It's been a while since I've gone to a convention with a smaller child -- not an infant or toddler, but not an older kid either. Sophie's birthday is right before AZ (This is why we missed attending in 2012). This year, Sophie was a brand new 5 year old, who was already planning her 6th birthday and telling everyone about it.
She was into everything at the convention. It was a challenge keeping after her, especially in the Dealer's Room and Artist Alley. She's also at a stage in life where rolling on the floor is fun. Another challenge because con floors are pretty nasty, at least in my opinion. She's at a more independent age where she doesn't want to hold my hand and doesn't want to stay with us--she wants to do her own thing, especially when her own thing entails screeching and rolling on the floor...
There were challenges, but also surprising positives. She was much more engaged with the con than I expected. She was thrilled with all the cosplayers, and she didn't just want pictures of them. She wanted her picture with them. She tended to pick out princesses, super heroes, and goth-style cosplayers. Everyone she asked for a picture was super kind to her and very obliging. They made her weekend. She was also absolutely enamored with Artist Alley, much more than she was with the Dealer's Room. She would have bought something from almost every table if she could have. This pleases me, because, as an artist, I love to see her enthusiasm to support other artists. It was also cool, because with very few exceptions (Pokemon, Ladybug, and Sailor Moon), she did not recognize any of the fanart, but she loved what people had created anyways.
It was nice being with someone with her enthusiasm... most of the time. The rest of the time, it was exhausting. I'm feeling the old after Animazement this year. It was tough keeping up with her.
Showing posts with label az. Show all posts
Showing posts with label az. Show all posts
Monday, July 31, 2017
Monday, July 10, 2017
Animazement 2017 - Part 1
Animazement 2017
... was a blast. There are no other words for it.
I cosplayed--for the first time in years.
It was refreshing.
The costumes weren't anything brilliant. Friday's were very (obviously) last minute. But I had fun--and that's the most important part right?
Friday, my daughter Sophie dressed as Princess Aurora. It was a dress she had gotten as a hand-me-down from her cousin. She loves wearing it, and I thought Animazement would be an excellent excuse to wear it. Last minute, I decided to put together King Stefan and Queen Leah costumes for my husband and I -- because Aurora has a complete set of living parents and why not?
Saturday and Sunday, my husband and I and Ty, my oldest son, cosplayed as the three Marowaks from the Alolan fire trial (Pokemon Sun and Moon). A friend of ours came along dressed as the Hiker from the trial as well. This was a lot of fun. Technically we had Sophie dressed up as a Salazzle, but she wouldn't keep the costume on, so meh. You win some, you lose some.
In the end, I had a great weekend. I am going to post more later on con-going with a smaller child and on some of my great finds in the Artist Alley.
No pictures from Friday; I will try to find some. But here's one I found of us on Saturday:
... was a blast. There are no other words for it.
I cosplayed--for the first time in years.
It was refreshing.
The costumes weren't anything brilliant. Friday's were very (obviously) last minute. But I had fun--and that's the most important part right?
Friday, my daughter Sophie dressed as Princess Aurora. It was a dress she had gotten as a hand-me-down from her cousin. She loves wearing it, and I thought Animazement would be an excellent excuse to wear it. Last minute, I decided to put together King Stefan and Queen Leah costumes for my husband and I -- because Aurora has a complete set of living parents and why not?
Saturday and Sunday, my husband and I and Ty, my oldest son, cosplayed as the three Marowaks from the Alolan fire trial (Pokemon Sun and Moon). A friend of ours came along dressed as the Hiker from the trial as well. This was a lot of fun. Technically we had Sophie dressed up as a Salazzle, but she wouldn't keep the costume on, so meh. You win some, you lose some.
In the end, I had a great weekend. I am going to post more later on con-going with a smaller child and on some of my great finds in the Artist Alley.
No pictures from Friday; I will try to find some. But here's one I found of us on Saturday:
Friday, June 3, 2011
Animazement Artist Alley Loot
I'm going to start with the buttons. My good friend, Melissa, bought the top two for me. The first one is China from Hetalia--he's a guy with long hair and a panda, what's not to love? The second is Mai from Avatar: the Last Airbender--she got the trio of bad girls, Azula for herself, since she was supposed to have been cosplaying Azula, Ty Lee for my cousin, who was cosplaying Ty Lee, and Mai for me since I was cosplaying Mai. Sunday I went back and got the bottom two buttons + an Aang. I gave the Aang to my other cousin who was at AZ and cosplaying Aang. The Zuko is for my husband, and the Iroh is for our friend who was cosplaying Iroh, but he left the convention before I could get the button to him. So, it'll just hang out on the yarn braid here (made for me by Ty) until our next D&D game.
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| Flash: Horrible glare on Nekozawa. |
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| Almost not bad; Sailor Venus and James are ok at least. |
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| This is what my camera normally does w/ no flash. |
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Animazement: Sunday
Sunday was great. It helped that Shaun was mostly over being sick--I'd say he was up to about 70%. I packed the room up. We took a load of stuff to the car, then Shaun took Luke and Logan back to the room to rest and watch cartoons while Ty and I went and wandered Artist's Alley. It was still early though and a lot of artists hadn't set up yet. Neither the Dealer's Room nor the Video Game Room had opened yet either. I think I can safely say the highlights for most any convention for Ty are 1-Video Game Room, 2-Artist Alley, and 3-Dealer's Room, in that order.
We went back to the room for a early lunch--since we had to have the room vacated before noon. After a quick lunch of instant macaroni and cheese and ramen (coffee maker meals--good stuff for conventions), we took our last load of stuff to the car. Unfortunately everyone else had the same idea we did (taking stuff down to their cars). The elevators were a madhouse. We decided to try the stairs. Well the stairs closest to our room dead-ended at the bottom at a locked door; we had to go back up to the 3rd floor to find an entrance into the rest of the hotel. We wandered the 3rd floor until we found another staircase; this one dumped us outside at valet parking--not quite where we wanted to be, but closer. We hauled everything around to the hotel main entrance, then took an elevator down to the parking deck, loaded the car, and returned to enjoy the rest of the convention.
First stop on Sunday was the Dealer's Room. I usually don't buy stuff here--I just don't find stuff that I really want. Maybe "could afford" would be more accurate than "really want" since there are boxed sets of several anime I'd love to get my hands on. I did buy stuff this year. =D I found this great game shop booth--it turns out he's been there for the last several years at AZ + at AUSA. I go to both and usually take at least one tour of the dealer's room, but apparently I'm oblivious because I've missed him the last couple of years. Anyways, I picked up a card game there from the same guys who made the "We Didn't Playtest This" card game we spent Saturday night playing. I got "Whack a Catgirl." It looks like a fun convention game; it makes fun of the more annoying aspects of tweenage fangirls. I also picked up a spiffy set of new dice for D&D. They had so many pretty shinies (i.e. Dice sets) it was really tough to choose just one set. They'll be at Otakon and AUSA though, so I may just have to get some more then.
After the Dealer's Room, we wandered around for a bit and hung out with our friends before everyone started to leave and go their own way--we had to stay later because my Beholder Plushie got enough bids to go to the big auction event today (AZ has auction items for display in the Art Show room and people can put bids on a piece of paper near the items; if the item reaches 5 bids, it goes to the Sunday auction event where it goes up on display and people I guess shout bids in a more traditional style auction--I've never actually gone to that event though, so dunno). After most everyone (we knew) had gone, Shaun took Luke to an advanced origami panel while I took Ty and Logan around for another trip (or three) around the Artist Alley. I got some awesome stuff, and Ty spent all his money in AA (I'm so proud of him for supporting other artists <3). I'll probably put what I got in another blog post. I also want to see if I can find links to galleries for the artists I bought stuff from. =) So after blowing all our spending money plus some in the Artist Alley, I went to stand in line for about 30 minutes to pick up the cash from the auction sale of the Beholder--it did much better than I had expected. Shaun thinks a couple of game stores were trying to get it to display in their shop. I'm happy though because it was such a pain to make. I have one more that I'll put up for auction somewhere, but that's it. The yarn was horrible to work with, and I will never ever ever make a plushie from that yarn again. XD It was doubly good because I'd spent our parking money in Artist Alley (oops...).
So that was AZ. We left after I got my cash, picked up our kitten (finally settled on calling her Kisa yesterday), and made the long (not really, it just felt like it) hot (it was definitely this, no clouds and no AC....) car trip back home. Funny side thing: Monday morning I had an email from the staff lady in charge of the Art Show. On Sunday they'd held a drawing for 3 free badges to AZ 2012--I'd looked when I picked up the cash for my beholder, but they hadn't matched my tickets. Apparently though, the person who'd won the 3rd free badge never showed, so they'd held another drawing and pulled my ticket. =D I'm very excited about that--it also means that we're definitely going back for AZ 2012.
We went back to the room for a early lunch--since we had to have the room vacated before noon. After a quick lunch of instant macaroni and cheese and ramen (coffee maker meals--good stuff for conventions), we took our last load of stuff to the car. Unfortunately everyone else had the same idea we did (taking stuff down to their cars). The elevators were a madhouse. We decided to try the stairs. Well the stairs closest to our room dead-ended at the bottom at a locked door; we had to go back up to the 3rd floor to find an entrance into the rest of the hotel. We wandered the 3rd floor until we found another staircase; this one dumped us outside at valet parking--not quite where we wanted to be, but closer. We hauled everything around to the hotel main entrance, then took an elevator down to the parking deck, loaded the car, and returned to enjoy the rest of the convention.
First stop on Sunday was the Dealer's Room. I usually don't buy stuff here--I just don't find stuff that I really want. Maybe "could afford" would be more accurate than "really want" since there are boxed sets of several anime I'd love to get my hands on. I did buy stuff this year. =D I found this great game shop booth--it turns out he's been there for the last several years at AZ + at AUSA. I go to both and usually take at least one tour of the dealer's room, but apparently I'm oblivious because I've missed him the last couple of years. Anyways, I picked up a card game there from the same guys who made the "We Didn't Playtest This" card game we spent Saturday night playing. I got "Whack a Catgirl." It looks like a fun convention game; it makes fun of the more annoying aspects of tweenage fangirls. I also picked up a spiffy set of new dice for D&D. They had so many pretty shinies (i.e. Dice sets) it was really tough to choose just one set. They'll be at Otakon and AUSA though, so I may just have to get some more then.
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So that was AZ. We left after I got my cash, picked up our kitten (finally settled on calling her Kisa yesterday), and made the long (not really, it just felt like it) hot (it was definitely this, no clouds and no AC....) car trip back home. Funny side thing: Monday morning I had an email from the staff lady in charge of the Art Show. On Sunday they'd held a drawing for 3 free badges to AZ 2012--I'd looked when I picked up the cash for my beholder, but they hadn't matched my tickets. Apparently though, the person who'd won the 3rd free badge never showed, so they'd held another drawing and pulled my ticket. =D I'm very excited about that--it also means that we're definitely going back for AZ 2012.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Animazement: Saturday
Welcome to Part 2 of my rambling narrative.
Saturday morning started off not so bad. I got up early-ish to finish Azula's boots--we were supposed to be at a meeting for the cosplay contest at 9 and they wanted us in costume so they could get pictures of the groups. I'd gotten the fabric cut out and ready to sew together when we had to start getting dressed. It took a few minutes to put together something for Zuko's scar. I got a good base down, but I think I needed to have found something darker for around the eye, plus we hadn't had time to get latex to cover the eyebrow. Of course that only matters if you're OCD about details on costumes like I am.... So, we got Shaun, who was still sick but not as bad as Friday, dressed up and painted his face up. About then, in between hollerings from Ty who was trying to get his costume on himself and couldn't figure out how some of the pieces worked, my friend Melissa showed up to pick up here Azula costume.... We couldn't find it... anywhere. We checked all the bags. We checked the car again. I know we'd packed it--I put it into the bag myself and checked off all the pieces to it. This was probably my most brilliant failure all weekend; I left the bag with Azula in it on the living room couch. >_<;;;;; Thankfully, Melissa was very forgiving arguing she hadn't really wanted to get on stage anyways. So the rest of us quickly changed and went to the cosplay meeting (only 20 minutes late).
Not having the Azula costume meant re-recording our skit since she'd no longer be part of it. The rewrite was ok, but not as good as the original. It was nice though that we did have a computer and stuff to record with at the convention (mainly because the guy who was supposed to be editing the audio together hadn't finished). XD So, after the cosplay meeting finished, I headed downstairs to the Art Room for my 2nd commission for charity session, while everyone else went back to the room to re-record the skit--Melissa voiced my part since I wasn't there, and while they were at it, since Shaun's voice was mostly gone, our Iroh voiced his part and another friend took over the voice of Iroh--it was all kind of like a bad dub. We're considering going back and recording a version that switches Ty Lee's voice with Aang's voice just for fun.
The 2nd commission session was quiet--of course it was 10 in the morning; like most con-goers are honestly awake at that point. XD I got to draw a Mokona though; that was fun. I don't usually do animals or monsters or anything like that, so it was a fun challenge and I really liked how it came out. I also forgot to mention yesterday that the artists all got a free raffle ticket for volunteering (not that I cared about that--I'd have done it anyways; that's probably why I forgot). I won an Animazement t-shirt (we got to choose between a variety of manga, Japanese M:TG cards, t-shirts and headbands) during Friday's session. That was cool. =D Didn't get anything Saturday morning--at least I don't think I did; I wasn't paying a lot of attention to the number calling as I was trying to finishi up the Mokona commission before the session ended. Friday was the same way; I was finishing the Rock Lee commission, and Melissa caught my number being called and told me. This is why Melissa comes with me to conventions. XD I'm incredibly scatterbrained around convention time, and she helps keep me on track with things. This is why she gets free art whenever she wants it and I made a costume for her... which I forgot at home... *fail*
Most the rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent in the hotel room snoozing. Shaun, of course, was resting because he still didn't feel particularly good. There had been a webcomic publishing panel I'd kind of wanted to go to, but I ended up falling asleep and napping through it. Oh well. At 4ish we went to an Avatar: The Last Airbender photoshoot. That was fun, although I didn't stay in character very well. 1: I had a wallowing Momo at my feet who would periodically tackle me and try and knock me over. 2: Everyone was being so silly, it was hard to keep a bored expression on my face. I will try to snag pictures to post on my Tumblr from the photoshoot. I know at least a couple of friends who weren't cosplaying who got pictures of the shoot for us, so I just need to wait to get copies. After the photoshoot, we went back to Melissa's room to rehearse our skit.
The rest of the evening was pretty much spent doing the cosplay contest. Line up and set up at 6. The cosplay started at 7 (almost on time this year--impressive considering how late AZ usually is--I remember 1 year, the cosplayers got through the entire song of "99 Bottles of Sake on the Wall" before they'd even finished seating people for the event). Ty went up with Logan as the only entrants in the Junior category--seriously more people need to dress their kids up. =P Ty had a small skit prepared where he chased Logan around with the intention of catching him for dinner--not actually that bad an idea considering Momo ended up in a trap set by Jet and his crew to catch food in the series. However, the announcer decided they were just going to stand and wave at the audience and he asked them a few questions. Ty improvised fairly well with that since his original plan had fallen through--he has some stage-fright, and it's always tough when things get changed on you when you're in front of several hundred people. Our skit went over alright. I think the audio ended up being a little low, but it was fun--it'd have been worth it simply for the fun we had putting it together. I'll post a link if it gets put up on You Tube--usually someone records the skits.
After the cosplay (it was about 10pm at this point) we went to Melissa's room, ordered pizza, and played cards--one of our friends had found a really nifty game called "We Didn't Playtest This" or something like that. It was silly, quick, and short--rounds usually didn't last long, but it was fun. It was also doubly good because it didn't require a lot of thought to play since most of us were pretty tired at that point and a little light headed from lack of food. That's about it for Saturday. =P I'll post the rundown on Sunday and the end of the con probably tomorrow.
Saturday morning started off not so bad. I got up early-ish to finish Azula's boots--we were supposed to be at a meeting for the cosplay contest at 9 and they wanted us in costume so they could get pictures of the groups. I'd gotten the fabric cut out and ready to sew together when we had to start getting dressed. It took a few minutes to put together something for Zuko's scar. I got a good base down, but I think I needed to have found something darker for around the eye, plus we hadn't had time to get latex to cover the eyebrow. Of course that only matters if you're OCD about details on costumes like I am.... So, we got Shaun, who was still sick but not as bad as Friday, dressed up and painted his face up. About then, in between hollerings from Ty who was trying to get his costume on himself and couldn't figure out how some of the pieces worked, my friend Melissa showed up to pick up here Azula costume.... We couldn't find it... anywhere. We checked all the bags. We checked the car again. I know we'd packed it--I put it into the bag myself and checked off all the pieces to it. This was probably my most brilliant failure all weekend; I left the bag with Azula in it on the living room couch. >_<;;;;; Thankfully, Melissa was very forgiving arguing she hadn't really wanted to get on stage anyways. So the rest of us quickly changed and went to the cosplay meeting (only 20 minutes late).
Not having the Azula costume meant re-recording our skit since she'd no longer be part of it. The rewrite was ok, but not as good as the original. It was nice though that we did have a computer and stuff to record with at the convention (mainly because the guy who was supposed to be editing the audio together hadn't finished). XD So, after the cosplay meeting finished, I headed downstairs to the Art Room for my 2nd commission for charity session, while everyone else went back to the room to re-record the skit--Melissa voiced my part since I wasn't there, and while they were at it, since Shaun's voice was mostly gone, our Iroh voiced his part and another friend took over the voice of Iroh--it was all kind of like a bad dub. We're considering going back and recording a version that switches Ty Lee's voice with Aang's voice just for fun.
The 2nd commission session was quiet--of course it was 10 in the morning; like most con-goers are honestly awake at that point. XD I got to draw a Mokona though; that was fun. I don't usually do animals or monsters or anything like that, so it was a fun challenge and I really liked how it came out. I also forgot to mention yesterday that the artists all got a free raffle ticket for volunteering (not that I cared about that--I'd have done it anyways; that's probably why I forgot). I won an Animazement t-shirt (we got to choose between a variety of manga, Japanese M:TG cards, t-shirts and headbands) during Friday's session. That was cool. =D Didn't get anything Saturday morning--at least I don't think I did; I wasn't paying a lot of attention to the number calling as I was trying to finishi up the Mokona commission before the session ended. Friday was the same way; I was finishing the Rock Lee commission, and Melissa caught my number being called and told me. This is why Melissa comes with me to conventions. XD I'm incredibly scatterbrained around convention time, and she helps keep me on track with things. This is why she gets free art whenever she wants it and I made a costume for her... which I forgot at home... *fail*
Most the rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent in the hotel room snoozing. Shaun, of course, was resting because he still didn't feel particularly good. There had been a webcomic publishing panel I'd kind of wanted to go to, but I ended up falling asleep and napping through it. Oh well. At 4ish we went to an Avatar: The Last Airbender photoshoot. That was fun, although I didn't stay in character very well. 1: I had a wallowing Momo at my feet who would periodically tackle me and try and knock me over. 2: Everyone was being so silly, it was hard to keep a bored expression on my face. I will try to snag pictures to post on my Tumblr from the photoshoot. I know at least a couple of friends who weren't cosplaying who got pictures of the shoot for us, so I just need to wait to get copies. After the photoshoot, we went back to Melissa's room to rehearse our skit.
The rest of the evening was pretty much spent doing the cosplay contest. Line up and set up at 6. The cosplay started at 7 (almost on time this year--impressive considering how late AZ usually is--I remember 1 year, the cosplayers got through the entire song of "99 Bottles of Sake on the Wall" before they'd even finished seating people for the event). Ty went up with Logan as the only entrants in the Junior category--seriously more people need to dress their kids up. =P Ty had a small skit prepared where he chased Logan around with the intention of catching him for dinner--not actually that bad an idea considering Momo ended up in a trap set by Jet and his crew to catch food in the series. However, the announcer decided they were just going to stand and wave at the audience and he asked them a few questions. Ty improvised fairly well with that since his original plan had fallen through--he has some stage-fright, and it's always tough when things get changed on you when you're in front of several hundred people. Our skit went over alright. I think the audio ended up being a little low, but it was fun--it'd have been worth it simply for the fun we had putting it together. I'll post a link if it gets put up on You Tube--usually someone records the skits.
After the cosplay (it was about 10pm at this point) we went to Melissa's room, ordered pizza, and played cards--one of our friends had found a really nifty game called "We Didn't Playtest This" or something like that. It was silly, quick, and short--rounds usually didn't last long, but it was fun. It was also doubly good because it didn't require a lot of thought to play since most of us were pretty tired at that point and a little light headed from lack of food. That's about it for Saturday. =P I'll post the rundown on Sunday and the end of the con probably tomorrow.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Animazement: Friday
I got home from Animazement about 12 hours ago. I will say the convention was a lot of fun, but a lot of things didn't quite go as planned (putting it lightly). XD Over the next couple of days I will be posting a run down of what happened at the convention, and hopefully pictures of all those costumes that I was working on over the last month or so--sadly I didn't get any pictures of our costumes at all, but I know a lot of other people who did, so hopefully I can share some of those.
So, anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that part of Thursday was spent distracted by a new kitten--taking her to the vet to get checked for lukemia, get dewormed, etc; this also meant though we needed to find a kitten-sitter for her because she's so young and needed to take medicine for an upper-respiratory infection. Needless to say, come Friday morning I was behind from the start. Let's also add in to the mix that my husband caught the cold/flu thing my kids had earlier last week, so that put him pretty much out of commission for most of Friday. I did get up extra early and finish the Momo costume, and I got most of Azula done minus the boots. We spent about an hour trying to pack the car--we wanted to try and pack everything in one car, which considering we had 5 people, 1 kitten, a portion of my Artist Alley table stuff (since I didn't know if I could manage getting a table, I didn't take everything) and all the stuff that goes with that (clothes, costumes, cat food, people food, etc.), plus the sewing machine and stuff to finish off the costume piece that didn't get finished.
We did get everything into one car--we drive a small 4-door Saturn, so you can imagine how tight everything was. We grabbed fast food drive thru for lunch, and got under way--only 3 hours later than I'd planned originally. All things considered, that wasn't too bad since I was packing everything by myself (mostly--Shaun helped some, but was mostly feeling too icky to do anything). The trip started off nicely. It was overcast, which was great since we have no AC in our car, and I didn't want to roll the windows down too far since the kitten was running loose (there wasn't room in the car for a cat carrier). Unfortunately about an hour into what should have only been an 2 hour drive, it started to rain... and when I say rain, I mean the kind of rain where you can't see 2 inches from the windshield, let alone see the road or where you're trying to drive. Add to this the windows fogging up because of AC not working and the windows having to be rolled up because of the rain. It rained like that, letting up for a few minutes here and there until we hit Raleigh--4 hours later than I'd planned on getting there.
There was a brief lull in the storm when we stopped at my aunt's house to drop off the kitten. We also got a bit of a break while I stopped by Target and Jo-Ann's to pick up stuff that I'd forgotten or hadn't gotten before we left and get cold medicine Shaun. I'd stopped at Jo-Ann's for white buttons (since our Walmart did not have them, and I didn't want to drive an hour to our closest craft store just for a pair of buttons and we'd drive past a Jo-Ann's on the way to the convention). The white buttons were for a plushie I had wanted to put in the auction (if you can't tell, it did not get finished over the weekend). While in Jo-Ann's it went back to raining. I ended up about as wet as if I'd jumped into a lake running back to the car. Yah, errands done...
Thankfully the rain did not continue like that for the rest of the trip. We pulled into the hotel parking garage at 3:00ish--this was a bit stressful because I was supposed to be in the Art Show room at 4:00 ready to draw for a charity event I'd volunteered for. @_@ So, parked, got checked in (hotel lost power briefly here). I left my kids and sick husband in the room watching cartoons, got my pencil case from the car, and headed for the convention center. Our hotel is conveniently connected to the convention center by an underground tunnel, unfortunately, I found they'd blocked the entrance to the convention center and wouldn't let me past without my convention badge. This meant going back to the hotel, running out through the rain (still raining--not a drizzle, but not as badly as it had been earlier) to the main entrance to the convention center... I was so happy that the registration line had gone down and I didn't have to wait too long to get my badge.
I'd successfully achieved access to the convention center. I then headed upstairs to where I thought the Art Show room was (where it had been for the last 2 years). I ran into a couple of friends who kindly pointed out that no, the Art Show was no longer up with the balcony Artist Alley, it was down by the Dealer's Room. Incidentally, the Art Show room is not 10 feet from where the guard stopped me earlier on my way to the convention center. XD I checked in there at 5 minutes till 4 (still wet, but at least I wasn't late). This was definitely the highlight for Friday for me. The event was to raise money for the Japanese Red Cross. The Art Show staff held a raffle to go with the art--for $1 you could get a raffle ticket for a drawing at the end of the one hour session plus another ticket for a drawing on Sunday for 1 of 3 free badge passes for AZ 2012. A $10 donation would get you a commission from one of the volunteer artists. There were 3 other artists at that session--between the 4 of us, there were 2 Sarah's and 2 Katie's, and the other Sarah had the same last initial as I do. I had fun chatting though with the other artists, one of which had come from as far away as New York. I got to draw 2 commissions: Jesse from Pokemon (yah, Team Rocket) and Rock Lee (that was interesting since I've never actually seen much of Naruto--<3 my fellow artists for helping me come up with a good pose for him). I wish I'd gotten photos of the sketches to post here, but things were moving fairly quickly, and I was still a little disoriented from the drive.
That finished, we gradually got the car unpacked. I checked with Artist Alley staff, but for the first time in AA history, everyone who registered for AA showed up. o.O No table for me. This turned out to be a good thing really though. I got my beholder submitted to the Art Show for auction 30 minutes before the room closed on Friday. I briefly put on my Princess Buttercup costume and walked around the convention with Luke and Logan (#2 and #3). They discovered one artist who had cake at her table and would give it to them if they looked cute (I knew the artist, so... yeah. I wouldn't have let them harass her if it had been a complete stranger). We didn't stay out long because they were sleepy, and it just wasn't as fun walking around without Shaun--who was supposed to be my sweet Westley on Friday. I got a couple of pictures--not as many as I'd like. I'd intended to be uploading them to Tumblr as I took them, or at least reasonably soon after taking them, but I never got the downtime I thought I would. I think this is partially because Shaun was sick, so I had no one to share the *watch kids* job with. I am uploading the pictures I did get gradually to Tumblr now.
So, that was my Friday--long story I know. I'll try and talk less about Saturday. It was considerably less adventuresome.
So, anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that part of Thursday was spent distracted by a new kitten--taking her to the vet to get checked for lukemia, get dewormed, etc; this also meant though we needed to find a kitten-sitter for her because she's so young and needed to take medicine for an upper-respiratory infection. Needless to say, come Friday morning I was behind from the start. Let's also add in to the mix that my husband caught the cold/flu thing my kids had earlier last week, so that put him pretty much out of commission for most of Friday. I did get up extra early and finish the Momo costume, and I got most of Azula done minus the boots. We spent about an hour trying to pack the car--we wanted to try and pack everything in one car, which considering we had 5 people, 1 kitten, a portion of my Artist Alley table stuff (since I didn't know if I could manage getting a table, I didn't take everything) and all the stuff that goes with that (clothes, costumes, cat food, people food, etc.), plus the sewing machine and stuff to finish off the costume piece that didn't get finished.
We did get everything into one car--we drive a small 4-door Saturn, so you can imagine how tight everything was. We grabbed fast food drive thru for lunch, and got under way--only 3 hours later than I'd planned originally. All things considered, that wasn't too bad since I was packing everything by myself (mostly--Shaun helped some, but was mostly feeling too icky to do anything). The trip started off nicely. It was overcast, which was great since we have no AC in our car, and I didn't want to roll the windows down too far since the kitten was running loose (there wasn't room in the car for a cat carrier). Unfortunately about an hour into what should have only been an 2 hour drive, it started to rain... and when I say rain, I mean the kind of rain where you can't see 2 inches from the windshield, let alone see the road or where you're trying to drive. Add to this the windows fogging up because of AC not working and the windows having to be rolled up because of the rain. It rained like that, letting up for a few minutes here and there until we hit Raleigh--4 hours later than I'd planned on getting there.
There was a brief lull in the storm when we stopped at my aunt's house to drop off the kitten. We also got a bit of a break while I stopped by Target and Jo-Ann's to pick up stuff that I'd forgotten or hadn't gotten before we left and get cold medicine Shaun. I'd stopped at Jo-Ann's for white buttons (since our Walmart did not have them, and I didn't want to drive an hour to our closest craft store just for a pair of buttons and we'd drive past a Jo-Ann's on the way to the convention). The white buttons were for a plushie I had wanted to put in the auction (if you can't tell, it did not get finished over the weekend). While in Jo-Ann's it went back to raining. I ended up about as wet as if I'd jumped into a lake running back to the car. Yah, errands done...
Thankfully the rain did not continue like that for the rest of the trip. We pulled into the hotel parking garage at 3:00ish--this was a bit stressful because I was supposed to be in the Art Show room at 4:00 ready to draw for a charity event I'd volunteered for. @_@ So, parked, got checked in (hotel lost power briefly here). I left my kids and sick husband in the room watching cartoons, got my pencil case from the car, and headed for the convention center. Our hotel is conveniently connected to the convention center by an underground tunnel, unfortunately, I found they'd blocked the entrance to the convention center and wouldn't let me past without my convention badge. This meant going back to the hotel, running out through the rain (still raining--not a drizzle, but not as badly as it had been earlier) to the main entrance to the convention center... I was so happy that the registration line had gone down and I didn't have to wait too long to get my badge.
I'd successfully achieved access to the convention center. I then headed upstairs to where I thought the Art Show room was (where it had been for the last 2 years). I ran into a couple of friends who kindly pointed out that no, the Art Show was no longer up with the balcony Artist Alley, it was down by the Dealer's Room. Incidentally, the Art Show room is not 10 feet from where the guard stopped me earlier on my way to the convention center. XD I checked in there at 5 minutes till 4 (still wet, but at least I wasn't late). This was definitely the highlight for Friday for me. The event was to raise money for the Japanese Red Cross. The Art Show staff held a raffle to go with the art--for $1 you could get a raffle ticket for a drawing at the end of the one hour session plus another ticket for a drawing on Sunday for 1 of 3 free badge passes for AZ 2012. A $10 donation would get you a commission from one of the volunteer artists. There were 3 other artists at that session--between the 4 of us, there were 2 Sarah's and 2 Katie's, and the other Sarah had the same last initial as I do. I had fun chatting though with the other artists, one of which had come from as far away as New York. I got to draw 2 commissions: Jesse from Pokemon (yah, Team Rocket) and Rock Lee (that was interesting since I've never actually seen much of Naruto--<3 my fellow artists for helping me come up with a good pose for him). I wish I'd gotten photos of the sketches to post here, but things were moving fairly quickly, and I was still a little disoriented from the drive.
That finished, we gradually got the car unpacked. I checked with Artist Alley staff, but for the first time in AA history, everyone who registered for AA showed up. o.O No table for me. This turned out to be a good thing really though. I got my beholder submitted to the Art Show for auction 30 minutes before the room closed on Friday. I briefly put on my Princess Buttercup costume and walked around the convention with Luke and Logan (#2 and #3). They discovered one artist who had cake at her table and would give it to them if they looked cute (I knew the artist, so... yeah. I wouldn't have let them harass her if it had been a complete stranger). We didn't stay out long because they were sleepy, and it just wasn't as fun walking around without Shaun--who was supposed to be my sweet Westley on Friday. I got a couple of pictures--not as many as I'd like. I'd intended to be uploading them to Tumblr as I took them, or at least reasonably soon after taking them, but I never got the downtime I thought I would. I think this is partially because Shaun was sick, so I had no one to share the *watch kids* job with. I am uploading the pictures I did get gradually to Tumblr now.
So, that was my Friday--long story I know. I'll try and talk less about Saturday. It was considerably less adventuresome.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Pre-Con Stress
It's Monday, May 23, and I have four work days left before Animazement. As usual, I'm not even remotely ready (rushing to get stuff done is why there are no pictures in this blog today). I suppose it's worth mentioning that I'm doing better than most years at this time. In this blog, I'm going to go through a little of what I do to prepare for conventions--this season will include a record number of 5 cons starting with Animazement and ending with Magfest next January.
First, cosplay has always been a large part of the con experience for me. I have been going to Animazement since 2000. I have had new cosplays for our family every year since then. Admittedly this wasn't that hard to begin with. In 2000, it was just my husband and I. In 2001 we added monkey #1, and in 2003, there was monkey #2. Even then, it wasn't so bad. Cosplay for small children is fairly easy. Luke's, my #2, first cosplay took me only 2 hours to make--it was an infant Final Fantasy I Black Mage. This year, however, I am making 5 costumes for my family, and the kids are getting older which means more complicated costumes for them. On top of our family costumes, I am making one costume for one friend and helping another with significant parts of his costume. It's amazing how that starts adding up.
Add, on top of that preparations, for Artist Alley. I did my first AA at Animazement in 2009 (first AA ever was Anime USA 2008). That adds a whole new dynamic to the list of things to do. To start with, it usually involves sorting through whatever was left from the previous convention, taking inventory, and deciding what needs to be restocked. Then, there's the new stuff. I try to have new stuff at my table for each convention--I see a lot of the same people at the conventions I go to, particularly Anime Weekend Atlanta to Animazement or Animazement to Anime USA, and it's always nice to say hi and point out what I've done since they saw me a couple of months earlier. Even though I'm still wait-listed for Animazement, a friend of mine who did get a half table offered to let me share a corner of her space, so there's that, and there's also the chance that I will end up getting a table. So, being prepared is a good thing. The worst case scenario is that I will have less to do when preparation time comes around for Otakon in July.
Thankfully, for most of the conventions I go to, I don't bother with new costumes; that's just for Animazement. This leads up to the blog title: Pre-Con Stress. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not even close to being finished with preparations. I have 1 costume out of 5 finished--3 of those left have at least been started, but there's still 1 costume I haven't even started yet. I have new stuff and old stuff printed for the table, and I got the badges cut out, but I still need to cut out the bookmarks, the text for the back of the badges, and laminate the whole stack of stuff. I meant to have the Beholder plushie, 3 11x17 prints, and a quilt ready for the Art Show; the Beholder plushie is the only thing finished. One out of the 3 prints is almost finished; the other 2... I won't even go there. The quilt--it's ready to be quilted, but that's only because I started the project 3 years ago. XD I haven't gotten any work on it done recently.
It gets a little daunting when looking at a To-Do List like that--of course it's been worse... like the year where I had no finished costumes at this point and 3 out of 5 not even started. XD I keep saying that I'm not going to be up at 1am the night before the convention laminating stuff or doing last minute throw-together stuff for unfinished costumes (<3 safety pins, duct tape, and hot glue), but so far, that has yet to happen. I'm going to blame pre-con stress for missing Friday's post--I had plans, but in the chaos of trying to get parts of cosplays finished, record the audio for our skit (first year doing this), and *trying* to squeeze in a few moments to try and get the 3-4 pieces left I wanted to have ready for the auction... it didn't happen. To make up for it, if I can figure out how to upload pictures to Blogger from my phone, I'll post an extra Convention blog this Saturday. In the mean time, here's hoping I can wrap all this stuff up (reasonably) before Friday morning, although this wouldn't be the first year either the sewing machine, the laminator, or both got packed. =P
First, cosplay has always been a large part of the con experience for me. I have been going to Animazement since 2000. I have had new cosplays for our family every year since then. Admittedly this wasn't that hard to begin with. In 2000, it was just my husband and I. In 2001 we added monkey #1, and in 2003, there was monkey #2. Even then, it wasn't so bad. Cosplay for small children is fairly easy. Luke's, my #2, first cosplay took me only 2 hours to make--it was an infant Final Fantasy I Black Mage. This year, however, I am making 5 costumes for my family, and the kids are getting older which means more complicated costumes for them. On top of our family costumes, I am making one costume for one friend and helping another with significant parts of his costume. It's amazing how that starts adding up.
Add, on top of that preparations, for Artist Alley. I did my first AA at Animazement in 2009 (first AA ever was Anime USA 2008). That adds a whole new dynamic to the list of things to do. To start with, it usually involves sorting through whatever was left from the previous convention, taking inventory, and deciding what needs to be restocked. Then, there's the new stuff. I try to have new stuff at my table for each convention--I see a lot of the same people at the conventions I go to, particularly Anime Weekend Atlanta to Animazement or Animazement to Anime USA, and it's always nice to say hi and point out what I've done since they saw me a couple of months earlier. Even though I'm still wait-listed for Animazement, a friend of mine who did get a half table offered to let me share a corner of her space, so there's that, and there's also the chance that I will end up getting a table. So, being prepared is a good thing. The worst case scenario is that I will have less to do when preparation time comes around for Otakon in July.
Thankfully, for most of the conventions I go to, I don't bother with new costumes; that's just for Animazement. This leads up to the blog title: Pre-Con Stress. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not even close to being finished with preparations. I have 1 costume out of 5 finished--3 of those left have at least been started, but there's still 1 costume I haven't even started yet. I have new stuff and old stuff printed for the table, and I got the badges cut out, but I still need to cut out the bookmarks, the text for the back of the badges, and laminate the whole stack of stuff. I meant to have the Beholder plushie, 3 11x17 prints, and a quilt ready for the Art Show; the Beholder plushie is the only thing finished. One out of the 3 prints is almost finished; the other 2... I won't even go there. The quilt--it's ready to be quilted, but that's only because I started the project 3 years ago. XD I haven't gotten any work on it done recently.
It gets a little daunting when looking at a To-Do List like that--of course it's been worse... like the year where I had no finished costumes at this point and 3 out of 5 not even started. XD I keep saying that I'm not going to be up at 1am the night before the convention laminating stuff or doing last minute throw-together stuff for unfinished costumes (<3 safety pins, duct tape, and hot glue), but so far, that has yet to happen. I'm going to blame pre-con stress for missing Friday's post--I had plans, but in the chaos of trying to get parts of cosplays finished, record the audio for our skit (first year doing this), and *trying* to squeeze in a few moments to try and get the 3-4 pieces left I wanted to have ready for the auction... it didn't happen. To make up for it, if I can figure out how to upload pictures to Blogger from my phone, I'll post an extra Convention blog this Saturday. In the mean time, here's hoping I can wrap all this stuff up (reasonably) before Friday morning, although this wouldn't be the first year either the sewing machine, the laminator, or both got packed. =P
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