Let's sticker together

WHEN LINE, the Japanese-based chat-app, launched its “Creators’ Stickers” shop last year, business was suddenly booming for Brown and Cony, the adorable bear-bunny team who now rule the emoji world. And since then, scores of clever Thais are flocking to cash in on the market, dreaming up fresh ways for folks to express their feelings through emoticons.

There are currently more than 100,000 Thais signed up with the service, marketing their designs through e-catalogues and adding to Line’s tremendous success in Thailand, its second-biggest market after Japan itself with 33 million active users.

Coming up with your own stickers requires no cash in pocket and even your skill at drawing can be marginal. The designers typically each add sets of 40 stickers at a time to the catalogues – expressive enough to dovetail neatly into an online conversation at the touch of a button. 

The Apple Store, Google Play and other distributors take 30 per cent of proceeds from sales off the top, Line gets its own cut, and the originators end up with a share of 35 per cent. 

There are charts clocking the stickers’ popularity based on the number of downloads, and currently they’re showing the ones with pretty girls and funny animals saying silly things as the top scorers. That’s no surprise, given that teenagers and young women are in the majority when it comes to Line demographics.

Among the top Thai sellers is Tidlom the Sky Hanger, a buffalo wearing yellow shorts and pa kao ma, created by veteran illustrator Sanya “Oh” Lertprasertpakorn of ZyloStudio. Now earned nine million yen (Bt2.6 million) within one year, Tidlom evolved from another buffalo character that Sanya conceived, one that won him a runner-up prize in a 2007 Thailand Animation & Multimedia contest. The aim, he says, is always to represent the uniqueness of Thai culture.

“Designers in various fields are interested in the Creators’ Stickers market because it’s one more platform where we can show off our creativity. I have lots of cartoon characters in stock, but Tidlom is the one that really reflects the distinct Thai culture. It comes with a good concept and story background. I was inspired by watching kids fly kites in a rice field, with a buffalo nearby. I just ‘modernised’ the buffalo’s poses.”

There are three Tidlom collections with text in both Thai and English, each priced at Bt60. Some even have sound effects. The buffalo’s pose varies, but most of the stickers have something to say about life in the big city. In one, he’s apparently delivering food, holding a multi-level tiffin and calling out, “On the way!” In another he’s getting back to his roots, driving a tractor. You can share Tidlom dressed in pink for a yoga class or making a toast to his pal, a warbling mynah bird. 

 “I’ll be launching a new Tidlom series soon that comes with old-fashioned dialogue, really digging into classic Thai culture,” Sanya says.

Electrical engineer Varanon Thongkame and illustrator Kosol Thongduang found fast success in the sticker market with Sam Sadhuboy and Ngao Guan, who embody their own characters in different personalities. Last week they were showing university students and office workers how to make Line stickers in a free workshop at the OKMD Knowledge Festival.

Varanon is quick to point out that he’s just an amateur when it comes to cartooning, but he noticed how the Creator’s Stickers had caught on and came up with Sam Sadhuboy, who spouts messages about thinking positively and adhering to Buddhist tenets.

“Basically, you just have to know what you want to communicate and what a kind of cartoon you like. For me, the easiest thing was to draw myself – I can draw, but not that well. I use the 3D-computer program Blender rather than drawing by hand. Kosol helped me with the text and offered guidance about the artwork.

“I always go to the temple and I practise the dharma,” Varanon says, “so Sam Sadhuboy is about moral principles. He has seven hairlines, for example, relating to the seven noble virtues, and offers spiritual advice, like ‘What we think, we become.”

Somewhat surprisingly for a cartoon preacher, Sam earned Bt50,000 for Line in the first month alone. That was enough to get Kosol more directly involved. His character Ngao Guan is inspired by an ethnic Sakai with curly hair, a big mouth and outlandish poses – and he’s already been downloaded so many times that he’s pulled in two million yen (Bt595,000).

“With Ngao Guan we’re targeting the mass market,” Kosol says. “He has my own friendly, funny character and uses the latest Thai slang, like ‘Waiting for taro’, which reflects his natural curiosity and his love for this beautiful world. A new set came out recently with sound effects added.”

The two have 15 different characters on the market available for Bt30 each, created through drawing, watercolour paint and other illustration techniques. One of the top sellers is Shaneefer, who eclipsed preacher Sam’s popularity, earning a million yen in the first month.

Shaneefer is supposed to be a gibbon, but he’s always encouraging the user to play with Thai words, such as mixing “suay” and “ver” to create a new word meaning “very beautiful”.

“We also have the Gax Toon page on Facebook where anyone interested in making Line stickers can share and learn – we’re happy to give advice,” Kosol says. “We also accept custom orders for characters. We charge Bt30,000 for the Creators’ Stickers market and Bt80,000 for Sponsored Stickers.”

And then there’s Supris Netekien, who has no talent at all for drawing, so he hired someone who did have talent to concoct the made-to-measure Bosune Cute Boy, a real charmer. Surpris says he’s just a loyal Line user who wanted to have his own character popping up in his chats. 

Bosune Cute Boy shares his personality and lifestyle habits, wears the same sort of trendy clothing and tends to rely on affectionate phrases like “Miss you” and “The best!”

“I’m having fun – I don’t care about the revenue,” says the senior PR manager at Siam Piwat. “I just wanted to send my character to my friends. I paid an artist Bt20,000 to draw my 40 stickers. Now there are two collections, in Thai and English, selling worldwide at Bt30 apiece. They’ve caught the eye of Line users in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia, and now I’m planning a new collection that’s inspired by pets.”