Kai

@sleepinglionkai.bsky.social

177 Followers 75 Following

Chronic doodler, stationery enthusiast, and bookstore creature extraordinaire. Owns too many pens and partially filled sketchbooks. BFA in studio art, 30, Taurus. Please enjoy my work!

The artist, Kai, sits in a large bowl of chicken and rice soup with a yuzu fruit on their head like a capybara at a hot spring. Kai's hair is pink and short, and their face is red from the hot soup. Clouds of steam float around them. The image is colored with colored pencil.
A comic meant to be read from the top downwards starting left to right. Takes place immediately following the artist's yoga studio mishap where they very painfully pulled a nerve during relaxing breathing exercises. The first panel shows the artist at the edge of a group staring disapprovingly at them and reads, "My big scary fear is that everyone secretly finds me obnoxious and unbearable." The second panel shows the artist entering a message into their phone with a thought bubble saying "I should at least tell them what happened." It is implied that they are texting a group chat. The other text in the panel reads "I do a lot of things by myself or with little on the way of expecting help from anyone, in orser to be more convenient and not cause trouble." The third, large panel is the artist staring wide-eyed at their phone with many text boxes floating around them, paraphrasing texts they received. They range from concern to offers of help to wishing the artist gets better to being happy they went out and did something new even if it ended badly. Many other messages include offers to help them get to the emergency room, which they should have taken up. The final, fourth panel is the artist crying in an exaggerated manner and clutching their phone tight while shaking. It reads, "I cried a whole lot when I was reminded - yep! I have friends and a lot of wonderful people in my life who care! I'm not alone! I'm loved! And just as I would help my buddies... I can learn to let them help me, too."
A two panel comic read left to right. The figures are colored loosely with brown colored pencil. Two people stand outside of a building's front door. There is a sign that says YOGA above them. The guy with glasses is holding a yoga mat and chatting happily with a shorter, chubbier person holding a bag with a yoga mat in it. The second panel is larger and shows the studio as people are actively following yoga instruction. They are all standing with arms raised and their left legs bent upwards except for the short chubby person from panel one, who is crouched on their mat on all fours, crying, and in pain. The text under panel one reads, "I went to a yoga class with a coworker. I was so excited! It'll be good for my health!" The text under panel two reads, "Turns out, I pinched my sciatic nerve really bad after a laying flat breathing exercise series and got rendered almost immobile and struggled for like 20 mins to get up and escape. But it was nice while it lasted."
The top 2 panels of a 4 panel comic meant to be read in a downwards direction. In the first panel, A woman with a wavy ponytail, Lena, is seen leaving the restroom at Normal Bookstore. She thinks to herself, "now that I've taken care of it, maybe it wasn't so bad? Almost funny, actually." It is implied she has done something to finally address her itchy nipples problem from the previous comic strips. In the second panel, Lena is seen entering a room while thinking, "I should tell June and Shoko, they'll get a laugh out of it, I bet!" June and Shoko, meanwhile, are barely seen in the foreground and are saying, "it's ready- oh! There she is!" They are clearly up to something.
2 panels of a 4 panel comic meant to be read in a downward direction. Two coworkers watch Lena, another worker at Normal Bookstore with wavy hair in a ponytail, shake and look miserable while carrying a box. They watch her, worried. Shoko, who has glasses and a spiky bob hair style, says to her male coworker "June. Don't you think Lena looks... stressed?" June, who is taller than Shoko, replies "Yeah. Something's definitely up." He adds, "she did that weird fake smile..." in reference to the previous manga strip.
A two panel comic, read in a downwards direction. A character with wavy hair in a ponytail stares at her coworkers who are in front of her and out of focus. She thinks, "truly, sometimes we must be alone with our struggles." In the second panel, she reaches out towards the arm of a coworker, but does not touch them. There is a shine of light in the empty space. She thinks, "It would be nothing to simply reach out... But, they can never know."
Three drawings of Hatsune Miku in outfits inspired by the lily-of-the-valley flower
A hand-drawn comic that reads from right to left like a manga. It is done in dark blue gel pen ink and colored in places with a light blue color pencil. A man asks a bookstore employee if they have Jojo's in the dub. The employee answers that the store does not carry DVDs when the man interrupts to clarify that he means the books, but in the dub. The store has the Japanese books, after all. The employee then realizes the man means to ask for the English-language translations of the manga, but is using the term "dub" like one would for an English-dubbed anime.
3 blackwing pencils and a pack of midori color pencils sit atop a packet of original crown mill finest quality laid paper. They all sit on a linen tablecloth.
A page in a notebook decorated to look like a page from an illuminated manuscript. The text reads "ye olde LinkedIn beinge for jobbe-seekers & professionals" in a hastily scribbled script. The LinkedIn logo looks remarkably modern and jarring.
A chibi-styled pink-haired person pushes a bright yellow book cart. On the cart is a bicycle bell going "ding ding ding ding" as they ring it. They yell "Excuse me! Coming through!" They want to do this so they can navigate crowds during busy days at the book store. This is on the January 10th page of a 2026 Hobonichi Techo Original.
A picture of a busy workstation with an open box of mixed chalk pastels above an open sketchbook - one page drawn on with a pink-haired anime style woman staring back at the viewer a la girl with the pearl earring. It says "kawaii club" across the top.
A cute, anime-style girl holds her hands in a heart shape while a bright pink frame surrounds her and an announcement proclaiming "KAWAII CLUB. Dreamy cute? Twisted cute? Ugly cute? Questions about cute? Come hand out and let's work on all things cute!" The girl herself has a speech bubble by the right side of her head saying "let's make cute!"
A partially finished pen sketch of a girl holding a book, entwined in a serpent-like mass with leaves spreading around her.