Event : Malaysia Hobby Expo, MAEPS & My Biggest Doodle

Before the event :

I found out about the event around 2 weeks before the event. I contacted the number stated in their Facebook, for the guy in charge of the event - vendor booth and asked about the booth's price and the whole process. Told them that I'm a doodler and I want to sell my doodle items - all handmade, to let them know that "I doodle and that's considered as a hobby" because I thought last-minute enquiries will be ignored.

But the guy replied and told me that he will call me instead because he got an idea. Later he called and asked me if I could doodle on a huge white vinyl in exchange of the booth's fees and 2 passes. I discussed with Af, and we felt like it was a good opportunity to get a free booth in exchange of my doodle service, so I agreed :D

A week before the event :

I received an exact size of the white vinyl which was 12 x 16 feet and seeing that I can't imagine how big it was, I just said okay without worrying too much. They asked me to doodle "hobbies theme" so I did several sketches in my sketch book, all the items I want to draw : BookWorm Club, The Cosplayer, The Artsy Crafty, The Collector, The Cook, The Sporty, and lastly The Doodler. Fair enough.

I relaxed, until 2 days before the event and we went to Maeps to actually see the white vinyl and I just found out how big it was ! It was ridiculously big ! Big as I never actually imagined I will doodle on before. By that time I felt a bit anxious for the weekend. They told me to start on Friday so they can hang the doodle before the event.

Later I bought so many markers because I didn't know which one to use, and also to avoid running out of ink for drawing that big. I spent around RM 50 for various of markers - that I finally didn't use :p

On that Friday :

I managed to convince Af to take an unpaid leave to 'teman' me that day and help to doodle as well :D I can't imagine doing it alone in one whole day ! So after breakfast outing, we went to Maeps. We started to doodle around 10 am and we finished filling up the whole space around 7pm. 

I mostly used one of the markers - the biggest one I have, because I like how thick it looked on it. They laid it on the stage so we had the space to draw freely without anyone's attention. 

That was the moment that I realized that I can doodle - still. 

After all this years of my own silent treatment. 

And so we doodled, until our back ache and our mind exhausted from thinking about items to doodle on such a big white space. Aja even came during lunch our to help, and I just strictly said that they can doodle anything they want - but please bear in mind about the space between items and no fill-in colour to let everything look nice together.

We came out with this :

I want to personally thank Aja and Af for helping me.
It was such a nice experience, after this I can answer to people when they ask me 'how big you've doodled before?' - It was 12 x 16 feet in 8 hours :D

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On the event days :

It was a 2-days event, we got a booth in the flea market space. 

I sold all my sticker packs, postcards, greeting card, totebags and zipped bag printed by CreativeUnited. I got around RM 400 for the event, just by selling mostly stickers :) Alhamdulillah. A nice small income for the weekend.

Here is a video made by Af :

Malaysia Hobby Expo 2016 from Farikarim on Vimeo.

Personal thought on the event :

I wish there are more to arts + crafts people and booths around - I was hoping for more stickers and planners and washi tapes and fan-arts, but there was none. Most items are focused on boy's hobbies - figurines, cars, remote-controlled machines and stuffs that I've never really interested in.

And there was no books. Imagine that. 

Is reading not considered as hobby anymore? 

I hope next year people will come up with more than 'boy's-toys' :D 

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After the event :

I didn't want to put all the doodle into waste, so I planned on using it for my digital illustration as well. It worked well as a sketch that I can refer from to be digitalized later and turned into stickers. So I'm putting all updates in my dribbble account for now before printing it now later :