AWA 2011 Recap: Part II (Sat & Sun)

Continued from yesterday...

Saturday, I was much more conscious than Friday. Aside from working on the commission Friday, I also made a pattern for my Fluttershy wings, and cut them out of yellow foammie. I spent Saturday morning assembling my wings. I opened my Euphemia-turned-Fluttershy wig for the first time that morning, and it was horrendously frizzy. XD This is something I could have probably prevented had I given myself more time to work on the costume *before* the convention. I donned my Fluttershy costume, minus ears and cutie mark--my dress had white butterflies printed on it, so I figured for this convention, it'd be ok. For AUSA, I'll add some pink and blue foammie butterflies to the dress for the cutie mark. For ears, I decided to stop by Yaya Han's booth in the dealer's room and get her resin ears. I felt the weight--her ears are light weight, but they're still heavier than foammie ears would have been--along with the elastic band that would hold them on might help reduce the "poof" on the top of the wig. It worked, mostly; the wig was still very poofy, but less so after I added the ears. I spent most of Saturday hanging out at my table sketching and crocheting, although that didn't last too long--I tore off my thumb nail accidentally and it really hurt, especially when trying to crochet.

The greatest highlight for me from Saturday at AWA was the My Little Pony photoshoot that afternoon. My cousin was dressed as Pinkie Pie, so we both went. It was awesome being part of such a large group of cosplayers for once--as opposed to being dressed as something so obscure that most people won't recognize it. XD It was tons of fun. My cousin and I are now plotting to put together a pony group of some kind for Animazement. I working on getting my husband to cosplay Twilight Sparkle. I think it'd totally fit his personality--he's a college professor, is bookish, and, when given a choice for rp or mmo games, he picks spell-caster classes. After a flurry of texting and harassing people, we got a Rarity and Apple Jack, and we got my husband to agree to do Twilight Sparkle if we could get my other cousin (Pinkie Pie's brother) to do Rainbow Dash. Mwhahaha I think this could work out. The cousin we want to dress as Rainbow Dash is a first-rate Brony, so there's a fair chance he'll agree.
Ty got lots pictures of the Pony Photoshoot. I will post them on my Tumblr as soon as he uploads them off his camera.

I had so much fun at the photoshoot and hanging out with the other ponies, that I'm pushing forward the MLP badge set I have plans to work on, so I'll do them as soon as I get this year's Halloween badges finished. I'm also going to do a set of MLP bookmarks featuring human versions of the main 6 ponies at least, and probably several of the others--I'm thinking Derpy, Trixie, maybe Dr. Hooves, Apple Bloom... There's just so many possibilities. XD Yes I'm a bit of a fan. I still think FMA: Brotherhood is better though. =P

Back on topic... My husband, Ty, and my friend went to see the new Trigun movie Saturday night; they said it was great, and I kind of wish I'd been able to go see it, but... that'd have left my table unattended, which would not have been a good thing. After the movie, my husband brought back stuffed-crust pizza, which was awesome. There's nothing like greasy pizza when you're really hungry (I think I ate lunch at 11ish and it was 9ish by the time the pizza came). <3

Another cool Saturday highlight: Todd Haberkorn actually came by my table in Artist Alley to say hi and thanks for the badges I'd made for Team Haberkorn. That was epicly awesomely nice of him. I, of course, sat there shyly and smiled and talked a little bit--seriously Fluttershy is such an appropriate character for me to cosplay because that's how I behave around other people, especially people I don't know very well. XD It was still exciting that he actually dropped by to see me.

Sunday, we all dressed up in our Avatar: The Last Airbender costumes--my husband as Zuko, my cousin as Ty Lee, my friend as Azula, and me as Mai. Zuko and Mai are by far the most awesome couple ever--at least that's my thoughts on that subject. They lay claim to one of my most favorite scenes in A:tLA:

Zuko: You're beautiful when you hate the world.
Mai: I don't hate you.
Zuko: I don't hate you, either.
Me: *squee* They're so adorable.

I went to my first (and only) AWA panel Sunday afternoon. I went to see Catherine Jones of God Save the Queen Fashions give a presentation on wig-styling. I enjoyed the talk and learned stuff, which is always a good thing.

Sunday was otherwise a quiet day. I got to talk to some more awesome Team Haberkorn people. I also talked to a guy who had almost the same taste in anime that I do, which was really cool, and on top of that, it turns out he's from Asheville, which is where I grew up. So, we laughed about going to conventions to meet people who live near you--along with lots of people who don't. Neither of my AA neighbors were from NC. One was from Colorado, and the other was from New York, although he used to be from NC.

So, that's about it for convention highlights. We packed up at about 3ish. Thankfully the return trip wasn't nearly as eventful as the trip to Atlanta. All in all, it was a great con. I had a lot of fun. =) I'm definitely considering going back next year.

AWA 2011 Recap: Part I (Thu & Fri)

I spent this past weekend at Anime Weekend Atlanta, which is, big surprise, in Atlanta, GA. I've spent most of the last month working on finishing up my new zodiac set for this convention along with preparing the Anime Tarot set as a deck of cards. Most of last week was spent preparing for the convention, along the lines of cutting out and laminating badges and bookmarks and finishing writing, printing, cutting out, assembling and packaging the booklet for the Anime Tarot deck. I also put together a last-minute Fluttershy costume from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. With all that going on, is it really any surprise that I wasn't ready when my cousin showed up at my house at 6:00pm Thursday evening to leave for the convention?

This is what was supposed to happen: I would finish laminating badges in the morning, and then I would finish up my friend's boot-covers for her Azula costume. I would still have several hours to pack up everything. I would have the van packed with our stuff (our being me, my husband, and Ty), and as soon as my cousin got in, we'd load the van up with her stuff and head out of town to meet my husband near Charlotte where he works (we live in the Raleigh, NC area).

What actually happened: My cousin called at 5ish to let me know she'd be here in about an hour. I had barely 1/3 of the laminating finished--that had turned into a much more tedious process than I'd planned. I decided that maybe I could get the boot-covers finished in 30 minutes, and then pack everything in the remaining 30 minutes. Heh... that was a good joke. After 50 minutes, I gave up on the boot covers; I'd made a couple of mistakes in my haste that were fixable, but not within the frame of time I had to work with, so I called my friend and asked her to pack a pair of boots that would work as an alternative since the boot-covers were not happening for AWA. That left... 5 minutes to pack by the time I got off the phone. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. My cousin got here, and we spent the next hour collecting things, packing them, and then loading them into the car.

So, at around 7:00pm, we pulled away from my driveway and left to meet my husband. We stopped for fast-food to-go for dinner, and about 2.5 hours later, we met up with my husband. The next stop was to pick up my friend (the one cosplaying Azula whose boot-covers I screwed up). Her house was about an hour away from where my husband worked, but it was on the way to Atlanta, so that wasn't too bad. What was bad was 10 minutes down the road we came across a nasty accident that blocked the road entirely and police were directing traffic to turn around. After a super-long detour, we finally picked up my friend at a little after midnight. Thankfully the rest of the drive to Atlanta was less eventful, but because of the delays, we didn't pull into the hotel until 4:00am--the original ETA had been 1:00-1:30am. Seriously, there's a reason our group's nicknamed Team Sidequest. We don't necessarily go looking for trouble (although sometimes we do); it just tends to find us.

The drive there was long and tiring. We got checked in and everything hauled up to our room by 4:45 and crashed. I was up at 7:00. You remember how I mentioned that I was only 1/3 of the way through laminating everything; well, I had to get up Friday morning to finish the laminating before I needed to head downstairs to check into Artist Alley. Ok, I suppose I could have slept late and just dealt with starting late, but I guess I'm really stubborn about making the most out of the time I had there. If I wanted to spend my weekend sleeping, I could have just stayed at home. =P

Given that I only had about 2 hours of sleep, I don't remember a lot from Friday. XD A lot of it blurs together. We got the table set up. I meant to get a picture of it, but I kind of forgot... XD I had all of my art stuff out, minus the individual prints and badges for the tarot card set. My cousin had a bunch of her really adorable polymer cake charms out, too, and Ty even had a couple of little beaded "tassels" that he made. I didn't leave the table much Friday. I did go with my friend to watch the first two episodes of Ouran High School Host Club live action Friday evening. It was epic and horrible, all at the same time. I want to find more of it to watch.

I spent most of the day working on one commission--lineart of Starscream and Megatron. I've never been a big Transformer (or any kind of mecha) fan, and if you're familiar with my gallery, you'll know I don't draw much of that. It was still a good challenge--it took me a lot longer than a normal drawing would have, but it was definitely good practice. Friday night we all went to bed pretty much as soon as the Artist Alley closed. It's dinner time now, and I'm not going to count on getting back to the computer tonight, so, I'll post the recap for Saturday and Sunday tomorrow. I got a photograph of the Transformer commission, so I'll post that tomorrow too.

Gearing up for Anime Weekend Atlanta

This year an unprecedented number of people are traveling with me to AWA, and these are all people I'd trust to watch my table while I step away. I thought that this year I might actually set foot out of Artist Alley--something I've never actually done before at AWA. =O Keep an eye out; this might just be a sign of the apocalypse.

AWA posted a rough spreadsheet of the con schedule. While perusing it, I got the crazy idea that I'd post a list of panels I'd like to maybe attend. In the process of compiling said list, I discovered that there were actually quite a few events I wanted to go to. XD I guess that's what happen when I pay attention to what's happening at a convention. So, without further rambling, on to the list.

The Engineer Guy - Two part molds: I have no idea what this might be about, but since I'm interested in learning more about molding for cosplay and this might be about that subject, it's on the list.

Sewing 101 with GSTQ Fashions: This sounds like a basic sewing class, but GSTQ does some really amazing work. Also, being a self-taught "seamstress" it might be nice to learn how to sew something the right way.

Ladies of Leather w/ GSTQ: Another GSTQ panel. Seriously GSTQ is a brilliant seamstress.

Turning Tricks in Photoshop for Fun and Profit: Not sure exactly what this panel involves, but I'm always open to learning new stuff about Photoshop, since this is the program I use for most of my art.

Translating Art into Cosplay: No description, but it includes art and cosplay. It sounds like something I'd like.

Retro Sailor Moon: It's Sailor Moon. Do I really need to say any more?

How to Make Your Own Plushie Mascot: I've always wanted to learn how to make plushies.

ACEO & Art Trading Cards Workshop: This is an aspect of the art world that I've heard of but don't know much about.

Sociology in Cosplay: No description, but I like cosplay.

Inking Workshop: Standard art workshop, but I'm always open to learning new things, which considering that I've never taken an art class or had any official training... I stand to learn even from the basics.

Running a Cosplay Business: I did this once, and creating manga and art isn't too far off (this is what I'm doing now). I'd be interested in hearing from someone else who has tried this.

Indie Manga: I'm hoping this is more of a how-to-publish vs. a what's-out-there panel. Since there are no descriptions with the online schedule, I'll just have to wait to the convention to find out.

Cosplay Start to Finish: Ezio Auditore: So, I don't own an Xbox or Xbox 360. I've never played Assassin's Creed, any version. You might be wondering what this panel is doing on the list. This panel is going to be run by Fev, a cosplayer whom I greatly respect. She does some amazing leatherwork and is an awesome propmaker.

Legality of Cosplay and Fan Art: This is a hot topic for a lot of conventions, especially in Artist Alley, and since I draw a lot of Fanart right now, I think this panel would be worth attending.

Wig Styling with GSTQ Fashions: A 3rd GSTQ panel... with 3 of them here, I might just make it to one of them. Plus, I stink at styling wigs.

Cosplay Science: Dunno, but sounds spiffy.

Clearly there is no way I could attend all of these panels, especially since half of them overlap with each other, so I'll want to narrow down my list significantly once I get to the convention. I also don't want to leave my table to my husband or friends for the entire convention. That would be more than a little inconsiderate. This list is a start, though. We'll have to see where it goes from here.

Pre-Con Stress: AWA 2011 Edition

I've spent the last week somehow convinced in my head that AWA is next week. It's not. It's the week after that. Still, the feeling that the convention is looming over my head like a ginormous dark cloud has lead to an increased sense of paranoia. I keep waking up in the middle of the night, dreaming about weird and usually bad things happening at the convention, or just this overwhelming feeling that I'm forgetting something really important, but that really important thing is stalking me; it's in the dark shadows out there somewhere just waiting to catch me unawares and then devour me whole... or maybe slowly and painfully.

This is what I call "Pre-Con Stress." I get some variation of it before every convention. I'm sure a lot of AWA's stress comes from the fact that I really, really, really want to get the zodiacs done before the convention... all of them... both the print and badge versions. Why? Because I will feel really bad if someone's sign gets left out. D= I feel sad when someone goes up and says where's my sign? Normally that's in context of, "I didn't have room to put them all up on the display, but you can look in this notebook here and see all of them." But, what if I had to answer, "I'm sorry I didn't have time to get your sign finished before the convention." It may be a perfectly reasonable statement; honestly I've only had one month to get all 12 print and 12 badge designs finished, and now I'm down to a week and a half to finish 6 prints and 12 badges. @_@ Still, I can imagine my customer looking disappointed, and I really hate that. It makes me feel bad inside. Nine times out of ten, even if I have the finished product there, they wouldn't buy it anyways. I really hate leaving anyone disappointed though, and the zodiac set is one of those where it really needs to be finished if I want to avoid that feeling.

Then, there's also the tarot deck... wait didn't I say that process was over a couple of weeks ago? Wasn't I just waiting for the cards to be delivered? Yes, and yes, sort of. The deck part is finished and they're already in my hands (they came almost a week earlier than I expected them), but I want to have a little booklet or something to go with each deck that gives a master list of characters and series, maybe a little bit about each card, and stuff like that. Does anyone know how many books I've tried to self print before? I'll tell you. None. So, I'm still working on the writing, well mostly waiting on my husband to get free time to help me write because he is an infinitely better writer than I am, and the layout and design, not to mention trying to figure out how to make it print the way I want it to, then cutting out all the pages, arranging them, and stapling them together. I may just end up printing on one big sheet that gets folded up to fit in the deck box. XD That's my back-up plan, because I'm determined to have these things ready by AWA.

I think all that's enough to warrant extreme stress. Do I think all this can be finished? I'm having strong doubts. I know the zodiac prints will be done--they're half done and the other half is in progress. The zodiac badges... that's a vastly different story. A lot depends on how soon I get the rest of the prints finished--if the prints are finished today or tomorrow, the badges stand a chance. If not, the chances diminish significantly. The mini-book for the tarot deck? I'll have something done, even if it's not the book I'd had in mind. I kind of wish I could outsource that one, but there really isn't time. I put it off for a while because I wasn't sure what the card dimensions would be, or if there would even be a deck. Even after the order went through, I don't think it really sunk in that the tarot set was really going to be a deck of cards until last night when I opened the box and pulled the wrapping off one of the decks to look through it. You're welcome to take bets on what you think I'll finish, and keep an eye out for next week's WIP posts for the next 2 weeks to see what happens and what doesn't.

A Little Bit of a Lot of Things: A Look at my Week

It's nice to be *almost* settled in. So, I still have a handful of boxes I still need to deal with. So, parts of my workroom are still more than a little unorganized. I am glad to have my workroom back, at least to some extent. Admittedly, it's not as awesome as it was a year ago--I had a huge counter, lots of shelves and a big work table in the middle of the room, great for all kind of projects. All that stuff is in storage now. I have just one little desk and a couple of shelves. Still, it is a room that I can call my own.

I do have a ways to go with organization. I fully admit that I'd be happy with the way it is now (mostly) if we weren't trying to keep the house up for sale. Right now there's still too much clutter for the house to be "showable" especially in my work area. I need to finish organizing the boys' school work (on my side) plus crafting supplies and tools. I also need to get current projects sorted into appropriate places.

Still, if you consider the kind of mess I'm usually capable of, this place is almost sparkly. Having less stuff does help. I may have stuff left to put away and organize, but it's not an overwhelming task. We have one last wedding for the summer to go to this week (my baby brother is getting married Thursday =D), but after we get home from that, I expect I'll be able to really get going on some projects I've been really wanting to work on. I'm especially excited about starting work on the Suzaku/Euphemia cosplays for Anime Weekend Atlanta. My mom and I are planning to go fabric shopping this Friday before we head home from the wedding festivities.

With only 7 weeks left till AWA, I expect this week will be like the calm before the panic centered around convention preparation sets in. In those 7 weeks I plan on finishing Euphemia and Suzaku costumes along with touch-ups on my friend's Azula costume. I will be rewearing my Mai costume, my husband his Zuko costume, and my cousin her Ty Lee costume. My cousin and I will also be wearing our Pineapple Kitty and Gothic Panda lolita costumes. In the world of art, I'm going to make a serious effort to get the next set of Zodiacs finished both, non-chibi prints and chibi badges. That might be a bit optimistic, but I guess we'll see. For this Wednesday's WIP, expect to see some of Aries. I'm not sure what else will be there; a lot depends on if I can get any work done in the car or during down time (assuming there's any of that at all). So, this was a bit of a rambling post--I blame my short attention span. XD

First WIP Post for August

I've only been home from Otakon for a couple of days now, and a lot of that time has been spent unpacking and trying to organize things in the Garner house--remember how I posted a couple weeks ago that we have to keep this house so clean that it looks like no one actually lives here. @_@ That said, I still managed to find some time to get some work done on projects for AWA--we had to make an unplanned trip to Misenheimer yesterday to tie up some loose ends, and my husband offered to drive for the whole trip so I could work on some stuff. I took a ball of yarn and a sketch pad, and I got started on a new mini-plushie and some of the new Zodiacs. I also finished a few plushies at Otakon, so there has been progress. =D It feels nice to be able to say that after several weeks of doing nothing but packing and cleaning.

First up, at Otakon, I finished 2 Kitty and 1 Bunny mini-plushies. The gray kitty with the dark brown ears and tail sold almost as soon as I put it on the table--I almost didn't put it out; I designed it to look like our new kitten Kisa, and I didn't really want to let go of that one. I'll have to make another one for myself. The in-progress one I started during the car ride yesterday reminds me of zucchini and squash.

Here are 2 sketches for commissions from Otakon. I got the sketches finished at the con; I'll be inking them starting this afternoon--spending most of the last 2 days in the car has made it hard to do any work requiring a computer. =P The first one is for a custom "What Would ___ Do?" character--this one is going to be What Would Squall Do? from Final Fantasy VIII. The other is a commission for She-Ra; that one made me exceptionally happy. I loved that show when I was younger, and I have many fond memories of it.

Lastly, I finished 2 new sketches for the next Zodiac set--actually I have 3 but I'm scrapping the 3rd one. =P It was an attempt at drawing a male version of Libra... let's just say it was horrific and leave it at that. I'm currently trying to burn the memory of it out of my head. So, the 2 I'm showing here are girl versions for Aquarius and Capricorn. The coloring will match the guy versions. Generally I'm pretty pleased with how they're coming out so far--I still need to clean up the sketches a bit and make some adjustments to proportion and such, but design-wise, I'm happy.

Wednesday WIP - Sort of

I'd taken a break from posting WIP stuff on Wednesdays so I thought today might be a good time to get back to those. I thought it might be nice to post pictures of some of the stuff I talked about working on last week--like my mini-amigurumi and the new set of Zodiacs... Well, that's not going to happen as planned. We left early this morning to go to Raleigh to pick up my husband's dissertation (the big hard-bound print copy of it) from NC State. On the way, I stopped by the closest printer to my house (about an hour away) to drop off files so they can get me a quote for the anime tarot deck. Hopefully they can handle it and it won't be horrible and expensive. We also ran some errands around Raleigh. On the way home the air conditioning in the car broke, and after a long and exceptionally warm trip, I'm exhausted. So, I will not be finding my camera, taking pictures, and posting anything super detailed here tonight. =P

Don't worry. I'm still going to post something. =D I'm going to post stuff for upcoming cosplay projects. I know I told myself I was going to take a good long break from cosplay after Animazement. Apparently that meant I was going to be inspired to work on even more cosplay. =P First up: AWA is holding a formal ball with a mecha pilot theme. This got me to thinking. I know it's been fairly obvious that I'm obsessed with Full Metal Alchemist, but it is a lesser know fact that I am also obsessed with Code Geass, which happens to feature lots of ornate costumes and mecha. I've been wanting to cosplay C.C. (make my husband cosplay Lelouch), but given the theme of the ball, I thought Suzaku would be more appropriate for this event, and if my husband goes as Suzaku, then I could go as Euphemia. As if I'm not enough of a glutton for punishment just for trying to cosplay anything designed by Clamp, I found a really gorgeous art book picture while looking for references (see the bottom of this blog). The end result is, I'm going to try and make the art book version of the costumes for Suzaku and Euphemia (I actually really want C.C.'s dress too from this picture).

AWA is the end of September; I've got some time, so it just might happen. Now, come mid-October, a pair of good friends of ours is getting married at the NC Renaissance Festival in Charlotte, NC, and we're required to come in costume if we wish to attend the wedding (no problem right, I love dressing up). This means that I need to make costumes for myself and my husband, and I promised my good friend Melissa (yes, the same good friend whose Azula costume I forgot on our living room couch for Animazement) I'd make her a costume too. XD Costume count's up to 5 now.

Alright, so I've also decided that not only am I going to break my vow to never ever make a dress (fancy or otherwise) that was all (or even mostly) white with Euphemia, I'm going to remake my Twilight Princess Zelda costume for Magfest. Thankfully Magfest is not until early January 2012. I'm not sure how sane I'll be by then considering I have a lot to prepare with my art tables for Otakon, AWA, AUSA, and Magfest. I am wondering if making these costumes is really a great idea, but I really really want to, especially for the Code Geass ones--it's so perfect for the theme, and I've always wanted to attend one of the formal events at one of the conventions I go to. So, anyways. Look forward to updates on how these projects are going--I'm really psyched about them right now. =D I'm going to close with the art book picture that I'm basing the Code Geass costume set on.

Yes I know the pic is a little big for the blog here, but aren't the costumes gorgeous? 
I'm making Euphemia's, but I'd love to have a dress like C.C.'s as well.