About eight or nine years ago I bought a VHS tape, the first volume of Record of Lodoss Wars: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight. In retrospect, even I don’t get why I watched it dozens of times, but I did, and that kicked off my journey into anime. I knew what anime was and had friends in high school that watched it, but I made fun of it whenever we were hanging out and they’d put in Vampire Hunter D in an attempt to proselytize me — D is a guy with a mouth on his hand, how could I not MST3K it? Plus, they kept telling me how awesome the animation was, but I locked on to the still frame pans during action scenes and thought to myself, this is good? Add the anime is porn thing, I wasn’t much of an anime fan in high school. If it weren’t my D&D nerd looking for Lodoss during one summer break in college, this blog and obsession would have never been.
At the time I was into American comic books and started drawing too. Eventually, I found Adam Warren’s version of Dirty Pair, which was the true gateway to anime for me. When Tokyopop released their first wave of manga that would eventually be their first wave of graphic novels as monthly issues chapter by chapter like American comics, I’d finally been converted. I drew and drew. Which led me online to find like-minded people. Everyone had a Geocities or Angelfire account in those days to host their personal websites and store their scribbles. Eventually, I decided to get my own domain. My first host went belly up and since I registered the domain through them, getting my domain back was too much of a hassle, so I registered HappySoda.com as my new domain in 2002. “HappySoda” was imagined Engrish for beer.
The picture above was the last version of my drawing website. It was a silly home page. Clicking on the petals would unhide a hidden layer or open a pop-up depending on where the person wanted to go. For about two years I was really into drawing and made a couple of 10-15 page comics. By 2005, I gave up on drawing, since I wasn’t very good at it and the drawing site stayed dead as did drawing in general. I maybe drew once or twice with Serverine below being close to the last (somebody during the interview at finetoo.org said they wanted to see some of them, so if that was you, here you go).
Blogging
In a last ditch effort to reclaim the drawing spark, in January 2006 I began a collaboration with a writer from a board I used to visit. To mark the progress of the project, I decided to blog it, putting up design sketches, roughs, etc. (these posts have all been deleted). Like most of these collaborations, the artist (me) flaked out and the project died. Drawing comics is a grind and a huge commitment — what makes them brutal is you don’t always draw things you want to draw and have to figure out all sorts of things a non-squential artist never has to worry about or can flat out ignore. The call of the Playstation2 grows strong under those conditions.
By May 2006, I started some tentative figure posts, but reviews with photo shoots didn’t start until July 2006. My first real comment, which was from Lian YL, didn’t happen until September of 2006 after commenting at RIUVA, which was the first blog I ever commented on. I never visited blogs at all until around that time. It seems pretty “well duh” now, but for new blogs struggling to grow an audience, interacting with other blogs is the primary way to grow unless you’re lucky. The comment author link is your greatest audience cultivation tool. Of course, I’m pretty horrible at this myself, being a habitual lurker, but it’s important to find other bloggers you like, keep up a dialog, and link to whenever there’s an excuse to do so (this one is important if you’re shy to use the comment form like I am).
It’s also good to be different, which doesn’t mean revolutionary or out there. It just means being you and doing what you like, which might take a while to figure out, maybe your whole life. For me I guess that was those fictional intros that almost always have nothing to do with the character in continuity. Creating a mood was what I wanted to do, so I did it, not really caring if it was wrong. They’re fun to write, even if lame to read sometimes.
Nowadays there are a lot of figure oriented blogs out there, so it’s rough trying to stand out. Back when I started there weren’t that many people with figures as a or the major focus for their blog, so it was easier to be different almost by default. On the other hand, there’s a much larger network of collectors and figure fans online to interact, so I guess it’s a wash. There’s a larger audience out there, but maybe a little harder to seem different from the next guy — though having a fairly unique blog theme helps make an impression. At the end of it all though, just enjoy what you’re doing.
No Promises
So yeah, while not the spiritual anniversary, this is technically three years blogging and the start of the 4th year for HappySoda. What will ’09 bring for this blog? It’s not usually my style to say what I’m going to do before I’ve done it, heeding Hemingway’s caution about talking in advance, but that’s bad marketing, I suppose. That’s a lie though, since I talked up that photo book for a while, but I think I’ll go back to the man’s advice and let that lapse in style serve as a lesson to myself — do it then talk about it, not the other way around.
I’m still as interested in figures as I was when I started, so that will still continue as the reason for this blog to exist. Plus making images of pretty girls looking their best is one of the things I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a kid and this blog is pretty much does that. It’s easy to get sidetracked and steer away from what you really want to do. Maybe if I pursued fashion photography way back when, I’d probably hate making images by now, so perhaps the roundabout path to pretty pictures was good so long as I got back to doing it. I try to believe that things happen for a reason and try to make the best out of those reasons. As an undisciplined person, I mess up on that a lot.
It’s getting tldr. Thanks for reading and making figure collecting a less lonely hobby by commenting and posting your own reviews on your own blogs.
congrats on three years! your site is really in inspiration to so many of us figure collectors. the way you can capture a figure’s true beauty is unlike any other figure photographer I’ve seen. Keep up the amazing work and keep on inspiring others to pick up a camera!
Congratulations first on 3 years.
I can identify with many of the problems, probably because some of them, like lack of interest, are the reason why so many blogs, not just on figures, are being abandoned after some time. Then there is the blog interaction thing, which not many are acquainted with or some are just plain shy to do. I appreciate your figure reviews as well and comments, so keep them coming.
Congrats on the 3 years. Though I understand where you’re coming from about being unique or that one step ahead of others. At first I was thinking the same thing but soon enough I realised that all of it doesn’t matter since I blog only for myself. It’s just a bonus that I happen to have readers. Still I look forward to what HappySoda will bring us in the upcoming years.
Keep the awesome photos coming =D
There isn’t anyone who doesn’t love them, and that’s a fact.
Grats on the milestone! Even with more sites popping up, the talented photographers still stand out =3.
Interesting backstory. I always love reading history by people who got into anime long before me – especially if you were back in the VHS days. Good shit. It’s kind of funny how even though i got into anime in like 02-03 area, most of my intro anime were things that were introducing people in the 90s like Ninja Scroll and X/1999.
Oh my, congratulations! I’m so glad you’re still around. Here’s hoping for another year with many figurine shots and reviews and many more years to come.
Congrats on the 3 years. To be honest, I am really impressed that people have the patience to write blog for such long time. I have many blog before this, but all lasted for a month or so only. Last time, I always force myself to update my blog and cares a lot about the views (i know it’s dumb), that makes blogging less fun.
Now, blogging is a favourite past time of mine. A place for me to write down bits of things happening in my life and post photos of my girls. Now, it does not really matter if my blog is popular or not because i am writing ,mainly, for myself. Of course, having reader is a motivation.
Congratz on ur 3 years. When I first started, I told myself I just do what I can do and try not to live up to everyone expectations. As a non photographer myself, I know I’m not the best when it comes to shoots but I try to do something different to stand out of the crowd. While I don’t mind a bit of the fame, I realised I’m trying too hard where at a point, I’m not enjoying myself anymore. Being different is fine but enjoying urself and being different at the same time is a different story. At the end of the day, what I’m doing is for myself overall regardless, if ppl enjoy reading it or not.
Looking forward to more Happy times at HappySoda.
Congratz on the 3 years of blogging. HappySoda is one of the blog that really inspired me to create my own blog and taking/posting photos of my figures collection, so I am really glad to see that HappySoda is still going strong ^^. Here’s to more great photos and review from HappySoda ^^
Congratulations! What you do has brought great inspiration to me — I have often told my writers to use your photos as their example of what to shoot for when photographing their figures. Thank you for everything you do — I look forward to seeing more in 2009. ^__^
Dancing Queen, Thanks so much!
Panther, those early months when the crickets chirp can be rough.
Adun, exactly. By being yourself and having fun, your blog isn’t like someone else’s blog.
double, thanks muchly!
Hey Kabitzin, yeah, even with something very technical like photography there can be quite a bit of variation in style, so there’s room for quite a few different ways of seeing something.
Digitalboy, back stories are some of my favorite posts to read. Sometimes it’s just fun to see how someone got to the present.
Sasa, you’re always so nice. Thank you.
Chappy, I find one of the things that gets people discouraged (other than the fact it does take time you could be doing something else) is the expectation. They see other blogs they visit and wonder why nobody visits theirs so it tanks. i think if you go by what Adun and I were basically saying and enjoy blogging itself it can help pull you through those weeks when you start wondering the point of posting for the world when the world don’t see it.
Optic, that’s a good phase to get past, because then you can just have fun and people will enjoy your posts more.
Valho, glad you’re still around!
Colette, now I’m blushing. The best for you and your crew.
Thanks for the Happy Soda History Lesson!
Its always nice to know more about the persons behind the blog.The Fuwa Interview was already great but this was very interesting aswell.
Happy 3rd Blog anniversary!
You know what really depresses me?You are not only able to take great pictures you are also able to draw pretty good
HS was one of the Sites that got me hooked up on this expensive Hobby.Ive been lurking around a long time (was too shy to comment) and enjoyed your pictures of pretty girls.One fine day ive found out about HLJ and the possinility of PayPalPayment.The rest is History in the Making ^^
Sometimes the birthday of our blog feels almost like the same as our own. I don’t really know why I started my own two years ago but after that I met a lot of people specially on figure.fm and that was a great community to bad danny closed it.
Keep up the good work showing us great pictures of figures
Blowfish, I apologize to your bank account.
Belela-san, I think my blog’s birthday gets more attention from me than my real life birthday, which I try to think about as little as possible.^^;
grats on 3 years
it’s true that there are many blogs out there, but happysoda is still special for me. You my friend is one of the reason why I started taking figure photos
Congrats for 3 years of Happysoda!
Happysoda is the figure review site of my choice by default, so whenever I’m looking for figure reviews, I’d come check happysoda first. The reviews are always excellent ^^;
It’s also after reading your review I lamented at not getting the Queen’s Gate Alice xD
And it’s great being in your company.
Congrats on your 3rd year.
Congrats! I haven’t been reading you (or anyone else really) for nearly as long as you’ve been blogging, but I love what I’ve seen so far and I genuinely hope you keep it up in the future. Blogging can be tough, but as every blogger knows, it’s at least worth it for anniversaries like this where commenters and lurkers alike shower you with praise
Congrats on your anniversary!
I agree that at the very beginning, it’s hard to maintain a blog when you notice that less visitors are coming to your site. That kinda brings you down to a low self-confidence to continue blogging. Also, due to some off-the-net issues some blogs tend to slow down in posts or even stop entirely.
It takes time to build up a solid community, and I’m discovering that now that by having a timely conversation with fellow bloggers keep everything intact and improve communication. Not forgetting to keep that enthusiasm up throughout the entire time.
Thanks for the thoughtful post! Really made my day, and I’ve already blogrolled and subscribed you. Good luck in 2009!
p/s: Do you have Twitter, by the way?
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