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30th August , 2008
01:13 am - AmeCon 2008 - Saturday
Saturday
Disjointed start since most of the morning is up in the wangsty bit, but generally involved me slumming it without cosplaying, and queueing for the bring'n'buy. Chatted randomly with queue neighbours and passed the photo tablet around a bit - especially since I spotted one of the Sailor Moon group so she could at least see how the shoot went.. Discovered a Tom manning the doors, doing his gopher duties dutifully! Sadly it was a pretty big let-down, which you can't really blame on anyone other than saying "hey everyone! sell more cool stuff!". I picked up a tiny funny-eyed Phoenix Wright figurine to match my funny-eyed Maya and wandered off again.
Camera mine once more (and clasped securely to my wrist for the rest of the day..), I celebrated by getting a photo of the Viral cosplayer hanging by the lift. Plushie hatchet <3
The weather on Saturday was miserable for most of the day.. While Friday started out crap but cleared up and turned lovely, Saturday remained steadfastly dreary. Not enough to really need umbrellas to get from A to B, but enough to spoil a lot of photoshoots and make the lighting generally crap.
Kel-chan as Bounty Hunter Yoko from TTGL
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) taruto_chan as.. Taruto! Previous cohort to AMV tomfoolery, who certainly looked a lot less stressed this year XD although also a lot more windswept :P
Siblings of winningness, I should've gotten better shots with them but these didn't turn out too bad.
Noise strikes again as I locate a Natsumi, Kamiko and unidentified friend as Flonne, Etna and Laharl from Disgaea. Barely played the game myself but spent a lot of time watching Ian and Ruth play it, 'tis very good.
Kate as Link, almost snuck past me but not quite! Ha! :P
Some Ame-chan action.
Absolutely no idea whatsoever, but looked pretty and surprisingly formal, pre-ball.
DarkerLink as Malon from Zelda
Yoko and EmoSimon
Um... 'kay.
Some Nurse Witch Komugi-chan
Hee. Yoko vs Viral. So wish I'd taken this on a nicer background.
Mini TTGL group
Unaspi as Horo
The World Ends With You cosplay, I love this shot - especially since you can see the clock on his hand \o/ Nice attention to detail.
Double trouble. Twin Lusts from FMA
Allan reveals his own original character. Anyone remember the abysmal Captain N cartoon? One giant animated Nintendo advert, NES pad belt buckle, jacket with the NES colour scheme, the NES Zapper as a gun, etc.. All clean-shaven and sparkly clean? Al presents to you.. CAPTAIN S! Yes, those are indeed the Master System 3D goggles, they break your eyes.
All it needed was a talking Game Gear following him around..
A Rob Luuchi
Little Mi outdoes the Ryoko hair once more XD
Rockin' in the hallway
Lamiroir :O ...with a Blue Badger for some reason. From Apollo Justice
Double Phoenix, Young and Old
The HolyCrapHuge Ixion - that's a two person costume right there. Three if you could the one who had to hold the horn up XD
Green Onion Guy from Gantz - this looked spectacular, and he really could stay in character it was quite creepy. Met the guy later as he was sitting behind me in the Omake, seemed pretty cool and was really surprised how well the photos of it came out.
Jess as Perona, Ghost Princess from One Piece, really really wish I'd gotten better shots of this. She pulls it off spectacularly.
Another Lucchi! Avec pigeon.
Spotted a lone Angela in the guise of Anemone, the only-slightly-completely-unhinged mecha pilot from Eureka 7, who wasn't too plussed about being in such a pretty summery outfit with the weather so rubbish, I had to drag her inside to at least get some quick photos before she changed back out - which led to her bumping into Anemone's dub voice actress Kari Wahlgren so good thing I did :P Turns out she's the first Anemone cosplayer Kari had met and she got me to take a photo on her camera of the both of them \o/ She was really nice as it turns out, didn't seem at all awkward chatting with us, even asked my name when I'm just a random bystander o.O
Nabbed some photos by the pretty mirrored wall part, which gave some expected but still annoying reflections. I took great delight in noticing she'd even gotten the injector plug in there XD
My lame attempt at a dual-personality mirror shot. Hello noise! And my torso in the reflection. Bleh. I may toy with the idea again with better mirrors, or better lighting.
Probably the best shot nyah.
Andrew joined us and pinned Angela to the wall for a bit longer before she escaped.
Clannad cosplay \o/ With dango.
Jake as Seymour, in severe need of a manicure.
Some oldschool Slayers Zelgadis action
A Trucy. Which reminds me, somewhere, SOMEWHERE at a distance I spotted a Trucy with a Mr. Hat T_T I MISSED IT
Becca and Kezz cosplaying from Damekko Dobutsu
Mike and Amber doing the Ninja Scroll thing. I totally needed some outdoor shots of this by the rock pile T_T
Around now I realise how much of the cosplay contest I'd been missing! I totally forgot I was going to sneak in and grab photos. The layout was different to last year so I was a little confused as it looked like there was almost no-one left.. I wandered past a very elaborate Trinity Blood costumer while hunting around, who waved at me.
Hrm?
*peer*
*blink*
Dammit, she's done it again. I once more failed to recognise a Lex without closer inspection T_T Looking absolutely stunning, if somewhat imposing and totally-not-a-nazi. With twin-drills of ultimate doom. In hindsight I should've asked her to take off the ame badge because otherwise I'm quite happy with how these came out, for mere indoor shots o.o Only later I find out this same window was Andrew's secret photoshoot spot XD
Further inspection found me locating a whole room of yet unjudged cosplayers, so I thieved some quick photos.
Some Samurai Warriors - still could've been better taken but came out a lot better than the distant spacky shots I got of them at expo ;)
Gunstarvixen in her winning costume of LeBlanc and a Rydia
Noise strikes again, spoiling an otherwise gorgeous shot of Olivia's dress o' doom.
Uni's Starboobs Yoko returns, with some odd shadows. There were some nifty mini spotlights in the corners of the room that could at times work really well for my camera, other times not so much.
James and Leena as Cervantes and Seung Mina
I've long said anyone cosplaying Mina gets my unconditional love and respect - Leena's version certainly earns it, be grateful you were busy and it wasn't sunny enough to drag you off for an action photoshoot XD Actually with all of the SC group that would've been amazing.. Damn.
Eeevil, the detail on Soul Edge was really creepy. This shot looked incredible on the LCD screen, less so on a normal screen. I did my best but.. well.. doh. I basically upped the ISO, turned flash off and aimed so the sword caught one of the spotlights. Nice idea, but ISO was too high.
Slightly off focus but the back looked *swish*
Greyskull8's Haseo, which won best prop, I to this day am kicking myself for missing that stunning shot at expo, but got some nice ones here. I tried the same trick as with James sword to catch the LEDs with only slightly less disastrous effect.
Portal love.
Jet Set Radio! Now there's something you don't see anymore. I felt bad about asking for the photo and having her spend 10 minutes putting the skates back on :/
It's nearing panel time, so off back out I go!
Panels
So this year I ended up running not one but two panels, what the hell? Amusingly, or not, they ended up right next to each other in the middle of the day.. Cue me running around plenty like a loon.
First up, 'Failed Experiments in Cosplay', which got advertised and listed on the timetable as 'Prop Tech'. Figures. Needless to say this meant people who did turn up were probably looking for something different, and anyone interested in my crap wouldn't have known to be there ;) Not that there was any sort of description listed so I'm amazed anyone turned up at all.
Bundled into the workshop room to find everyone already in and seated o.o; First thing to note was lack of projector or any real way to show slides -- smooth. I made do with just waving the tablet around through photos.
I pretty much rambled incoherently for an hour straight, everyone's sanity was only saved by Phil coming to my (and their) rescue by offering actual experiences and much more professional-sounding advice XD -- I have to offer many, many thanks for the support there, without that it would've been a pretty big mess.
If I'd thought a little more about it at the time I'd have done things in reverse order, since the stuff I left 'til last was the stuff closest to being usable for 'prop tech' so would've at least been partially useful ;)
I really haven't got a clue how well it actually went - only a few questions were asked (although some were, so that's a good start), only a few people walked out, and there were a lot of blank stares ;p Still, several familiar faces were in the audience, despite the fact they already put up with the very same ramblings on here already ;) Muchly appreciated.
I basically went over the details of my headcast/latex mask tutorial that're already on CosplayIsland, threw about my masks and my spooky cast arm, talked a bit about the DANGERS and HAZARDS and POSSIBLE DEATH of everything I seem to do, and then moved into working with foam, from the funky variety, to camping mat, to foamboard, to thicker stuff, to the expanding foam I've been experimenting with.. Sadly the giant spongey drill never made it out of Allan's car so I didn't get to show that off T_T
The bits people definitely perked up to were Phil's discussion of Annette's Tira's weapon, as well as the revelation I gave that the model campus in the foyer was foamboard, I saw people checking that out later! and the point where I waved around a photo of a really detailed macro shot of some masking tape on my headcast. Pointing out that it wasn't actually tape, it was the plaster cast that picked up the detail of the tape so well it looks real XD
There were, of course, plenty of bits and pieces I missed out that I meant to mention but that happens when I ramble :p
Hour ticked over and I had approximately no minutes to drink something (agh.. throat) and charge over to VR1 halfway across the campus for the AMV panel. Mountain Dew saved me once more.
I tried (and failed) to quietly bundle myself down the stairs and behind the desk at the front while Fridge and Sadie were talking. The guy at the door said "you're late!", which was entirely true but I'm just shocked they recognised me o.O
The how-to video they'd put together this year was great, nicely organised, very clear, had little walkthrough clips actually going through the steps and everything, by the time it was over I was kind of "hrm.. well.. you covered most of it right there" XD I heckled once I got my breath back, which I wasn't too sure I should do, but apparently it was a welcome addition from what Al tells me.
After last year - wherein Luche, Sadie and Taruto covered the various techy ways of sorting footage out and ripping DVDs and such, I handled the airy fairy art-of-amv type stuff, lots of me rambling, some silly slides, some do/don'ts, lots of just.. artsy hot-air stuff like understanding your audience and keeping moods and.. you get the idea. The main feedback we got was "show us some bloody editing!" XD
So this year I did just that. I put MSP on my tablet (Oh, it wasn't happy about that. Not one bit.) and dug out the only video I could fit the entire source on one tablet for -- The Narutrix :p Fitting in that it premiered at the first AmeCon but dammit my reputation is already forever cursed by that thing ;)
I pulled it up on screen, to which the general reaction was "What the HELL editor is that?" ah, I was waiting for that. I proceeded to lay into it something chronic. I love MSP, it's been with me for years, but it sucks. Every editing suite sucks. I demonstrated this by trying to use it XD On a poor, unhappy underpowered tablet. It actually held up, didn't crash or anything, just stuttered and refused to preview something quite correctly which was enough to get the laughs but not enough to interrupt me talking. I stepped through the basics of A-B timelines and overlays, showed off some of the dialogs and my (old) methods of subclipping and timing, which is amusing in itself as I have a really daft naming scheme that changes the more bored I get subclipping, and then as I packaged all the used clips up together out of the whole pile, MSP converted some of the filenames to uppercase, randomly. So I literally just had to switch to explorer to get a screen full of SASUKE TURNS LOOKS LEFT LOOKS AT WALL! and BIG SHURIKENY THING SCENE ACTION BUDGET USEFUL blah blah blah. I was reading out filenames and people were laughing. Admittedly filenames I wrote while braindead on boredom and caffeine.
At any rate, I stepped through the layers and filters on the Ebisu matrix rain scene which is the only thing resembling an effect in the whole video and it's kinda good for this, looks techy and complex, but it was actually me playing around with filters and wipes randomly. Talked through basic lipsync, things to avoid, and how AMV editing will ruin animation for you XD I figure because I only had a 15 min slot to fill, and actually had more subject matter than time, my line of delivery didn't get old before I finished, unlike possibly the cosplay workshop ;) so I escaped victoriously having gotten quite a few laughs and hopefully didn't annoy the masses who were pouring in to catch the AMV showcase we were starting to overrun into :P
Panels over, I get back on with my other job.
Post-Panels, Pre-Masq Saturday
Some No More Heroes
Red Link
Tira vs Seung Mina - see! a proper photoshoot would've been amazing :O
Annette's Tira still stuns, although no photo I could pull out would match the sinister shilouhette one Andrew got :O
Met up with Andrew and two strange uniformed ballet dancers of some sort.
The briefing was handled smooooothly this year, last was a little jam-packed and hard to hear, this time even sitting at the back we heard it all, and there was a projected map with marks on and everything! Still similar layout to last year, minus the photographer bottleneck.
The elements bar is definitely looking better this year - caught a lovely shot of Efia and Sjbonnar as Angel Sanctuary peoples up on the raised bit.
Located the curiously forum-titled Gurren La-girl, and was rather impressed. After the hassle I went through failing to make my costume I felt somewhat put to shame XD It's almost entirely made of camping mat and pipe insulators which impressed me all the more as it looks really clean-cut.
Haruhi as Talim from SC.. I always feel bad I never do her justice in photos T_T
Natsumi and Kamiko in their Masq outfits, to which I ran up and went "wow, what're these from?" only for Eli to run up and point out they were the costumes she's wanted to do for ages and was in fact talking about not thirty seconds ago XD Space background unintentional.
I had to stay behind to figure out where on earth I was supposed to be. Chatted with KevPack who was also waiting, never really got to meet the guy before. We scoped out the spots they'd marked along the runway for us -- one was at the end of the stage for the video camera, two in the Oasis room, and one up in the Hall. One of the Oasis ones was in near total darkness as no lights pointed that way, and the hall is in that "everyone's exhausted by this point" area.. Unideal.. Wandered back to the stage and figured if one of the big spotlights could be angled so it front-lit the X, I'd be happy camping out there and taking my chances, good lighting = no need flash = yaaay. I staked my claim and helped sort out the lighting.
Dez, looking mighty shiny. Saint Seiya costumes will never get old. What amazed me was the way the entire room changed lighting as he turned around from sheer reflections.
TTGL Group with a Viral, Nia and Kamina
FF group! I didn't miss them! With left to right: Jake, Bunni (?), Karen, Kaka Extreme, Sands and Lex.
Karen's Kimarhi, totally thieving first place for the contest, does some stabbing, stands at ease, gets a closeup, does some drama, gets himself a pretty Yuna, gets bored of her and gets another one, aand they're just lining up now..
I really like this shot. If only I hadn't quite cut Lex's staff's tip and Karen's wingtips off and maybe if it was with a nicer background it'd have looked really.. meaningful and stuff. It looks much more like a proper serious artwork pose than a for-camera pose.
Leblanc and Seymour, lots of open-chestedness. This would've looked better if the wet brickwork didn't make it look like they were standing in a dark alley.
Sands's quite terrifying Anima. I don't even know what it's supposed to look like, and I don't want to know o.o;
More FFery, with Shazz, Miiol and 1000014 joining the crowd
Ahiru and Lilie, as the immortal words "let's try to get some pictures of ballet poses" ended up in inevitable spack. Much twirling was involved. Some nice shots came out of it though ;)
Fear the angled camera.
Yoink!
I SAID YOINK!
Some TF2 madness
Shinigami from Soul Eater
Tessa from FMP
Masquerade
Masquerade time! I did my usual trick of sneaking into the holding pen and stealing photos before the panic begins.
Also gaining unconditional love/adoration/etc this year is Caz, as Seung Mina <3
Lozzie as Setsuka
Mike's Tessai
I'll never tire of this shot. Dramatic lighting 'r' us.
I really liked this pose from Tom's Timeskip TTGL Simon, just wish it'd come out better.
Aria cosplay :O There's a rarity. Turned out Taruto had a trio of them, I only caught two though T_T
A mysterious dark figure ventured through the entry doors, I didn't want to get in his way anytime soon so stepped aside, the dark face turned my way, eyes red beneath the willowed white hair...
"Hey"
...
o.o
'twas a Redkun in his zomgsekrit costume! Orpheus from Persona 3 If he hadn't spoken I'd have never guessed, having not played the Persona games myself (though I do want to), that's one eerie costume.
I directed him back towards those of the Scottish persuasion, to discover Eli with her head under Olivia's train. I took a photo, as is obligatory, and it came out badly on the LCD, bleh. I then heard this "Oi, I saw a camera flash..." and Eli's head peaked out just in time for a much more appropriately confusing shot. Well done XD
Actual Masq time.
Not much to say other than it's a mini powertrip walking around as a gopher/photographer through the closed doors no one else may enter XD although usual communications meant I nearly got thrown out of my spot by no less than three gophers who didn't believe I was a photographer T_T and despite our earlier light test and planning, as soon as people walked on stage the lights pointing at the X were dimmed up and down and coloured spotlights were thrown around and it was an absolute nightmare trying to keep up -- especially since my camera can't focus properly without someone already standing on the X to prepare for.. when people stand on the X -_-
As a result a lot of the photos are kinda bleh. Not happy with them. I might've been better off in the Oasis, it had no lighting at all but that might've been better XD Unlikely, mind.
The Masq photos are just now available at nyah, I'll throw mine in my gallery later now they've been released. I was kinda down I didn't do so good, kinda like I wasted such a good chance that was given to me, but having now looked at the others in the set, it clearly wasn't just me having troubles. That's something of a relief though I feel bad for those in the masquerade coming away without any decent official shots..
Noteable events were Ixion having to totally skip the stage and come on a side exit, and Ailsa's Sora charging straight off the stage right into me XD
Post-Masquerade Saturday
Big problem with masquerades is you get that one tiny chance to snap photos when they're on stage, and that's it. Before and after they're penned in somewhere, and when it's over all any cosplayer wants to do is ditch the costume T_T In Kat and Amy's case they weren't even on stage but were still likely to abandon outfit at the soonest opportunity :P So two burlap sacks and a few flights of stairs later I nabbed some interesting shots up on the mezzanine floor.. Again reflections and the bright lights behind the glass gave me a lot of hassle, so the only decent shots were cutoffs, but this was pretty enough without fancy camerawork :P Note subliminal coke advertising.
The lights behaved much more for Amy, not sure how that works. My flash didn't, however.
AAH IT'S TOO CUTE KILL IT! Ailsa as Pridelands Sora
Stop! Hammertime?
The doodleboard.
A very elaborate Adine from TTGL
More Portal love
Kamiko, Natsumi, Sarmander and one unknown as Robin, Nami, Luffy and Ace from One Piece. My fandoms overlap with theirs far too much.
The parties had only part-started and the Mirage concourse was pretty empty and full of nice seats. It'd previously been ordained that I was to supply the forbidden liquid once more, and lo, I did. I believe Annette's response was "What have you done?" XD There was certainly a lot of blur after that.
I had glowsticks again this year, but didn't distribute en-masse again now I know they're actually being sold :S
Phil looking smooth, and Annette making Tira's hair look very fashionable
Ohmigawd
I can't say I was even remotely expecting the outfits Kat and Amy pulled out for the parties o.O
I always seem to catch Amy blinking T_T
Kat all dressed for the ball. Possibly.
Before long the noise level picked up, and everyone opted to find somewhere quieter to crash. The bar upstairs was open this year, although as it turns out it was full of pub quiz. Still. One big table was free though and it was certainly less noisy so we filed in. With the bar so packed of quizzees there were exactly two less chairs than we needed for everyone.. Oz managed to perch by an empty patch of table.. the only spot left to stand was in the way of the screen so after getting glared at a lot there wasn't much option but to wander off and come back when there was more space.
Here's where I ran into my issues with the cages of doom. Nowhere quiet to hang out, no easy way of getting any fresh air, and what places there were to be were so packed I couldn't actually get in :P
So Saturday evening was spent doing not a whole lot.. I caught Leah and Karen chilling in one of the spare rooms next to the changing rooms and hung out with them for a while before we got caught by the video guy from the US who was reporting on the convention and seemed to have a pretty good idea who I was o.O
Other than that.. aimless wandering around, crashed back on one of the sofas in the Mirage concourse and put up with the noise while going through some photos on the tablet.. Occasionally wandered up to the upstairs bar but it was still jam-packed.. By the time I checked and it *was* spacious enough to get in, I sat down and everyone got up and left T_T Saturday does wipe people out.
Random papers scattered across the desk revealed.. some doodles. And some fine art. I clearly missed much intellectual debate ;)
More aimless wandering. Then gave up and went back to the room. and bed. Tried to stay up to work on the sekritness. Failed miserably!
At this point I should note: food eaten today: zilch.
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Comments:
Awww that you for the <3 I have to admit I loved cosplaying as Seung Mina, one of the most fun costumes ever!
That reaction to my Orpheus costume just made my night. :D
I just wish that I had pinned parts of my costume better, I'm not fond of the fact that bits of my skin were exposed. It kind of takes away from the overall impact of the costume, in my opinion. :/
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/83645775/676258) | | From: | nert |
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| Date: | 2nd September, 2008 09:21 pm (UTC) |
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I'm too busy noticing how ominous it looks :P
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/73535895/1582235) | | From: | tom_kun |
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| Date: | 30th August, 2008 03:42 am (UTC) |
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I may well give Simon a rewear at October Expo, so we can have another go at that pose if you want.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/66730225/676258) | | From: | nert |
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| Date: | 2nd September, 2008 09:22 pm (UTC) |
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Hurrah!
Expo might work pretty well with the more industrial scenery actually..
“absolutely no idea whatsoever” - I think I can identify half of this, the girl with the awesome wig is very likely to be Ame-warashi from XXXHolic. Possible the other cosplayer is someone from the same series.
Fun fact, she seems to have used the same type of wig as I have for my Lilie costume. Someone else had it in red, I had lots of fun finding my wig twins :P
Your panel was very entertaining - I think you do yourself a discredit, because you’re a good speaker and made it amusing, rather than just boring factual.
Also: Yay for Mountain Dew!
Indeed, I would assume that the fellow accompanying her was cosplaying Doumeki.
AND NO YAY FOR MOUNTAIN DEW.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/76935374/676258) | | From: | nert |
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| Date: | 2nd September, 2008 09:43 pm (UTC) |
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Aw..
Just a little yay?
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/19711660/676258) | | From: | nert |
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| Date: | 2nd September, 2008 09:33 pm (UTC) |
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Aha, thankies
Queen of wigs ;) It still never fails to scare me how natural yours always look :P
Thanks, that's really good to hear -- I just wasn't sure how well that style goes down - not that I know how to present things any different ;) Coupled with not really knowing if people there actually meant to be there with all the panel mixups.. eh.. ;)
You're lucky I got them past the security guards, I don't think they would've been happy if they noticed I was sneaking in suspicious cans of drink ;)
Aww thanks for the compliments Nert! *blushes* it's nice to know my hard work paid off =^_^=
It would have been amazing to get a shot of all of the SCers together, but it seems you got some good photos of everyone so that's cool =^_^=
I like the one you got of Soul Edge - clever flash!
The weapon shall now be renamed Colgate Sword! *ting!*
| | From: | nert |
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| Date: | 2nd September, 2008 09:45 pm (UTC) |
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You chose costume well ;) I've been waiting *years* for someone to cosplay her and suddenly there's three in one year..
Except the Ivys anyway.. :/ and some fighty shots would've been stunning ;)
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