milky parlor origins

The concept of milky parlor was something I came up with in early 2016. I was sketching ideas for some original pins, and a bear shaped ice cream cone was one of them.

Soon after, I decided to go with the idea, and make a finished version of it.

It started off as just mint chocolate bear, but I started branching out and drawing different flavors. Before I knew it, I had drawn the original 15 milky parlor flavors (originally titled kaiami and friends ice cream parlor, which was a mouthful) all in the same day.

The ice cream parlor concept was something I wanted to expand on, and thus was chosen to be the first collection I release. There's a bit of nostalgia while working on this concept. It takes me back to the child me who sometimes dreamed about opening an ice cream parlor.

I even thought a little bit about what the store might look like if it existed.

While I don't think I would ever go into the ice cream business, it would be a dream to partner up with an ice cream company someday and collaborate on a milky parlor pop up shop where you could buy milky parlor ice cream cones and exclusive merch.

It's a dream of mine to have my characters featured in a theme cafe, like the ones that pop up in Tokyo!

I'm going to continue working hard!