Left work early today to get to Addison in enough time to pick up the rest of my registration for the weekend, the schedule (still not online, the fuckheads) and a Sunday ticket for rat. They did not have the stuff ready when we went Thursday.
Checked out the TINY dealer rooms. Not much of anything per say, but I did find a vendor, a nice Japanese JRocker-attired guy, who sold pins so I told him I would be back tomorrow for a Saiyuki set. Picked up a Sess'houmaru from him that night. What was wonderful was the fact the dealer rooms were almost empty of con-goers so I could see everything. It was great.
Finally got a chance to chat with the guy who sells anime cels about Gravitation. He told me the only Gravi cels available are from the OVAs since the series was all done CG. Didn't know that. So the few cels out there are VERY expensive. I looked at him and said, "and I bet everyone asks you for Yuki...", and he laughed and nodded. He had a Raditz for $299. And that was cheap compared to the Vejiitas I have seen at his booth in the past. Those go for a minimum of $500 a piece and they go quickly!
Since I was loaded down with my purse and had no shopping bag and a severe lack of ready cash (going to the bank first thing Saturday) I did not shop much, not that there was a lot to shop for. It looked like some vendors had not arrived yet. The manga booth was very tempting since it had shounen-ai titles, even though I did not know the various series.
Had left the digital camera in the car and initially had gotten mad at myself about it, but after hauling around two thick programs and my purse I was glad it was one less thing to deal with. Of course, many many HIDEOUS costumes screamed to be shot.
Disappointing anime selections for viewing were listed on the schedule during the time I planned to be there so I decided to take in a bunch of sit-down events. Since I would be on my own Saturday I decided to to check out a lot of the art-related panels. Told rat it was going to be nice just being within myself, even though I would be missing him terribly. I would only be responsible for me. Decided I would walk around and be one of those quiet cats who just observes what's going on. Planned on taking it easy, too. Of course, I would be wearing a Gravitation teeshirt.
I had won a Sesshoumaru phone dangle on eBay a few months ago and when they sent it they compressed the box so it would be flat. Of course this damaged the box a little (duh). Luckily I found another one of the same item, mint in box and for only $3.00 Friday night. I was stunned by the price. Now I can hang my other one up with my official Gravi phone strap.
Saturday
Got there very quickly, less than 10 minutes
from the apt. Was able to find a parking spot in the $5 covered parking
close to the hotel door so I knew it would be easy to drop off anything
that was too large if I ended up buying anything. I had a half-hour
before the first event at 10am so I took the escalator up to the level
where the con was taking place. The dealer rooms were not open yet so
I wandered around a little and checked out where the different rooms
were. The room called Workshop Room was actually located on the ground
floor close to the covered parking lot door, and it was the room where
the Drawing Disciplines/Fundamentals workshop would be. I ended up sitting
down on the couch outside the still closed room and vegetated for a
while.
When the presenters showed up the room opened. Aaron Romo and Chris Moujaes from Squirrelworks gave the workshop. Chris started talking to me before the workshop began and we talked about where they came from (Austin) and I told him how much we liked the town ourselves. It was a good workshop even if only about 10 people were there so early in the morning. I walked with Aaron upstairs afterward and we discussed anime styles and how they differed from the typical American animation styles. He told me to come by their table to say hi later that day.
The next tentative event was a wig and hair panel at 1:30pm so I was off to the dealer rooms first, before eating lunch. Looked like more vendors had showed up for the weekend. Went by the JPop table and got the four-pin Saiyuki set, which ended up setting the stage for my major purchases for the con.
At the manga booth I saw a Weiss Kruez book I did not have but decided I did not want to lug it around. Ended up getting the 2nd of the new Maki Murakami manga, Kimi no Unaji ni Kanpai!, and talked to one of the manga vendors about Gravitation for a while. She told me Murakami was no longer with Sony, which was why manga #12 had a slightly different cover texture and look. Also, the original 11 were re-printed by the new company. Rumour has it Murakami, while focusing on kimi, is still planning on putting out Gravi, just not many issues a year. That would be great, even if #12 did seem to have an ending of sorts. The manga vendors used to work for Planet Anime, the local shop which recently closed. They plan on having a storefront eventually. For now they are just using a website.
One of the candy/drink vendors had this grape chew stuff and I bought some to try later.
Noticed the guy who does the music for Dragonball Z (local man) had a booth so I decided to bring the CD we had gotten at A-Con in May back to this con for him to sign, as well as purchase something new. Decided to wait for rat to be with me so we could rave about his music in stereo. I know, some people do not like it. Well, we do.
Found a table with a lot of artbooks and ended up getting the last three copies of three Saiyuki artbooks. Beautiful artwork! They were heavy so I thought about taking them to the car, but decided to have lunch first.
Since I knew 99.99% of the people at the con would not be able to afford it I decided to try the hotel restaurant, where I knew I would be in a lovely, quiet setting with attentive wait staff pampering me. When I stepped in they took me directly to a table and told me about the salad special they had for only $9.00, which looked good when I passed by it. Lots of different kinds of salad, including curry chicken and fresh fruit, as well as various greens. As I was putting stuff on my plate I heard someone call my name. I looked up and sitting at one of the tables were S & J, folks from Scarborough Faire, the ren faire we've all worked at in the past. We've known them for a long time and always run into once a year in the oddest places. The waiter let me change tables so I was sitting next to them and we had a nice catch-up chat while we ate. S is taking Japanese too! She told me about a book (which I ordered) which teaches you katakana in three hours and hiragana in three hours. At the time I DEFINITELY needed all the help I can get!
We all went back to the vendors since J had not been there yet. S had a weekend pass like I did and she had already spent Friday there. She told me about the art show so went to that in the back of one of the vendor areas. The 'adult' side was pretty tame and what was interesting is on the other (clean) side was a beautiful and somewhat graphic 1x2 colour pic on display. The Relena/Heero pic was disturbing and I commented out loud, now that's just wrong!
Missed the wig panel but we all went to the next one on the list, Anime Academia, presented by Dr. Susan Napier. Good stuff and some of what she was talking about sounded a little familiar but I did not know from where. Signed rat and I up for the study for her next research project. She is finding out there is no one kind/type of anime fan and she likes that fact.
Next was fanfic and went to it alone. Didn't find out much. It turned into more of a 'what not to do when writing fanfic' bitch session among the panel. Wished Joules had been there to straighten things out.
Wandered around and took pictures until the Japanese class. Talked to Aaron and Chris at their table for a while. They thanked me again for coming to their workshop. Told me to bring my artwork by. Surprised to find out Aaron does his colouring in Flash. And we are talking static work, not animated charas! Another art group there told me they are making their animation in Flash but they are using it in a linear way, like Director, without any ActionScript. Interesting. And I suspect the guys were a bit surprised I was familiar with the various software.
The Japanese class was pretty good. One of the guys sitting in the audience went 'whoa' when one of the teachers held up a kanji, asked what it stood for and I immediately called it 'person'. C'mon, guy, don't you look at doujinshi or manga? That's an easy one!
Sat night I scrambled to get all the cg'ed artwork printed off in black and white (looking crappy in 72 dpi) so I could show what I did to some of the pieces after the initial drawing was completed.
rat was with me Sunday so I showed him around. Some of the more hentai art pieces in the artshow were already gone so I could not show him those, poor baby.
The guy who makes the DBZ music says he really works at setting a mood. He has seen the originals as well and finds the sometimes happy music playing in the background of a serious fight scene as silly as we do. He told me he wants to evoke a mood and emotions with his music, and he does it well, in our opinion. He signed both our CDs.
At one table I noticed the bottles of the drinks I heard clinking in one of the panels. I got a cold one and opened it, which makes the marble drop into this cavity so it rattles about. It tasted like a light lemon-lime drink (how appropriate), not too sweet so I liked it. Kept the bottle for a souvenir.
Took rat to another one of Aaron and and Chris' workshops. They waved and seemed genuinely happy to see me.
Had to get the nerve up to take my stuff to Aaron and Chris for them to look at. Was really nervous about showing my stuff so first I walked around the fest and when I heard the words, "Cool! Gravitation!" from one of the tables (I was wearing a Gravi shirt) I would stop, pull out the portfolio and present it to the girl sitting there. Got lots of oohs and ahs and one girl asking me where I got the artwork. When I said it was mine she almost face faulted. This helped me get my nerve up. Can someone feel both confident yet nervous at the same time?
Of course, rat was already at the table talking to the guys so he gets me to hand over the portfolios. They were nice about looking and seemed to like seeing all the various styles I was trying with the DBZ stuff. They especially commented on the hair of Turles on the Restraints and Liberations frontispiece and the Radittsu and Jeice illustration from Alliance Chronicles.
Didn't stay for cos-play, we were too damned tired.
Page created October 26, 2003
You
are visiting the WitzEnd website, http://www.ourwitzend.com/.
Everything on this site is the property of the denizens and inmates of WitzEnd and Box O'Weekends Multimedia© except where otherwise indicated. Please contact the webmaster for permission to use something prior to posting on your site or using in a project. Copyright 2002-2005 |
