Sunday, 26 January 2020 / Published in Product Updates

Hello again and welcome to the January ’20 Cuddly Octopus update!

We know, it’s a little bit late this month, but hopefully the new releases (and our announcement below) will make up for that!

So, what’s the big news? Well, starting this month, we’re going to trial a new program some have asked us about since Day 1: the ability to commission some of our contracted artists directly through us.

So how does this work? Well, you’ll be allowed to ask certain artists of ours of to draw a certain character of your choosing. Now, our artists are free to draw (or not draw) whatever characters they like, so if the artist you select says ‘no’ to the character you want, we will not force them to take your request. Additionally, we will allow you to specify certain details in the design process, but the amount of details you are allowed to request will be limited at our (and the artist’s) discretion.

The cost of most of our contracted artists is around $1,000 for the base fee, with the exception of KyuriTizu who costs a significant amount higher. You will need to contact us directly for further information. Through this process, we will also remain the sole owner of the commissioned work for commercial purposes and will sell it through our website and partners, as any other cover in our lineup.

In addition to the amount paid by the commissioner minus $150, the artists themselves will receive increased compensation based on sales of the design for the first month (close to the full net sale value). This is to motivate them to draw a character they otherwise might not have much interest in.

The following artists will be available to commission through us during this trial run.

  • KyuriTizu
  • Nyatrix
  • Brora
  • Amo
  • Shadowgrave
  • Krokobyaka
  • Tsukimaru
  • Tony

You will be responsible for providing:

  • The character!
  • Clothing requests
  • Example poses from other works
  • Possible facial expressions

After the process is completed, you will receive:

  • 2 x All Ages version of the cover
  • 2 x 18+ version of the cover
  • And the original source files of the artwork
  • A cute keychain which may or may not be related to octopuses.

Finally, we reserve the right to pull the plug on this program at any time or for any reason. If you are interested in this program, please contact our support e-mail or poke Hrothmund#6303 on Discord for further information.

Whooh, that was a lot of announcing, so let’s get to the pretty new artworks. In this update, we launched 5 new dakimakura cover designs and 1 new tapestries.

Dakimakura Covers

  • Ana (Fate Series) by Amo
  • Carmilla (Fate Series) by Shadowgrave
  • Ibaraki (Fate Series) by Krokobyaka
  • Yui Yuigahama (OreGairu)
  • Shuten (Fate Series) by Akizone

Tapestries

  • Nya (Original) by Nyatrix

The following characters are currently being draw:

  • Morrigan Aensland (Darkstalkers) by Kyuritizu
  • Vanilla & Chocola (Nekopara) by Nyatrix
  • Yoshino (Date A Live) by Amo
  • Ishtar (Fate Series) by Shadowgrave
  • Enterprise (Azur Lane) by Tony Guisado

As usual, the premium P80 2-Way Silkette versions of most of our new designs will be available on Sakura-Palace.

As always, thank you for your continued support of Cuddly Octopus!

– The Cuddly Octopus Team

Thursday, 26 December 2019 / Published in Product Updates

Hello again and welcome to the December ’19 Cuddly Octopus update!

Happy holidays, everyone! ‘Tis the time of year to treat yourself to some beautiful new cuddly companions. This month’s order period will be a bit shorter than the rest, so if you want to send your loved ones a late huggable gift, be sure to place your order before December 25th.

Administratively, there’s little to update on, so let’s talk about the new waifus you can invite into your home. Coming with the December ’19 update, we are launching 10 new dakimakura cover designs and a new tapestry.

Dakimakura Covers

  • Kagamine Rin (Vocaloid) by Nyatrix
  • Snow Miku 2020 (Vocaloid) by KyuriTizu
  • Meltlilith (Fate Series) by Shadowgrave
  • Kokoro (Princess Connect) by Amo
  • Ichihara Nina (Idolmaster) by Sui
  • U-110 (Azur Lane) by Ikazu
  • Amagi (Azur Lane)
  • Poppy (Xenoblade) by Tony Guisado
  • Z23 (Azur Lane) by Guacamole
  • Seija (Touhou) by Akiteru

Tapestries

  • Snow Leopard by Poppolocroits

We have also added keychains of the following characters: Remilia, Flandre, Sakuya, Shuten, Cerberus, Tamamo, Elizabeth, Chloe, Miyu, Illa, Astolfo, Abigail, Minna and the Bathopus that currently comes with any normal daki order.

Expedited shipping has been added again for the US and Canada. This only affects the time for delivery once it is shipped as our production schedule remains mostly the same for now.

As usual, the premium P80 2-Way Silkette versions of most of our new designs will be available on Sakura-Palace.

As always, thank you for your continued support of Cuddly Octopus!

– The Cuddly Octopus Team

Tuesday, 26 November 2019 / Published in Product Updates

Hello again and welcome to the November ’19 Cuddly Octopus update!

As with last month, there’s not much to talk about administratively. Things are progressing forward as usual and you’re free to reach out to us if you have any individual inquiries, so let’s get into the cool stuff.

Coming with the November ’19 update, we are launching 12 new dakimakura cover designs and 3 new tapestries.

Dakimakura Covers

  • CC (Code Geass) by KyuriTizu
  • Minna (Original) by KyuriTizu
  • Rina (Original) by Nyatrix
  • Andira (Granblue Fantasy*) by Brora
  • Bache (Azur Lane) by Krokobyaka
  • Okita (Fate Series) by Shadowgrave
  • Kaguya (Kaguya-sama: Love is War) by Popolocroits
  • Kyouka Hikawa (Princess Connect) by Mannack
  • Pecorine (Princess Connect) by Stira
  • La Malin (Azur Lane) by Ikazu
  • Chen (Touhou Project) by Niniidawns
  • Shoukaku (Azur Lane) by Shosumi Nido

Tapestries

  • Cuddly Octopus Winter 2019 by KyuriTizu
  • Cuddly Octopus Autumn 2019 by KyuriTizu
  • Nya by Nyatrix

As usual, the premium P80 2-Way Silkette versions of most of our new designs will be available on Sakura-Palace.

The current designs are in progress:

As always, thank you for your continued support of Cuddly Octopus!

– The Cuddly Octopus Team

Saturday, 26 October 2019 / Published in Product Updates

Welcome to the October ’19 Cuddly Octopus update!

September was such a big month, we’ve got almost nothing to share with you this month! The good news is our production is finally catching up a bit to the backlog, thanks to our new factory. Other than that, there’s not much to say administratively this month… so we’ll dive right into to the fun stuff.

Coming with the October ’19 update, we are launching 8 new dakimakura cover designs.

Dakimakura Covers

  • Shamiko (Machikado Mazoku) by Amo
  • Sirius (Azur Lane) by Bean Sprout
  • Artoria (Fate Series) by Shadowgrave
  • Baltimore (Azur Lane) by Tony
  • Ogata Chieri (iDOLM@STER) by Sui
  • Mutsuki (Azur Lane) by Ikazu
  • Yumeka (Original) by Solru
  • Anthuria (Granblue Fantasy) by SNM

As usual, the premium P80 2-Way Silkette versions of most of our new designs will be available on Sakura-Palace.

As always, thank you for your continued support of Cuddly Octopus!

– The Cuddly Octopus Team

Monday, 02 September 2019 / Published in Product Updates

Welcome to the September ’19 Cuddly Octopus update!

September is a big month for us. We’ve got a mixture of some good and less good news for you, so let’s dig right into it.

In terms of the backlog, as of this month, we are beginning partial production through our newly subjugated factory. The workers there have been skillfully trained by our octopus army to assist in the coming Octopocalypse, whereby all octopi will emerge from the ocean to invade humanity. As such, the backlog should finally start to shrink on us. Some 160cm July orders will be printed through the new factory, along with the majority of 160cm August orders and all future 160cm orders. All in all, this dual/split production should allow us to catch up on the order backlog, and ensure that orders are shipped more timely in the future.

In addition to this, the octopus army has also deemed it necessary to subjugate facilities for the storage of additional printed covers. Thus, in the coming months, many 160cm variants of popular designs should start to fill our warehouse for much more efficient “in-stock” shipping. As an extra bonus to our new warehouse, we can now start offering ePacket shipping—the benefits of which allow us to offer greatly reduced shipping costs. As of now, all orders, regardless of quantity or mix of items, will ship for $7 flat-rate, worldwide. Those of you acquainted with our old shipping costs will know how much of an improvement this is.

As mentioned previously, however, these changes to our processes necessitated a bit of a price restructuring. So as of yesterday, you’ll have noticed the price of all of our covers increased to $70. This is an overall price decrease for a majority of orders, but certain high quantity orders might see their overall cart price increase moderately. Since this is a trial run for us, we might need to adjust prices more in the near future. We ask that you bear with us while we try to stabilize things on our end.

Finally, one last bit of bad news… as of this month, we are formally ending the ability to mix-and-match covers. While awesome from a consumer-facing perspective, the mixing-and-matching of designs has too great an error rate, often costing us greatly more than our margins on a given order to rectify. Up to this point, we’ve simply been eating the costs of mistakes made by our factory, but given the high throughput we’ve been needing them to push, the error rate has increased to an unsustainable point. We’re sorry that we had to make this change and hope you understand the logistical nightmare it made for us. We will perhaps try to evaluate if there is any possible way for us to reintroduce this feature in the future, but as of now, consider it gone for good.

With the good (and bad) administrative news out of the way… let’s get into the product announcements! And this month has loads of new product announcements…

Coming with the September ’19 update, we are launching 18 new dakimakura cover designs, 25 keychains, 2 new tapestries, and some glorious Plushtopi to invade the surface world. And as an added bonus, our keychains have a promo where if you buy any combination of 3, you get $5 off your order! Also, if you adopt both Plushtopi, you can get $10 off! What a steal!

So without further adieu, here is the list of updates this month!

Dakimakura Covers

  • Megumin (Konosuba!) by KyuriTizu
  • Senko (The Helpful Fox Senko-san) by Nyatrix
  • Javelin (Azur Lane) by Nyatrix
  • Kyaru (Princess Connect) by Brora
  • Lillith & Mary Ann (Original) by Amo
  • Laffey (Azur Lane) by Amo
  • Cavalla (Azur Lane) by Amo
  • Shirley (Cuddly Octopus) by Bean Sprout
  • Shuten (Fate Series) by Krokobyaka
  • Asuka (Evangelion) by Shadowgrave
  • Sakuya (iDOLM@STER) by Tony Guisado
  • Yuisis (Granblue Fantasy) by Kanopan
  • Louise (Original) by Solru
  • Zooey (Granblue Fantasy) by SNM
  • Clevelad (Azur Lane) by Ikazu
  • Mystia Lorelei (Touhou Project) by Tsukimaru
  • Camilla (Fire Emblem) by Megatama
  • Erika (Original) by Anonymous

Tapestries

  • Summer Marriage (2019) by KyuriTizu
  • Spring 2019 by KyuriTizu

Keychains

  • Syrene (Swimsuit 2018)
  • Kisero (Swimsuit 2018)
  • Syrene (Halloween 2018)
  • Kisero (New Years 2019)
  • Dog & Octopus
  • Syrene & Octopus
  • Lillith
  • Mary Ann
  • Louise
  • Shirley
  • Yuisis
  • Senko
  • Raphtalia
  • Holo
  • Megumin
  • Fenrir
  • Kisaragi
  • Nanachi
  • Laffey
  • Kyaru
  • Mystia
  • Nazrin
  • Vampy
  • Unicorn
  • Chino

Plushes!

  • Plushtopus

As usual, the premium P80 2-Way Silkette versions of most of our new designs will be available on Sakura-Palace.

Currently, we can announce the following work is currently in progress:

As always, thank you for your continued support of Cuddly Octopus!

– The Cuddly Octopus Team

Monday, 02 September 2019 / Published in Product Updates

Welcome to the August ’19 Cuddly Octopus update!

It’s Comiket time! Yes, next week Cuddly Octopus will have our booth at the grand C96. You’ll be able to find us on the 4th day in booth 西む31b, if you happen to be at Comiket.

Administratively, we have some good news and bad news this month. The good news is our subjugation of a new factory is coming along well and beginning in the month of September we should begin at least partial production at the new location. This should definitely help us catch up with the backlog that’s been growing over the past few months.

The bad news is that with any kind of major production change like this, our own costs shift and move around, necessitating a bit of restructuring of our prices. So, starting in September, the prices for a single unit will be increasing to $70 USD. We realize this is a reasonable jump, but on the flip-side we’ll be able to offer more economical shipping methods with this move which will decrease shipping costs substantially. Overall, orders of a cover or two should see a decrease in the total price paid (while orders with 3 or more will probably increase slightly). We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused.

That’s it on the administrative front, now let’s get into the good stuff…

In August, we have added the following 12 designs to the website:

  • Riesz (Mana Series) by KyuriTizu
  • Plant (Original) by Amo
  • Tamamo (Fate Series) by Shadowgrave
  • Sirius (Azur Lane) by Tony Guisado
  • Patchouli (Touhou) by Sui
  • Cerberus (Granblue Fantasy) by SNM
  • Chika (Kaguya Sama: Love is War) by Popolocroits
  • Lena (Azur Lane) by Ikazu
  • Alexiel (Granblue Fantasy) by Pak Ce
  • Asuka (Evangelion) by CYI
  • Atago (Azur Lane) by Pikurte
  • Flandre (Touhou) by Sheep on Tree

As usual, the premium P80 2-Way Silkette versions of most of our new designs will be available on Sakura-Palace.

As always, thank you for your continued support of Cuddly Octopus!

The Cuddly Octopus Team

Friday, 05 July 2019 / Published in Product Updates

Welcome to the July ’19 Cuddly Octopus update!

This month around we’ve got an awful lot to talk to you about, but not as much to show.

Firstly, the good news (at least from our perspective…)! We got into Comiket this time around! Many of you are probably already aware of the importance of Comiket to the Japanese doujin scene, but for those of you unaware, Comiket is the biggest biannual ‘indie comic’ (doujinshi) convention in Japan where creators from all around the country (and sometimes the world) bring and sell their latest works. And our octopus tentacles finally managed to wiggle their way into it.

However, while this is good news for us overall, it bears a bit of downside in the shortrun, which is that we need new and exotic designs to populate our booth there. That means we’ll be holding from publishing several designs (including some new Syrene & Kisero designs) until after Comiket 96 is completed in August. They all will be available on our site eventually, but you’ll need to be patient for them.

Speaking of patience, we want to thank everyone for their patience as we try to sort out our production delays. And we have a bit of news to share on that front. Unfortunately, our production backlog isn’t shrinking as much as we’d like (and need) it to. And unfortunately, our octopus overlords are growing weary from using their six arms to punish factory workers slacking off 24/7/365. Thus, our lords have divined a new solution… subjugate a new factory with higher production throughput!

As such, in the coming months we’ll be moving most, if not all, of our production to this new factory. No need to worry on the quality front—all of our covers printed will retain the same cuddly quality you’ve come to know and love, but our throughput should certainly improve. Forewarning, this may necessitate a bit of a price restructuring, but while the base price of our covers may increase moderately, we’re looking into ways to offer new and cheaper shipping methods to balance it out. Additionally, we are hoping to start stocking select designs that should allow certain orders to ship far faster.

Per usual, if you have any comments/questions/concerns/complaints, you’re free to reach out to us on our support e-mail, or in the Dakimakura Discord we share with Dakimakuri, MonjaShop, PeroPeroPiroo, JuneWaifu, Hirumeshi Senshi, and more all the time. It’s also another great way to interact with the broader dakimakura community.

Anyways, this month we’re adding a total of 5 new dakimakura designs to the storefront.

  • Nezuko (Kimetsu no Yaiba) by CYL
  • Murasama (Fate Series) by Shadowgrave
  • Charlotta (Granblue Fantasy) by Krokobyaka
  • Nino (Quintessential quintuplets) by Stira
  • Hiei (Azur Lane) by Ikazu

Per usual, the premium P80 2-Way Silkette versions of most of our new designs will be available on Sakura-Palace.

As always, thank you for your continued support of Cuddly Octopus!

– The Cuddly Octopus Team

Monday, 10 June 2019 / Published in Product Updates

Welcome to the June ’19 Cuddly Octopus update!

Firstly, let’s get the bad news out of the way. To put it bluntly, production is running behind by quite a bit. We ran into some problems with our print equipment a little over a month ago (broken print nozzle head causing streaking patterns), and we’ve been having issues catching up since. It will probably take another month or two for things to stabilize.

What does this mean for you? Good question! It means orders already placed are going to be delayed a bit. Almost all of our orders up to April 5th have been shipped, but there are a few stragglers that should ship by around June 10th. Orders from the April period will likely not begin to ship for a couple of weeks still, which represents about a month long delay.

Don’t worry! Your octopus lords are excellent slave masters and are whipping the factory workers with all due efficiency, utilizing their six arms to push them to finish faster. We apologize for the inconvenience these delays may have caused. If you wish to contact us directly about your order for any reason, please feel free to do so.

Anywho, onto the better news. This month we’re adding a total of 8 new dakimakura designs to the storefront.

  • Kurumi Tokisaki (Date a Live) by Brora
  • Narmaya (Granblue Fantasy) by Kanopan
  • Yorita Yoshino (Idolmaster) by Sui
  • Tharja (Fire Emblem) by Tony
  • Kama (Fate Series) by Shadowgrave
  • Ezo Red Fox (Kemono Friends) by Ikazu
  • Europa (Granblue Fantasy) by Pak Ce
  • Scathach (Fate Series) by Rlf00

Per reddit’s decision to ban us temporarily, we won’t be directly linking you to our store or any of the preview images. However, we will be continuing to update the Imgur album with all of our design previews (just look around for it) and, of course, we hope you all know where to go to visit our storefront at this point. If you don’t, a small hint would be to type in the name of our business and add a (dot) com. Just don’t misspell Octopus… or Cuddly… or Cuddly Octopus. You know what, you’ll do fine.

Per usual, the premium P80 2-Way Silkette versions of most of our new designs will be available on Sakura-Palace.

Currently, we can announce the following work is currently in progress:

  • Brora is working on Kyaru (Cygames)
  • Nyatrix should complete Senko (Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san)
  • Amo is working on Laffey (Azur Lane)
  • Kanopan is doing Yuisis (Granblue Fantasy)
  • Sui is working on Patchouli Knowledge (Touhou Project)
  • And we should also have a cute Nezuko next month, too.

As always, thank you for your continued support of Cuddly Octopus!

– The Cuddly Octopus Team

Wednesday, 15 May 2019 / Published in Product Updates

Welcome to the May ’19 Cuddly Octopus update!

Another month, another update. Thanks to all you out there who absolutely smashed the “Place Order” button last month with our anniversary promotion. This remarkable response brought Syrene and, by proxy, our Octopus Overlords one step closer to their goal of complete and total world domination. Please do keep proselytizing the word of our Cuddly Octopus Lords, I promise to do so will do you better in the long run as they begin to materialize from the 2nd dimension.

Beyond our eight six-appendaged lords rising from the depths of the seas to enslave humanity, this month we’re adding a total of six new dakimakura designs to the storefront.

  • Ferry (Granblue Fantasy) by KyuriTizu
  • Matou Sakura (Fate Series) by Bean Sprout
  • Nazrin & Shou (Touhou Project) by Amo
  • Hinata, Hana & Noa (Wataten) by Nyatrix
  • Illyasviel (Fate Series) by Krokobyaka
  • Nero (Fate Series) by Shadowgrave
  • Asha (Original) by Solru

Per usual, the premium P80 2-Way Silkette versions of most of our new designs will be available on Sakura-Palace.

Currently, we can announce the following work is currently in progress:

  • KyuriTizu will be on a break in May
  • Brora is working on Kurumi (Date A Live)
  • Nyatrix is still working on Hinata, Hana & Noa
  • Amo is working on some original characters
  • Bean Sprout will be drawing Tamamo (Fate Series)
  • Tony will finish Tharja (Fire Emblem)
  • Shadowgrave will start work on Kama (Fate Series)

As always, thank you for your continued support of Cuddly Octopus!

– The Cuddly Octopus Team

Sunday, 07 April 2019 / Published in Product Updates

Greetings!

Man, hard to believe that it’s Cuddly Octopus’ 3rd birthday this month. That’s like what? 40 years old in octopus years? As with each of our anniversary updates, we’re kind of amazed and humbled to see what you guys have helped our tiny little circle to become. So first things first, we want to truly thank each and every single one of you for your support of Cuddly Octopus over these past one two three years! We hope to continue forward for many anniversaries to come!

As a celebration for these past three years, this month only, we’ll be running a special promo where all dakimakura and tapestry designs of our two lovely mascots, Syrene & Kisero, will be on sale for 50% off their usual price. Just use promo code “Syrene Birthday Party Time” at checkout to get your cuddly octopi and doggirls! (Coupon is only valid once per customer, can only be used to discount 2 items, and limited to the first at least 30 customers.)

We have lots of stuff still in the pipeline for you guys in the coming months, not all of it we can discuss quite yet (some of it’s pretty cool!). And as always, a boatload of new cover designs for you each month. Please keep your eye out for our monthly updates in the coming months. Make sure to not miss any of them, who knows what kind of cuddly companions are in store for you!

With all that out of the way, with our April 2019 update, we are adding the following 16 dakimakura designs to the store:

Dakimakura Covers:

  • Syrene & Kisero (Original) by Kyuritizu
  • Chika (Kaguya-Sama: Love is War) by Shuffle
  • Misaka Mikoto (Toaru no Majutsu Index) by Brora
  • Filo (Rising of the Shield Hero) by Amo
  • Artoria (Fate Series) by Oni Noboru
  • Milim (Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken) by Nahaki
  • Hijiri Byakuren (Touhou Project) by Tsukimaru
  • Motoori Kosuzu (Touhou Project) by Sui
  • Minamoto no Raikou (Fate Series) by Shadowgrave
  • BB (Fate Series) by Gendo
  • Rem (Re:Zero) by An-Telin
  • Junko & Ai (Zombieland Saga) by JunP
  • Futuba (Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai) by Stira
  • Forte (Granblue Fantasy) by Astraea
  • Yuusha (Endro!) by Ikazu
  • Antoinette (Fate Series) by Susa

Tapestries:

  • Syrene, Kisero & Kuri by Kyuritizu
  • Syrene, Kuri & Karin by Shouukun

The following work is planned or is being worked on currently:

As always, thank you for your continued support of Cuddly Octopus!

– The Cuddly Octopus Team