Zenkaikon 2011
Mar. 25th, 2011 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rose_of_painThis was my first time attending Zenkaikon. It was pretty small but I can see that its growing (perhaps a little too fast for the staff though). To be honest it probably would have been a boring con if it wasn't for the people and the fact I was kept pretty busy.
Thursday:
Mandi wanted to avoid rush hour traffic so met up with her at Columbia Mall and left pretty early, around 1pm or so. Drive up was pretty nice for the most part. We took the more scenic route and it was pleasant...except for a dead skunk on the side of the road. lol Though it did take us through Baltimore (since Mandi set it to avoid tolls) and pffffft wtf Baltimore! Do not just step out in front of moving cars. Seriously! No one ever looked and I was terrified we'd hit someone as they would just come out from between cars out of nowhere! x_x But anyways we got to the con before everyone else so we just hung out in the lobby. There was a 17 year old boy who joined us and despite the fact he looked more like 14, was pretty cool. And really really smart. Made me feel pretty dumb in comparison as this kid is like taking college courses at age 17. T_T; I had my PSP out periodically throughout the con since I was trying to get further in Duodecim before the English release. He wanted to try it out a bit so I let him but I was also kinda like "...don't mess up my status" and lol when I got it back and later turned it on I was like "ahgaidhpgidapi he left me with barely any HP! T_T *starts dungeon over*". lol But I didn't really mind that much.
Dar showed up and we helped her unload and hung around til Sarah and Steve got there and we got into our room. The rooms were huge! Definitely worth the price and better than a lot of the more expensive hotel rooms I've had at bigger cons. The tub alone was huge and had a whirlpool option on it (never did try that out though lol). We all agreed we were hungry so we piled into Mandi's car ('cause she had a handicapped sticker which means we wouldn't have to worry about losing our perfect spot in the parking lot). Laura had said there was a Ruby Tuesday's by the mall so we all agreed on that one...only to realize it was actually a TGIF instead. But Mandi had her heart set on Ruby Tuesday's so we put it in the GPS to find one and it didn't seem that far off... Well. About 30 minutes later we finally find one. lol And we have no idea where we are but damn Mandi was going to find that freaking Tuesday's even if she had to drive off a bridge to get to it. Luckily we still had an hour before they closed XD (oh god it would have been so horrible if we got there only to have it closed T_T). Mandi scared the waiter a bit when she yoinked her plate right out of his hands. XDXD Note to self: don't get in the way of a hungry Mandi.
Went back to the hotel, hung out for a bit, got tired, played more Duodecim (I was on a mission dammit!) and then went to bed. Steve has the most amusing snores I've ever heard. XD And at first the room was really hot so we turned the temperature down...only to result it in being really cold when we woke up. And Sarah was somehow the only one warm so both Steve and I were trying to steal some from her.
Friday:
Got up. Helped Sarah, Carrie, and CarolAnn set up their artist alley table and put out my stuff. We were in the Artist Alley B section which was the 24 hour bit but was in this little hallway so we were a bit worried if people would come by that much. Since the main Artist Alley was in the Dealer's. But we actually got a lot of people in that little hallway and I think everyone at the table did pretty well sales wise. Was also pleasantly surprised to see Nyssa and Vanessa had their booth across from ours. I didn't even think to see if they were going. Met them at Otakon last year. Vanessa is one of the few Saint Seiya fans I know so always enjoy geeking with her. There were some Saint Seiya figures this one guy in the Dealer's Room had and he had offered a discount to me but I really didn't have the money for anything so I told her about them and she bought them right away. XD They were a pretty nice set too and included several of my favorites but too poor for things like that right now. *sighs* Though I think I already own the Shaka from that one anyways. Only thing I actually bought in the Dealer's Room was a wig. 'Cause I needed one for Okita and I was hoping for a wig seller so I wouldn't have to deal with shipping. So whoo~ It needs some cutting but its pretty much the right style already.
Took photos for Mandi and Carrie in their Hetalia costumes. I'm not a fan of Hetalia but they were both very cute in their outfits and it was fun playing photographer even if I'm not very good at it. ^^;; The con didn't really have much in terms of photo spots so we really did kinda just re-use the same few locations for anything we took photos of which included the fancy chairs in the lobby, the grass area outside the con, annddd well ok that was pretty much it. XD;
The venue kinda lacked food-wise sadly. The vendors downstairs, we thought weren't too bad at first and it was pretty cheap. But then after eating one of their Cheese Steaks...all kinda agreed we weren't going to have anymore of that. I mean one was ok and I was so hungry I didn't care. But I don't think I could stomach another one. lol
Eventually got into costume. Threw Gil on first. Though turns out most of the Pandora Hearts people were in them on Sat. Oh well. lol Spent most of the con either at the AA table or in the judging room so didn't really spend much time in the larger space downstairs which was technically the main space for the con. But it was mostly just crowded full of kids and the smell of that vendor's bad food. Uhhh...I'm actually kinda drawing a blank on what I did at this point. I think I really did just chill out at the table until it was judging time.
Get to the room a little early as have nothing better to do only to find out we have NO pre-regged entries for the day. We had one but they changed to Saturday. And nobody signed up during the sign-up time but we're like "well...maybe they'll show up once the time starts. I mean some people are probably just now getting here anyways..."
...
We ended up having to go walk around the con and FIND people to try to convince them to enter and send them to our room and then go judge their costumes. lol And the sad thing is that we had a number of them who were all "Oh I'm going to enter tomorrow instead" even though they were already wearing their costume for it. Which I didn't quite get because wouldn't it make more sense to enter when there's less of a wait? Or do people view Saturday as being worth more? I'm not really sure. Either way, Friday we didn't have much to do. But at least we were able to eat without having to rush. Dan brought us all sandwiches from the staff room and I was pretty happy to find out we actually were going to get fed during our working times since both days went right into my normal eating times. And despite the fact we weren't getting many people, we still stayed around til the ending time just in case anyone came in at the end.
After that I changed into Len since Sarah had made her Gacktpo headphones in the room while I was judging. I kinda wish I had been smart enough to bring a black dress shirt and done that variation of Magnet instead though 'cause that's what Sarah was doing and it probably would have looked A LOT better on me as sadly tight fitted shirts just don't work with me and my binding. I end up looking kinda fat. x_x And I know I'm not fat but I look like it in photos. And didn't help the pants I was wearing were kinda tight. So yeeeeaaaah. Not the most flattering. (I need to lose weight too T_T;) Utai ended up taking home my belt at Katsu and I realized that belt really did help make my stomach less noticeable. Pfft. Oh well. Live and learn. But despite this, still got some pretty nice photos with Sarah thanks to Mandi.
This couch got so much love during the weekend. XD Was like the only pretty spot in the hotel.
OCTOPUS. In my crotch. Oh yeah. XD I love Sarah's "WRRRRY" expression here.
And then it was pretty late so we went back to the room, changed, packed stuff up (though it was quite handy being able to just put stuff in the Photosuite due to Steve working there, made the trips to the table a lot easier) and passed out.
Saturday:
Got into Teito and straightened my hair. Which is something I like never do. XD But it looked SO MUCH BETTER straightened for the costume. So whoo! One less wig I have to get. Helped set up Sarah's stuff at the table (since Carrie and CarolAnn were both up bright and early and pretty much already set up by the time we got down there all weekend pfffft) and holy crap was our little hallway bombarded with people! I know it was a Saturday and thus overall increase in attendees at the con but holy crap! Why so many so early in our tiny hallway. XD But at least I pretty much sold out of most of my patches by mid-day as a result. Hell my Bleach ones sold pretty early on Friday and I didn't even think those would do very well since Bleach is kinda old and I was doing the old season 1 Soul Society symbol. So. Go figure. XD Guess I'll do more of those (got the idea in the first place 'cause I had a kid at Neko ask if I had Bleach ones) and more of the Gurren Lagann one as that one came out really good (like a lot of my patches tend to have issues here and there but this one came out perfect) and they're like the easiest to make. I want to do more MGS ones too but my machine doesn't like those as much. Which is a shame as I definitely had a lot of people asking for some so I wish I could have gotten more out beforehand.
Checked in with Dar at the Cosplay room and took a look at our list. Definitely a lot more entries and had people signing up for times this time so it was a bit more organized. At one point I came over to see how Laura was doing as she was signing someone up and well I just looked to Laura and didn't really notice the person signing up. Looked down to see the entries and see Laura writing down "Marissa-" and I'm like "oh I know a Marissa who is coming here, I wonder if that's..." and I look up. "Oh hi Marissa!" XD Deeeeeerp. Go me. Still had some time though so Alex and I wandered, trying to find people to give ribbons to. Besides the actual cosplay contest, we had ribbons to give out to people around the con as kinda a "pat-on-the-back, your costume is good!" type thing. Though we were also using it as a way to kinda try to lure people into entering too. XD Judging started at 12:30 so didn't wander too much before coming back to the room.
So like I said, we had A LOT more entries than Friday so we were kept pretty busy. And we also only had one room for all Cosplay related stuff so the Masquerade judges had to judge their Craftsmanship entries at the same time in the same room. ^^;; So after the first attempt to do both at the same time resulted in it being a little hard to hear, we decided to alternate entries which also gave us a little break here and there. Granted they only had a few entries to judge while we had almost 30. lol Though we only ended up running behind by about 15 minutes which was...really good considering hall contests I've been in that got behind a lot more than that! And at some point we ended up being ahead of ourselves. Not sure how we managed that but near the end, the next entry wasn't for quite a while and we had plenty of time. XD We were even taking in entries early if they were outside the door already. And we didn't even rush anyone. Everyone got enough time to say what they want.
Overall I was rather impressed just because there were mostly beginners and yet they all had actual real effort into the costumes even if this was their very first costume. And damn we all agreed that none of our first costumes looked that good as these entries. Especially as many of them did them without any patterns. And we had a few adorable Youth entries. Including one 12 year old kid who we were all like "...its a Mini Eric!" He actually sewed his costume himself (well with some help but still, I certainly didn't know how to sew at that age!) and just his personality reminded us so much of Eric. It was seriously adorable and I bet that kid is going to go far if he continues.
I didn't really take many photos this con, if you hadn't gotten the jist of that already by the lack of photos in this report. Mostly due to being busy and not really being around where the cosplayers were. But here's a few of costumes that stood out to me (and I was actually able to catch to take photos of XD).
Nyssa in her freaking awesome Medic costume. Her props were really superb and her gun lit up! I just sadly managed to catch a photo when she blinked. Oops. XD
Princess Tutu~ These two were soooo adorable. When we asked them to come closer to us during judging, they actually ran up in full ballet proper style and I was like "aghdighapigdh that was so freaking cute!"
Kusuriuri~ I love whenever I see people cosplay him~ And this was this girl's FIRST costume! Freaking woah!
Marissa as Presea from Magic Knight Rayearth. I always did love that character. ^^ I specifically asked her to pose torturing Mokona for this shot. XD
After judging there really only was enough time to visit the table, go upstairs and change, and then come back down for the Masquerade. lol I changed into Yosuke for it as its more comfortable and a bit better constructed than Teito. I went into the Main Events room with the intention of trying to help out as Dar had asked earlier that if any of us could come by a little earlier than need be to help out, that she'd appreciate it. But she didn't really seem to have anything for me to do so I just sat with Alex until we got our judging table set up. Despite the fact we weren't judging the Masq, they figured it would be easiest to just have us up there with them. Though they put us REALLY close to the stage. Probably didn't need to be quite that close. ^^;; Greg got us pizza from the staff room though Mandi's slice got eaten by CarolAnn when she wasn't looking. Oops. lol As Greg had only just gotten enough for me, Mandi, and Alex really as the others weren't there when he took requests. Poor hungry Mandi remained hungry (note: she was cosplaying Hungary at this time...ahahaha...ha. Yeah ok, bad joke is bad). The Masquerade itself didn't have many entries and we actually had a packed room (lol doubt there was much else going on at the con though) so the MC had to do a lot of the entertaining himself to add in the extra time needed. He did a pretty good job even if his opening bit got a bit too lecture-like and probably could have been shorter. Zenkai isn't a big con and I really felt he should have stuck to his jokes for all of it instead of trying to go the more serious route as I would expect something of that nature more for a bigger con. 'Cause it kinda put an awkward somber atmosphere in the air and it was a little overdramatic for me. But otherwise good. He used a lot of Carrie's hats in between each skit so yay for advertising. XD At one point he introduces all the judges and asked each of us some silly dumb question. Gets to me and asks "So who's your favorite Gladiator?" and I like know NOTHING about wrestling or whatever so I was like "uhhhh what?" XD Pffft. The majority of the Masq really was the Walk-Ons but it was pretty nice seeing the crowd give them so much support as I know at other cons, the Walk-Ons don't get much attention. So was a nice change especially since I know some of them weren't so sure about wanting to be on stage.
The half-time point was spent mostly trying to get donations into the Japan Donation jars so that was a pretty good idea by the con. And the MC kept everyone interested so actually no one really left like they do at most Masquerades at that point. But then again we don't think many of them knew what these events were and just went 'cause it was the only thing to do. lol Then we gave out the awards. Alex and I are wimps and don't like talking in front of an audience so we had CarolAnn do all the actual talking. XD And I gave out the certificates and Alex gave out the trophies and stuff. Though also ended up being there to correct CarolAnn a few times whenever she got a character wrong. lol Though we somehow managed not to write the characters on all the certificates so we get to our honorable mentions and aren't sure which one is which character so we're like "This person for...*looks out in audience til we see her coming to stage* Rei Ayanami! haha of course! ^^;;;". And then I had a bit of a "PANIC!" moment when I realized I was missing about half of the certificates. Like we finished Friday's awards and them I'm like "...wait...where are Saturday's? FUCK! *runs off to get Dar's attention to try to find them*" ^^;;; They had been left on one of the tables, upside down so nobody released what they were. Pffft. I'm not even sure how we forgot them as I thought we had them all when Dar handed them over, all organized and such. But lol I kinda find it amusing that I was like "OH SHIT!" while I was in Yosuke of all things. Kinda...fit the character. XD
After that actually got a little bit of time to wander in Yosuke. Was actually rather surprised by reactions I got. I got hugged...A LOT. And had people spazz out, being all "Oh my god, Yosuke's my favorite and your costume is so good!" so yay! ^^ I love that costume and I really need to wear it more. Everyone was saying the wig looks really good on me and I do love that wig (yay for Scruffy! So sad they stopped selling them T_T). And all the compliments I got, especially from my friends, actually made me really happy because that costume was actually pretty hard despite how simple it might look. Though I'm thinking of redoing the top-stitching again because its starting to fray in places (though a voice in my head is screaming "What the hell is wrong with you?!" considering how long it took me...the first 2 times I did it ^^;;).
I added the glasses last minute. XD As I realized I should try some variation. I want to do either his knives or lol wrenches some time too. XD; Though it would be more fun if I had other people to do P4 with. T_T As I've only ever done it alone. So...anyone? Anyone at all? lol I also want to do his Junes apron at some point.
Annnnnd then I got eaten by Bowser.
End of con report.
... XD j/k
Carrie took a bunch of photos around the con though I still have to wait for Sarah to get the ones on her camera to me. As there are a few she only took on Sarah's camera as she was alternating between the two. Did some rather cute shots.
Annnd then it was time to pack up and I was hungry as that single slice of pizza wasn't enough for dinner so I had some ramen in the room and then we went to Sarah's friend Lee's room though I was fading pretty fast and ended up going back to the room with the intention of taking a shower but never got quite that far, lol. Was just too tired and worried I'd pass out during it. Sarah and Mandi came in and chatted and I tried to chat too but I was like seriously passing out next to them and I still have NO IDEA why I was that tired. XD I mean I spent most of the con just sitting in a room. I wasn't really running around from place to place and changing a million times like normal or anything and yet I felt more tired than I do normally at a con. Go figure. And apparently I'm "hilarious" when I'm tired as Mandi and Sarah kept making fun of me and I'm not even sure what I did or said. XD But yeah passed out pretty hard once I finally made it to the bed.
Sunday:
Got into Teito again since I had arranged to meet up with LostDreamz to do a 07-Ghost shoot as Sunday was really the only day both of us could do it. Mostly just spent Sunday at the AA table. Business was kinda slow which is a little odd for a Sunday just 'cause I know at most cons people usually spend their remaining time buying stuff but I think A LOT of the attendees only came for Saturday as I noticed a good amount of Sat-Only badges. I had pretty much sold almost all my patches already so it didn't matter too much. Actually made A LOT more than I expected money-wise so that was kinda awesome. Made enough to basically make even this con so at least I didn't lose any money attending it.
Met up with LostDreamz in her Mikage costume and took photos outside as it was really the only area nice enough to work with our costumes. Had a lot of fun with her and our photographer as they were both big 07-Ghost fans and that series really doesn't get enough love.
Solo shot of me. Wish my face didn't look so fat but that's an issue I have with my chin. Still need to get better at posing so I don't look like I have a double chin. Pfft.
I thought this shot was really cute. XD
BFF XD
And kinda spoilerish but I love this shot. I was kinda confused what she was doing during the time. Since she was giving directions at the bottom of the stairs and I could barely hear her, just "Stay absolutely still!" and telling Mikage to run out of the shot and I was like "why do I need to stay here still?" but saw the photo later and was like "ohhhh". lol As I'm assuming she layered the two shots together.
After that, hung out for a little bit more but eventually we were getting hungry and realized we should get on the road so Mandi and I said our goodbyes and headed out. We both agreed that we really wanted Panera Bread so had the GPS guide us to one where I tried their Mac & Cheese for the very first time (I never knew they had it! lol) and omg it was just as good as everyone was telling me. XD Ride home was fine though we did get a little confused and taken off track because when we tried to put in Columbia Mall, it was taking us to Columbia Mall...PA. When we wanted the MD one. Pfffft. We were like "wait....why did it add 3 hours on to the trip and why is it trying to make us backtrack?" XD; But we got it corrected eventually and got to the correct mall where I said goodbye to Mandi and then had delicious Uno's Pizza. XD
Photos (though I only took 14 total lol) are here: http://lyn.houjun.com/zenkai11.html
~Lyn
Thursday:
Mandi wanted to avoid rush hour traffic so met up with her at Columbia Mall and left pretty early, around 1pm or so. Drive up was pretty nice for the most part. We took the more scenic route and it was pleasant...except for a dead skunk on the side of the road. lol Though it did take us through Baltimore (since Mandi set it to avoid tolls) and pffffft wtf Baltimore! Do not just step out in front of moving cars. Seriously! No one ever looked and I was terrified we'd hit someone as they would just come out from between cars out of nowhere! x_x But anyways we got to the con before everyone else so we just hung out in the lobby. There was a 17 year old boy who joined us and despite the fact he looked more like 14, was pretty cool. And really really smart. Made me feel pretty dumb in comparison as this kid is like taking college courses at age 17. T_T; I had my PSP out periodically throughout the con since I was trying to get further in Duodecim before the English release. He wanted to try it out a bit so I let him but I was also kinda like "...don't mess up my status" and lol when I got it back and later turned it on I was like "ahgaidhpgidapi he left me with barely any HP! T_T *starts dungeon over*". lol But I didn't really mind that much.
Dar showed up and we helped her unload and hung around til Sarah and Steve got there and we got into our room. The rooms were huge! Definitely worth the price and better than a lot of the more expensive hotel rooms I've had at bigger cons. The tub alone was huge and had a whirlpool option on it (never did try that out though lol). We all agreed we were hungry so we piled into Mandi's car ('cause she had a handicapped sticker which means we wouldn't have to worry about losing our perfect spot in the parking lot). Laura had said there was a Ruby Tuesday's by the mall so we all agreed on that one...only to realize it was actually a TGIF instead. But Mandi had her heart set on Ruby Tuesday's so we put it in the GPS to find one and it didn't seem that far off... Well. About 30 minutes later we finally find one. lol And we have no idea where we are but damn Mandi was going to find that freaking Tuesday's even if she had to drive off a bridge to get to it. Luckily we still had an hour before they closed XD (oh god it would have been so horrible if we got there only to have it closed T_T). Mandi scared the waiter a bit when she yoinked her plate right out of his hands. XDXD Note to self: don't get in the way of a hungry Mandi.
Went back to the hotel, hung out for a bit, got tired, played more Duodecim (I was on a mission dammit!) and then went to bed. Steve has the most amusing snores I've ever heard. XD And at first the room was really hot so we turned the temperature down...only to result it in being really cold when we woke up. And Sarah was somehow the only one warm so both Steve and I were trying to steal some from her.
Friday:
Got up. Helped Sarah, Carrie, and CarolAnn set up their artist alley table and put out my stuff. We were in the Artist Alley B section which was the 24 hour bit but was in this little hallway so we were a bit worried if people would come by that much. Since the main Artist Alley was in the Dealer's. But we actually got a lot of people in that little hallway and I think everyone at the table did pretty well sales wise. Was also pleasantly surprised to see Nyssa and Vanessa had their booth across from ours. I didn't even think to see if they were going. Met them at Otakon last year. Vanessa is one of the few Saint Seiya fans I know so always enjoy geeking with her. There were some Saint Seiya figures this one guy in the Dealer's Room had and he had offered a discount to me but I really didn't have the money for anything so I told her about them and she bought them right away. XD They were a pretty nice set too and included several of my favorites but too poor for things like that right now. *sighs* Though I think I already own the Shaka from that one anyways. Only thing I actually bought in the Dealer's Room was a wig. 'Cause I needed one for Okita and I was hoping for a wig seller so I wouldn't have to deal with shipping. So whoo~ It needs some cutting but its pretty much the right style already.
Took photos for Mandi and Carrie in their Hetalia costumes. I'm not a fan of Hetalia but they were both very cute in their outfits and it was fun playing photographer even if I'm not very good at it. ^^;; The con didn't really have much in terms of photo spots so we really did kinda just re-use the same few locations for anything we took photos of which included the fancy chairs in the lobby, the grass area outside the con, annddd well ok that was pretty much it. XD;
The venue kinda lacked food-wise sadly. The vendors downstairs, we thought weren't too bad at first and it was pretty cheap. But then after eating one of their Cheese Steaks...all kinda agreed we weren't going to have anymore of that. I mean one was ok and I was so hungry I didn't care. But I don't think I could stomach another one. lol
Eventually got into costume. Threw Gil on first. Though turns out most of the Pandora Hearts people were in them on Sat. Oh well. lol Spent most of the con either at the AA table or in the judging room so didn't really spend much time in the larger space downstairs which was technically the main space for the con. But it was mostly just crowded full of kids and the smell of that vendor's bad food. Uhhh...I'm actually kinda drawing a blank on what I did at this point. I think I really did just chill out at the table until it was judging time.
Get to the room a little early as have nothing better to do only to find out we have NO pre-regged entries for the day. We had one but they changed to Saturday. And nobody signed up during the sign-up time but we're like "well...maybe they'll show up once the time starts. I mean some people are probably just now getting here anyways..."
...
We ended up having to go walk around the con and FIND people to try to convince them to enter and send them to our room and then go judge their costumes. lol And the sad thing is that we had a number of them who were all "Oh I'm going to enter tomorrow instead" even though they were already wearing their costume for it. Which I didn't quite get because wouldn't it make more sense to enter when there's less of a wait? Or do people view Saturday as being worth more? I'm not really sure. Either way, Friday we didn't have much to do. But at least we were able to eat without having to rush. Dan brought us all sandwiches from the staff room and I was pretty happy to find out we actually were going to get fed during our working times since both days went right into my normal eating times. And despite the fact we weren't getting many people, we still stayed around til the ending time just in case anyone came in at the end.
After that I changed into Len since Sarah had made her Gacktpo headphones in the room while I was judging. I kinda wish I had been smart enough to bring a black dress shirt and done that variation of Magnet instead though 'cause that's what Sarah was doing and it probably would have looked A LOT better on me as sadly tight fitted shirts just don't work with me and my binding. I end up looking kinda fat. x_x And I know I'm not fat but I look like it in photos. And didn't help the pants I was wearing were kinda tight. So yeeeeaaaah. Not the most flattering. (I need to lose weight too T_T;) Utai ended up taking home my belt at Katsu and I realized that belt really did help make my stomach less noticeable. Pfft. Oh well. Live and learn. But despite this, still got some pretty nice photos with Sarah thanks to Mandi.
This couch got so much love during the weekend. XD Was like the only pretty spot in the hotel.
OCTOPUS. In my crotch. Oh yeah. XD I love Sarah's "WRRRRY" expression here.
And then it was pretty late so we went back to the room, changed, packed stuff up (though it was quite handy being able to just put stuff in the Photosuite due to Steve working there, made the trips to the table a lot easier) and passed out.
Saturday:
Got into Teito and straightened my hair. Which is something I like never do. XD But it looked SO MUCH BETTER straightened for the costume. So whoo! One less wig I have to get. Helped set up Sarah's stuff at the table (since Carrie and CarolAnn were both up bright and early and pretty much already set up by the time we got down there all weekend pfffft) and holy crap was our little hallway bombarded with people! I know it was a Saturday and thus overall increase in attendees at the con but holy crap! Why so many so early in our tiny hallway. XD But at least I pretty much sold out of most of my patches by mid-day as a result. Hell my Bleach ones sold pretty early on Friday and I didn't even think those would do very well since Bleach is kinda old and I was doing the old season 1 Soul Society symbol. So. Go figure. XD Guess I'll do more of those (got the idea in the first place 'cause I had a kid at Neko ask if I had Bleach ones) and more of the Gurren Lagann one as that one came out really good (like a lot of my patches tend to have issues here and there but this one came out perfect) and they're like the easiest to make. I want to do more MGS ones too but my machine doesn't like those as much. Which is a shame as I definitely had a lot of people asking for some so I wish I could have gotten more out beforehand.
Checked in with Dar at the Cosplay room and took a look at our list. Definitely a lot more entries and had people signing up for times this time so it was a bit more organized. At one point I came over to see how Laura was doing as she was signing someone up and well I just looked to Laura and didn't really notice the person signing up. Looked down to see the entries and see Laura writing down "Marissa-" and I'm like "oh I know a Marissa who is coming here, I wonder if that's..." and I look up. "Oh hi Marissa!" XD Deeeeeerp. Go me. Still had some time though so Alex and I wandered, trying to find people to give ribbons to. Besides the actual cosplay contest, we had ribbons to give out to people around the con as kinda a "pat-on-the-back, your costume is good!" type thing. Though we were also using it as a way to kinda try to lure people into entering too. XD Judging started at 12:30 so didn't wander too much before coming back to the room.
So like I said, we had A LOT more entries than Friday so we were kept pretty busy. And we also only had one room for all Cosplay related stuff so the Masquerade judges had to judge their Craftsmanship entries at the same time in the same room. ^^;; So after the first attempt to do both at the same time resulted in it being a little hard to hear, we decided to alternate entries which also gave us a little break here and there. Granted they only had a few entries to judge while we had almost 30. lol Though we only ended up running behind by about 15 minutes which was...really good considering hall contests I've been in that got behind a lot more than that! And at some point we ended up being ahead of ourselves. Not sure how we managed that but near the end, the next entry wasn't for quite a while and we had plenty of time. XD We were even taking in entries early if they were outside the door already. And we didn't even rush anyone. Everyone got enough time to say what they want.
Overall I was rather impressed just because there were mostly beginners and yet they all had actual real effort into the costumes even if this was their very first costume. And damn we all agreed that none of our first costumes looked that good as these entries. Especially as many of them did them without any patterns. And we had a few adorable Youth entries. Including one 12 year old kid who we were all like "...its a Mini Eric!" He actually sewed his costume himself (well with some help but still, I certainly didn't know how to sew at that age!) and just his personality reminded us so much of Eric. It was seriously adorable and I bet that kid is going to go far if he continues.
I didn't really take many photos this con, if you hadn't gotten the jist of that already by the lack of photos in this report. Mostly due to being busy and not really being around where the cosplayers were. But here's a few of costumes that stood out to me (and I was actually able to catch to take photos of XD).
Nyssa in her freaking awesome Medic costume. Her props were really superb and her gun lit up! I just sadly managed to catch a photo when she blinked. Oops. XD
Princess Tutu~ These two were soooo adorable. When we asked them to come closer to us during judging, they actually ran up in full ballet proper style and I was like "aghdighapigdh that was so freaking cute!"
Kusuriuri~ I love whenever I see people cosplay him~ And this was this girl's FIRST costume! Freaking woah!
Marissa as Presea from Magic Knight Rayearth. I always did love that character. ^^ I specifically asked her to pose torturing Mokona for this shot. XD
After judging there really only was enough time to visit the table, go upstairs and change, and then come back down for the Masquerade. lol I changed into Yosuke for it as its more comfortable and a bit better constructed than Teito. I went into the Main Events room with the intention of trying to help out as Dar had asked earlier that if any of us could come by a little earlier than need be to help out, that she'd appreciate it. But she didn't really seem to have anything for me to do so I just sat with Alex until we got our judging table set up. Despite the fact we weren't judging the Masq, they figured it would be easiest to just have us up there with them. Though they put us REALLY close to the stage. Probably didn't need to be quite that close. ^^;; Greg got us pizza from the staff room though Mandi's slice got eaten by CarolAnn when she wasn't looking. Oops. lol As Greg had only just gotten enough for me, Mandi, and Alex really as the others weren't there when he took requests. Poor hungry Mandi remained hungry (note: she was cosplaying Hungary at this time...ahahaha...ha. Yeah ok, bad joke is bad). The Masquerade itself didn't have many entries and we actually had a packed room (lol doubt there was much else going on at the con though) so the MC had to do a lot of the entertaining himself to add in the extra time needed. He did a pretty good job even if his opening bit got a bit too lecture-like and probably could have been shorter. Zenkai isn't a big con and I really felt he should have stuck to his jokes for all of it instead of trying to go the more serious route as I would expect something of that nature more for a bigger con. 'Cause it kinda put an awkward somber atmosphere in the air and it was a little overdramatic for me. But otherwise good. He used a lot of Carrie's hats in between each skit so yay for advertising. XD At one point he introduces all the judges and asked each of us some silly dumb question. Gets to me and asks "So who's your favorite Gladiator?" and I like know NOTHING about wrestling or whatever so I was like "uhhhh what?" XD Pffft. The majority of the Masq really was the Walk-Ons but it was pretty nice seeing the crowd give them so much support as I know at other cons, the Walk-Ons don't get much attention. So was a nice change especially since I know some of them weren't so sure about wanting to be on stage.
The half-time point was spent mostly trying to get donations into the Japan Donation jars so that was a pretty good idea by the con. And the MC kept everyone interested so actually no one really left like they do at most Masquerades at that point. But then again we don't think many of them knew what these events were and just went 'cause it was the only thing to do. lol Then we gave out the awards. Alex and I are wimps and don't like talking in front of an audience so we had CarolAnn do all the actual talking. XD And I gave out the certificates and Alex gave out the trophies and stuff. Though also ended up being there to correct CarolAnn a few times whenever she got a character wrong. lol Though we somehow managed not to write the characters on all the certificates so we get to our honorable mentions and aren't sure which one is which character so we're like "This person for...*looks out in audience til we see her coming to stage* Rei Ayanami! haha of course! ^^;;;". And then I had a bit of a "PANIC!" moment when I realized I was missing about half of the certificates. Like we finished Friday's awards and them I'm like "...wait...where are Saturday's? FUCK! *runs off to get Dar's attention to try to find them*" ^^;;; They had been left on one of the tables, upside down so nobody released what they were. Pffft. I'm not even sure how we forgot them as I thought we had them all when Dar handed them over, all organized and such. But lol I kinda find it amusing that I was like "OH SHIT!" while I was in Yosuke of all things. Kinda...fit the character. XD
After that actually got a little bit of time to wander in Yosuke. Was actually rather surprised by reactions I got. I got hugged...A LOT. And had people spazz out, being all "Oh my god, Yosuke's my favorite and your costume is so good!" so yay! ^^ I love that costume and I really need to wear it more. Everyone was saying the wig looks really good on me and I do love that wig (yay for Scruffy! So sad they stopped selling them T_T). And all the compliments I got, especially from my friends, actually made me really happy because that costume was actually pretty hard despite how simple it might look. Though I'm thinking of redoing the top-stitching again because its starting to fray in places (though a voice in my head is screaming "What the hell is wrong with you?!" considering how long it took me...the first 2 times I did it ^^;;).
I added the glasses last minute. XD As I realized I should try some variation. I want to do either his knives or lol wrenches some time too. XD; Though it would be more fun if I had other people to do P4 with. T_T As I've only ever done it alone. So...anyone? Anyone at all? lol I also want to do his Junes apron at some point.
Annnnnd then I got eaten by Bowser.
End of con report.
... XD j/k
Carrie took a bunch of photos around the con though I still have to wait for Sarah to get the ones on her camera to me. As there are a few she only took on Sarah's camera as she was alternating between the two. Did some rather cute shots.
Annnd then it was time to pack up and I was hungry as that single slice of pizza wasn't enough for dinner so I had some ramen in the room and then we went to Sarah's friend Lee's room though I was fading pretty fast and ended up going back to the room with the intention of taking a shower but never got quite that far, lol. Was just too tired and worried I'd pass out during it. Sarah and Mandi came in and chatted and I tried to chat too but I was like seriously passing out next to them and I still have NO IDEA why I was that tired. XD I mean I spent most of the con just sitting in a room. I wasn't really running around from place to place and changing a million times like normal or anything and yet I felt more tired than I do normally at a con. Go figure. And apparently I'm "hilarious" when I'm tired as Mandi and Sarah kept making fun of me and I'm not even sure what I did or said. XD But yeah passed out pretty hard once I finally made it to the bed.
Sunday:
Got into Teito again since I had arranged to meet up with LostDreamz to do a 07-Ghost shoot as Sunday was really the only day both of us could do it. Mostly just spent Sunday at the AA table. Business was kinda slow which is a little odd for a Sunday just 'cause I know at most cons people usually spend their remaining time buying stuff but I think A LOT of the attendees only came for Saturday as I noticed a good amount of Sat-Only badges. I had pretty much sold almost all my patches already so it didn't matter too much. Actually made A LOT more than I expected money-wise so that was kinda awesome. Made enough to basically make even this con so at least I didn't lose any money attending it.
Met up with LostDreamz in her Mikage costume and took photos outside as it was really the only area nice enough to work with our costumes. Had a lot of fun with her and our photographer as they were both big 07-Ghost fans and that series really doesn't get enough love.
Solo shot of me. Wish my face didn't look so fat but that's an issue I have with my chin. Still need to get better at posing so I don't look like I have a double chin. Pfft.
I thought this shot was really cute. XD
BFF XD
And kinda spoilerish but I love this shot. I was kinda confused what she was doing during the time. Since she was giving directions at the bottom of the stairs and I could barely hear her, just "Stay absolutely still!" and telling Mikage to run out of the shot and I was like "why do I need to stay here still?" but saw the photo later and was like "ohhhh". lol As I'm assuming she layered the two shots together.
After that, hung out for a little bit more but eventually we were getting hungry and realized we should get on the road so Mandi and I said our goodbyes and headed out. We both agreed that we really wanted Panera Bread so had the GPS guide us to one where I tried their Mac & Cheese for the very first time (I never knew they had it! lol) and omg it was just as good as everyone was telling me. XD Ride home was fine though we did get a little confused and taken off track because when we tried to put in Columbia Mall, it was taking us to Columbia Mall...PA. When we wanted the MD one. Pfffft. We were like "wait....why did it add 3 hours on to the trip and why is it trying to make us backtrack?" XD; But we got it corrected eventually and got to the correct mall where I said goodbye to Mandi and then had delicious Uno's Pizza. XD
Photos (though I only took 14 total lol) are here: http://lyn.houjun.com/zenkai11.html
~Lyn
