworld.com/page3.html 5 comments|post comment

March along! [28 Feb 2008|06:38pm] 'lo from sunny LA. How about a pussywillow parade? Now on our desktops page! ^__^ If you're in Barcelona, the Rojo.OUT has launched! And the city is littered with art on billboards - very cool! David sent us this awesome photo (love how it's plants growing over construction, kind of like our drawing.) If you're free this Saturday, do drop by Monkeyhouse Toys for Dan Goodsell's Mistertoast show (!!) He invited many neato artists to do drawings for it also, and here is ours "Toaster in the sky" (I confess the whole time I had "Spirit in the sky" stuck in my head. Then Michael & I had to go to Youtube and look up the 80s and 70s videos of the song and compare. We also spotted a review of Sea of shade inside the latest ShojoBeat. Although I don't usually follow shojo manga - but aww, I do have a soft spot for Honey&Clover (must be the art school brat in me) It's the chapter where they're getting ready for project finals and Morita builds a lifesize model of himself. ^___^ Our little web elf made some iPhone icons for our websites hehe. (y'know if you feel the urge to browse us on-the-go.) Not to mention we finally have favicons. yay. 4 comments|post comment

snowy vancouver update [30 Jan 2008|09:11pm] [ music | Handsome Furs - Sing! Captain ] ♣ February in Kachi Kingdom desktop calendar ♣ ART PRINTS ARE HERE! We've finally sorted out the details - and our large Giclee art prints are now available through our online store. You can view the selection -here- ♣ If you're in/near/around Barcelona - check out Rojo.OUT, International Outdoor Urban Art exhibition featuring various artists with their works printed out in giant billboards located around Barcelona metro. Including some of our work! : ) Aye. it's a little more 'grown up' than our usual drawings since the sponsor is J&B Scotch - RSVP for the event and enjoy an evening of art, magazines and scotch! (who doesn't like free booze?!?) ♣ We also got our Wachi Fichuz cards from the lovely Argentinian kids. Alas I'm currently camera-less so no photo - but check out the site and pick up a pack of assorted lovely art! 5 comments|post comment

Happy new years! [01 Jan 2008|08:26pm] *** the Cloudseeders ::: Desktop calendars for 2008! *** In 2008, Meomi would like to take you high up in the sky, to the Kachi Kingdom, a world of spirits and cloud gardens. Johnny Cloudseed is a young boy with a big responsibility. He's training to be a cloudseeder like his grandfather, an important job to help the Kachi spirits grow their magical 'moment' plants. Join us each month as we reveal more of the story! The Cloudseeders is a concept that has been floating around the backs of our heads for a year now so we're happy to get a chance to draw the story out and think up all the fun bizarre plants for our Kachi spirits to tend. Thanks to everyone who's emailed about giclee prints, we'll get back to you soon, we're still catching up - can't believe holidays are over :( we hope you all had a good time. Our holidays involved: :: too many food (mmm hotpot) :: Settlers of Catan (in which I've won every game so far mwahahaha) :: a vast stack of PS2 games (thx kev&pax!) :: reading russian fairy tales (that Ivan guy gets around!) :: old time guitar playing (just Michael) :: watching "the Lost Room" (Best mini-series we've seen in good long time! very mysterious and fun) :: more food :p 13 comments|post comment

Happy Holidays Everyone! [21 Dec 2007|02:50pm] Thanks so much to everyone who left comments in our last post ♥ (sorry we haven't had chance to respond yet) We're finally getting to unwind a bit (hurray for holiday) though we're definitely trying to get the 2008 desktop calendar done. We did some filming for the behind the scenes video last weekend, and finally encountered the giant plushes that are normally for display and they are awesome (!!) I think everybody needs giant plush pillows. Belated thanks to Evie, Shawn, Becky and Leilani for being the first to respond and win the winter newsletter stuffs. We made it to the cover of last weekend's Ming Pao Vancouver magazine, which made my parents happy ; ) During the interview, the reporter asked if I watched any chinese television so I told her I was a big fan of old 80s wuxia series such as the Condor Heroes trilogy. She then furrowed her brow and asked me again "Really? Condor Heroes?" and enthusiastically I replied "Yeh! Love the 80s TVB stuff" Later... my parents inform me that the author of the Condor Heroes trilogy (Louis Cha / Jin Yong) was actually the founder of Ming Pao newspaper! DOH! Happy new years everyone! 6 comments|post comment

Belated Cloud houses [05 Dec 2007|08:57pm] After 5 years, we've finally moved out of our pixel factory and into a little cloud shanty - come pet our friendly narwhal! A little belated news, but the big secret project we've been working on for the past year has launched! Meet Miga, Quatchi & Sumi - the new mascots for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games! Inspired by British Columbian aboriginal legends, these ambassadors will be travelling and sharing their stories with children across Canada. Learn more, play games, get wallpapers: Vancouver 2010 website Miga is a sea-bear. Sea-bears are orca whales that turn into bears on land - but Miga is special and turns into a Kermode bear. Because Miga is young, she got stuck half-way during her transformation, now parts of her are orca and parts of her are Kermode! Quatchi is an elusive shy Sasquatch whose passion for hockey and photography has him traveling all over Canada to find friends to play with. If you see him in your neck of the woods, give him a big hug! Sumi is an animal guardian spirit, from head to toe he represents the the sea-to-skies of British Columbia. He loves taking care of his animal friends and has a sweet tooth for hot cups of cocoa in the Whistler lodges. As part of the mascot launch, we also wrote and illustrated the mascot story book which is currently available through HBC stores and the Vancouver 2010 online store, not to mention the super soft and huggable plushes! Thank you to all the people who have sent us such positive comments/emails. We've had such a great time with this project , we loved researching and reading the many inspiring local legends and stories of the creatures, critters and spirits that live in the land all around us.  For those asking about the design process, we'll be working with Zinc Roe, the team behind the website on some behind-the-scenes videos, to share the thought process and neat project tidbits. For example: one fun thing I learnt from this project was how to measure fabric pile for Quatchi's fur! ; ) Here are some fun extra images you might not have seen elsewhere. For the spreads, click to view larger. (photo snagged from Vancouver Sun) 46 comments|post comment

Hope y'all have a nice ghostly day today :D [31 Oct 2007|02:32pm] Quickie - we've got two new readings in the coming month! Michael will reading in his hometown of Milford, Michigan: Milford Public Library Thursday, November 8, 4:30-5:30 pm And also at the wonderful Japanese bookstore Kinokuniya Los Angeles 123 Astronaut E S Onizuka #205 Saturday, Nov 17th 2-4pm It'll be a cleared out little area inside the store! :D 5 comments|post comment

whirlwind octotour 2007 [29 Oct 2007|11:59am] (( click image for larger )) Back in rainy Vancouver - a BIG thankyou to everyone who came out to see us in Los Angeles & San Francisco - from the rowdier events to the 'exclusive solo' readings ; ) We enjoyed meeting so many nice and wonderful folks!! Special thanks to::: -- Copperfields Books and all the kids that came out to hear us at McNear School - I believe it was our very first encore ever. :D We were a little intimidated when we discovered we'll be reading in front of so many kids - but they were all so nice, and really helped us out with sound effects. Plus it was really fun chatting with everyone afterwards during the signing. We discovered that we really need to improve our hand-drawing skills and that Sauci Dog has a massive underground fanclub. -- Foster City Library where again we encountered one of the best audiences ever, not to mention their super ninja colouring skills. This group of tykes knew their crayon-handling well. -- All the books stores (Books Inc, Book Crossing, Storyopolis) and delectable shops like Wink SF (the sweetest little shop in Noe Valley, San Francisco. Everyone should go visit them!) Super7 (So many wonderful toys and they had pumpkin cookies!) Wacko SoapPlant (most interesting table cloth arrangement) ; ) For those of you interested in prints and posters. Wacko still has a couple of the larger prints (I think) I'll include info below the cut (if you're out of town should probably call/email them directly, these prints are really large so I'm not sure how shipping might work), and Michael still has some of the smaller prints (ellaphant & llama) and might be able to ship those. And for those who were interested in posters - Wacko has a couple left and Super7 in SF ordered a WHOLE bunch, so drop by that awesome toy store and pick some up!! ( Some more of our favourite photos from the tour, and prints & posters info ) 11 comments|post comment

Sea of Shade [12 Oct 2007|04:37pm] The books finally arrived! : ) They look really nice, I'm actually way happier with this print run than even our original book! (shhh! ;) oooh scary adventure time... Michael says his mom reads this blog, so this one's for Mike's mom! And earlier the Giclee prints showed up, they look really nice, despite my crappy photo ;) sorry really bad lighting in this apartment It's been a 'waiting around for the courier' type of day, so now we're off to eat some tacos! See you guys tomorrow night at Wacko! And belated congradulations to Kristopher, Gloria, Eling and Kathleen for winning our mailing list poster giveaway - your posters will be shipped out next week! (See, if you're on our mailing list, you get silly free stuff ;) 8 comments|post comment

Quick update [09 Oct 2007|11:59am] [ music | buck-tick : alice in wonder underground ] Hi everyone we've put together some flyers for the different book parties, please help us spread the word! ^___^ And we will definately have posters and limited edition Giclee prints at the Wacko party. And possibly the Super7 one! Michael just got the posters in last week and says they're looking nice. We're suppose to see the prints this week. Our first venture into artsy print land, exciting :) Soap Plant Wacko (Los Angeles) ::: http://www.octonauts.com/octo_wacko.jpg Books Inc (San Francisco) ::: http://www.octonauts.com/octo_booksinc.jpg Super7 (San Francisco) ::: http://www.octonauts.com/octo_super7.jpg And after all your Octo-partying, you might want to drop by the Rojo.SmartCar for Two event Friday, November 2nd. 2007. 7pm to 10pm smart house. 1319 Abbot Kinney Blvd Venice. CA 90291. USA There will be free magazines, drinks, music, fun. Preview of a couple of our spreads in the magazine... 1 comment|post comment

autumn update! [20 Sep 2007|01:55pm] [ music | Clazziquai - Cat Bossa ] We've finally updated -- the Octonauts website -- with all the new book information, party/reading dates & sneak peaks into the new book. Everyone in california is welcome to come join us for a silly grand time. And if you need some Penguin first-aid love for your fall wardrobe, Peso's exclusive tee is now available at Hot Topics around America! Sorry for the kinda shoddy photos (it's been so grey/rainy here, no good light source ; ) but the tees are 'long tees' in soft stretchy cotton with cute hearts & anchors ditsy print In other Sugoi! news, we heard from our publisher that Octonauts will be translated into Japanese and hopefully hitting japanese bookstores next year! Thanks also to all the really nice sites and person who've been reviewing our books, one of my favourites is the colourlovers review with these nice palettes that people made ^___^ We've also recently recieved a box of Chuppy tees: Which are shirts meant to promote the toy I think haha. Though the shirts came out first. You can order the shirt here: Red Magic Style Shop they're printed on nice thick quality cotton, and the colours are really vibrant but you can't tell from my shoddy photo. DOH! And here's a sneak preview of the toy below. Chuppy's a character/story that we actually came up with...TWO years ago? Three? things tend to take a bit longer in toyland :9 And that's Tooli, Chuppy's spider-puppy. And we recently did this cross-over poster with our favourite Argentinians DGPH, they'll be touring around california showcasing a whole series of cross-over posters with a great line-up of artists like Jeremyville, Julie West, Zeptonn, among many others, do go check it out!! ( And here is a photodump from the past month :) ) 18 comments|post comment

reporting live from LA [23 Jul 2007|05:59pm] [ music | carter family - darling daisies ] wow. It sure is hot! I guess the difference is, in vancouver you end up staying inside and working a lot because it's always raining. But in LA you end up staying inside and working a lot because it's just too hot outside. ♥ I finally posted up a quickie reel that Michael put together a while ago for us. You can view it here (about 6mb) It also has one of my favourite meomi songs by M. I always get it stuck in my head. ♥ We've been playing around in 3D more. Michael just did this 3D version of Stitchy Squirrel, our favourite DIY critter. Stitchy loves to sew and make and be crafty ^___^ ♥ "Treeberry" is a drawing I did for the Treeson show happening next month with the adorable treeson and a host of fantastic artists. ♥ here is a blurry sneak preview of something to come :) We're busy setting up events for the Octonauts launch in October. I'll post an update in a couple weeks with all the places we'll be stopping by. Our hard-working publisher guy has been building up a busy schedule for us. ♥ one of our favourite resellers in the UK just redesigned their site: check it out if you're over the ocean and need some cuteness: http://www.hannahzakari.co.uk/ And to wrap up this post : A photo of paper mario to celebrate the fact that I played Wii at my friend Nik's house for the very first time EVER and as it turns out my favourite sports are Tennis and Boxing! and here is a wall of strange animal paintings from the Barnsdall Park art show that was on yesterday. 13 comments|post comment

:( [20 Jun 2007|06:20pm] A little note, I just found out one of my favourite artists Charley Harper (introduced to me by snowdesign a few years ago) just recently passed away... I really love his art so much, the way he sees shapes, colours and the way he uses lines, all truly inspirational - and of course his dedication to illustrating nature & animals! RIP Mister Harper, the cheeky birds and rascally raccoons will miss you. 1 comment|post comment

the Octonauts & the Sea of Shade [19 Jun 2007|11:08am] [ music | Humming Urban Stereo - Triangular ] Just got the initial proofs from our Singapore printers yesterday ^___^ Everything looked quite good and much less revisions this time compared to our first book where I was still figuring colours/contrast and how they translate from screen to print! So they'll be at the printers all summer and be ready to hit the book stores by October (!) We're still super busy with work (the usual) but I'm happy that I finally started on our site redesign (it's only been 5 years!) hopefully I can get it up by the fall. hah. in the works: art shows, toys, shirts, pocket art book, posters & prints in my spare time: collecting seed pods, soy lattes & too much Hong Kong television photo recap: and candice gave me permission to post this pic of her being the official octonauts vanna white(!) also she sent me some of her awesome buttons & shirt, which I will show off next time. promise. and Mike from Copacetique passed on this cute photo by Charles & Lisa ( of the Math and Physics Club) Congradulations! ------------ pimpin' friends --------------- my secret friend anna leely makes these amazing animations: observe!! my most anticipated movie of the year: 30 Days of Night those DGPH boys are putting together a new set of character cards: http://www.wachi.com.ar/ the Latex for Fun book is out and everyone should buy a copy of this really cute book! 11 comments|post comment

house arrest quickie [26 Apr 2007|03:13pm] [ music | Humming Urban Stereo - Mulder Does Know ] Friends and Octonaut fans in Los Angeles - this weekend is the LA Times Festival of Books! at the UCLA campus. It looks really fun and hope you all attend -- of special note, try to drop by the Kinokuniya Bookstores Booth (# 327) where mister Michael Murphy will be hanging out and signing copies of the Octonauts and the Only Lonely Monster Saturday, April 28 11-12AM Sunday, April 29 11-12AM I'm quite envious because I'm under house arrest trying to finish up the new book (almost done!!) Here is a little sneak peek. And Lynn from RDCTV sent over a bunch of cool promo/magazine pages about the spca project. I dig the creepy masks haha. Sorry if I haven't answered comments/and possibly some emails. We're super(supersuper) busy this month so please bear with me another week or so. Dear Vancouver - enough rain already! 1 comment|post comment

happy birthday to m! [05 Apr 2007|01:58pm] [ music | mama!milk - august ] Happy Birthday Michael! ^___^ my favourite critter drawer! And also happy belated birthday to Meomi (who's unofficial birthday was April 1st, 5 years ago that day I first marched down to the business bureau and registered this little company into existence.) We've been still super busy working away at the next Octonauts book, more Google work, starting some Chumby (which is really fun toy by the way for those of you inclined to squishy touchy screen wifi products) Here's a photo of Tummo (that's the sketch I posted last time) Hopefully should be instores soon! We were a bit behind schedule (but thanks for Jason @ the Wurst Gallery for his patience) we finally finished our piece for the Wurstminster Dog Show called "Clumber Slumber" Our canine was the Clumber Spaniel. This piece is available as a 7.5x7.5 signed velvet print! (If anyone is interested please contact the gallery.) Check out all the other wonderful pups that were drawn also but a slew of amazing artists! As for the Rojo.Inna show. Thanks to David for sending this photo. it looks really cool - if you're in NY, do drop by!! And we also got our copy of Rojo.Seis. *super* thick album of lovely art. for those of you wanting prints of the elephant garden & llama bath, why not pick up a copy of seis? Rojo always has very nice print on good paper. My only regret is we didn't get a chance to submit more art due to our busy schedule, we only had these 2 drawings done lately. ah well. Last month we were featured in Vancouver Magazine. Thanks for the vancity love. A while ago we designed a shirt for Radioactive in Malaysia for the SPCA campaign "Love knows no Pedigree" Check out the site and the many nice designs! Maybe pick up a shirt and support critter love. 加油! Fight-oh! Aja-aja Fighting! ^___^ 16 comments|post comment

♥ from Meomi mailbox [06 Feb 2007|03:41pm] [ music | Fantastic Plastic Machine - Paparuwa ] It's been a while since an update, so a longish one. We've been getting lots of goodies in the mail. First off, two giant boxes of the 8 inch Powder Cats for Le Sport Sac. Hopefully once our schedule clears up a little, I'll have time to put them all up on the store. They're very huggable... in a hard plastic sort of way... ♣ Big Powder and Lil Powder are checking themselves out in the DOTDOTDASH book which has some of our Qees and Hingeheads featured. I like to think Catbot as the world's most famous designer cat, because he's been published in at least half a dozen design books. hehe. (even though he really needs to go on a diet!) ♣ Michael will be doing an Octonauts reading at Senka Cafe, the cafe next to Kinokuniya Books downtown LA on Saturday Feb 24th. Hope some of you can show up, please help spread the word and invite all your friends. Unfortunately I cannot attend, but if you've been to any of our readings, you'll know that Michael is the star due to his critter voice talents! ♣ Also, a big THANK YOU to Octonauts fans, all because of *you* we'll be doing a second printing of the book (!!!) hiphiphooray. It's not too late to pick up a first edition (hopefully one day it'll be worth millions of acorns) but the 2nd one will be nice too because I was allowed to fix some small mistakes in the printing. o^___^o ♣ Also, for New York fans, our giant Sea of Shade textile print will be showing at New City Art Home Gallery as part of the Rojo.INNA exhibition. Opening Feb. 21, 2007. Please attend and help me take some photos haha because I've yet to see what it looks like. ♣ We were featured in German anime/cosplay magazine CHO2. There's also an article on my favourite anime of all time Samurai Champloo, and a lot of bishounen manga articles o__O ♣ The kind folks over at Chumby sent us our very own squishy pillow touchscreen to play with! I haven't had time to delve into it yet, but the product seems really promising, and of course you just have to look at their logo to know they are kindred souls. mmm tentacles. I'll update more on this fine tech-craft product once I try it out more. ♣ A lil preview of Tummo, a new member to our vinyl family... soon. His appetite will scare you!! ♣ Finally, not yet in my mailbox, but I was excited to order my autographed copy of 25th anniversary Last Unicorn DVD One of my favourite animations when I was young. Anyway, some/many of you may already know of Peter Beagles struggles with gaining back royalties for this picture, so if you order directly from above, you'd really help him out plus you can get him to write funny names on the box. It really is a beautiful animation & story. 11 comments|post comment

Llama Bath [02 Jan 2007|10:33am] [ music | Huang YiDa - 顯微鏡下的愛情 ] Happy new years! ^_^ This is the other half to the elephant garden drawing, featuring m&munki in a nice hot springs llama bath. I wish I was in one right now. May the new year bring creative fun inspirings to everyone! I know right now I need another cup of tea before I start this 'back to work' week. so everyone Jah-yau! 15 comments|post comment

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