Local artists stand out at STGCC – JR Pencil

The Singapore Toy, Game and Comics Convention (STGCC) has always been an exciting staple in the convention goer’s annual calendar due to the myriad of exciting international artistes from both East and West that are brought to the sunny shores of Singapore.

Yet the STGCC has also been a great platform for a few of our locally based artists and initiatives to promote themselves and raise their visibility further with the growing fan base that they have developed. Here Be Geeks took a look at them in this set of three feature stories.

If you love cute super-deformed or ‘chibi’ art, JR Pencil is probably one of the artists that you should take note of. Since their appearance in the event circuit in 2015, the team behind JR Pencil has been working hard to refine their offerings to the public and to improve their marketability in the ever growing sphere of fan art.

As a local team from Singapore, JR Pencil has done well to expand beyond the island’s shores with their recent forays over to larger conventions across the world, including Anime Expo & Silicon Valley Comic Con in the US, SMASH! in Sydney and also a variety of events in Taiwan & Malaysia. And they take every event as a new learning experience.

“We’re humbled by the attention that we receive at overseas events. It’s already really encouraging that the public in Singapore are supportive of us but we’re bowled over by how receptive they are (overseas) when we’re just a small Singapore team among the sea of artists at these huge conventions that draw tens to hundreds of thousands of people.”

Just this year alone, the team launched their very first Kickstarter project for an art-book showcasing the hundreds of chibi artwork they have done in the last three years and successfully met their funding goal, something the team didn’t initially expect to happen but they were extremely grateful to their supporters and fans for.

At each and every event JR Pencil attends, they try to incorporate something new in their offerings in order to explore and understand the interest of their customers ranging from lanyards and posters to gacha (akin to a lucky draw) for exclusive items like plushies and hoodies.

But the heart of the team is always humble with their pet phrase being “It’s all because of our fans and customers that we are able to attend each and every event. They are the ones that make us excited to keep at what we’re doing.”

To find out more about JR Pencil, do follow them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/jrpencilpage/) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/jrpencil88/)!