Monday, April 19, 2010

Sakura Festival: 2010

This time I did get sleep! OMG right!? But despite getting sleep I was still worn out by the end of the evening. Woke up around 7am to meet up with a group of cosplayers at 9am. Arrived after our (Jon and I’s) roommate (Rhett) dropped us off, thanks again Rhett. Met up with ININ and Elite Slayer, talked a little met up with a few other cosplayers and headed to Civic Center after eating breakfast at May’s Coffee.

On the way to the Civic Center I nearly had a wardrobe malfunction and I got catcalls from women and men both. ._. Kinda disturbing really. But anyway we arrived at the Civic Center with Blizzard Terrak and immediately we got stopped by people to take pics of us. Kei was the first actually and asked me to do a rather awesome pose. Thanks for being patient with me I was kind of derpy, Kei. ^^ Then a group of photographers came up and I was standing in said position 5-10 mins and my poor knee wanted to give out by that point.

Met up with Gloria (Cosplaying Matagari) and hung out with her and her friends. Saw Hanyaan and EBK, took some more photos, wandered around taking photos and getting photos taken which is why I only had near 60 pics. Met up with a neat Miku and Kaito… Saw Natalie and Maria, and Jason and San (I keep forgetting your name my apologies), and Celina, Julie and Mel had creepers come up to me and well yeah. Most of the time I hung out with people taking photos with them.

Lots of pics were taken and soon we went to the parade, by this point my poor blisters had blisters. Walked the route, heard people shout out for BLACK ROCK SHOOTER!! Which was awesome, and then a guy walked up and started playing our theme song, it was awesome. After the parade we went to eat with Blizzard and Jorge and Gloria and her friends.

Lunch took forever to get but hey it was busy. Then we walked around a bit, I met up with Jessica and we had a photoshoot, Ben and Michael met up with us there too. It was a lot of fun… And after a while we parted ways with Ben and the rest of us headed to the BART… Where a drunk woman came up to Michael and was like “IS DAT SWORD REAL!? *Grab!*” Poor Michael was very surprised. Then the woman came to me and was all “IS DAT YO REAL HAIR!?” I was like “Uh… No… *hobbles toward BART in her stillettos trying to evade crazy woman*”

We parted ways with Gloria and rode home on BART with Blizzard and had Rhett pick us up. Overall it was a wonderful time despite my exhaustion.

Pros: +Met awesome people
+Hung out with friends
+Amazing experience
+Had fans as BRS
+Parade was fun

Cons: -Creepers
-Catcalls
-Weirdos
-Heat
-Exhaustion
-Blisters

Overall & Stars:***** Just a wonderful time I will be going again.

Also: SHOUT OUTS TO EVERYONE I DID NOT MENTION!
*Also; sorry for disrupting you BartBoy- I hadn’t realized you were judging at the time. >< I feel really bad about that.
Images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/49034562@N04/sets/72157623769301777/

Monday, April 5, 2010

Wonder-Con 2010

Friday: I did get some sleep before the con this time however it still wasn't enough sleep as I was exhausted even when I got up. Sunday was worse. Never the less, I did not attend Friday as Jon had work and I had to finish up costumes before Saturday. My roommate originally was going to go three days but he didn't want to, instead he gave me his badge for Sunday and said to make use of it... So why would I argue? Haha. Anyway...
Saturday: Saturday rolled around 6:30am and I was up, tired, but getting ready despite the cold weather I was fully aware I was involving myself with. Jon and I both got to the convention center, waited in the line for saturday which was crazy... But since we had preregged we did not have to wait hours on end to get into the show. We still had to wait a little but we got through rather easy... However the task to get through the ginormous Dealers Hall/Artist Alley was crazy!!

It took us nearly four hours to get through the DH/AA the first time. However this was not because I was trying to shop, nor was it because I wanted to look at everything, it was actually a mix of these PLUS the fact that my costume was very popular. I cosplayed Leeloo Dallas in the thermal-bandages!Version. I would literally stop at a booth to look, but have to turn away as someone asked for a photo, hand over my things to Jon, take the photo, get my stuff back, turn back to the booth and then take two steps and again stopped for another time. It was overwhelming. I know I had to have over 100 photos taken of me that day, I don't know the exact number but I know it was over that.

I had a few little issues; a group of guys came up and were like "Pants are on aisle 5!" with big dorky grins, trying to flirt. And then another time I was walking through the DH some idiot grinned and waved and flashed his camera right in my face causing me to barely see anything. I wanted to kick his ass but whatever, I couldn't stop and chew his ear off.

While in the DH/AA we caught up with Kris and Jorge and we finished up what we could in the DH/AA and decided to shop on Sunday. We then saw Steff and Becca cosplaying from Metalocalypse and they danced on stage of the "Just Dance" as "the bird is the word" it was hillarious. We also got to meet up with Vanessa and CherryTeaGirl who were cosplaying from DigiChara and who too, danced on the game for the Spice Girls. It was funny as all hell. We then parted ways a bit and caught back up and asked if Vanessa and her friends wanted to go to lunch. We spent quite a bit of time trying to find food... But we finally found it at this hole in the wall deli...

Funny thing is after our group of 7 they ran out of sandwiches but I did have a great pastrami sandwich! After we had lunch we all hung out a little and again parted ways, I had my photoshoot with Kris inside the convention because I didn't want to just wear my Leeloo outfit outside with kids around. (There were a lot of kids outside at the Metreon, I didn't think the parents would appreciate it). With that being said, we ended up parting ways with Kris, walked around the con a bit and went home at 7pm.

We got quite a bit of swag that day and I bougt a tribble, which oh! Reminds me...

When we headed back to the con, there were two amazing Klingon cosplayers who I got my photo with. >3 Including the tribbles, one started screaming in Klingon the other was like "awwww I can translate for it".

Sunday: Forcing myself out of bed on Sunday was amazingly difficult. I cosplayed Reno (Before Crisis) from FF7 and Jon cosplayed Turk!Vincent. We chose to do these because we realized any comic or movie cosplay was going to be troublesome to cosplay there. So we actually got shopping done. However when we were on the bus I realized I forgot my camera... So we stopped and got a disposable. Luckily there weren't a lot of cosplayers on Sunday. Also what was lucky for us was the fact that Jon got his Sunday badge very quickly.

Afterwards we headed into the DH/AA. I got two volumes of Mouse Guard, hardback, a tribble shirt and a squid plushie which I carried around the entire con pretty much. we met up with Gloria and her friend, suggested food and said I wanted to look at the rest of the DH/AA. Which I did, I met up with Bunnywarez which I didn't get to visit as Leeloo, and drew their first bunny for the day on their large sheet of paper. It was awesome. Afterwards we left the DH/AA to get food, contacted Gloria but ran into Celina and Julie who were cosplaying Amy and Yun Sung from SC4, we decided to wait for Gloria so we could get food, meanwile I spoke a little with a really awesome Batman. Once Gloria and her friend caught up we went to Mel's diner with our party of 9.

We then split up again from Julie and Celina and their friend Donna who was cosplaying a Lugia Giginka. Finished our meal, I had an amazing cheesecake and chicken tenders and fries. And GLORIOUS coca-cola since I have gone 40 days without soda. We then headed back to the con, it was raining and it sucked. But we got there without too much problem. Went back to the DH/AA and went to a raffle at the Squib booth, where I got my squid. I won a postcard pack which is really awesome, then we went to the Final Fantasy booth type thing where Jon knew an ex-coworker and he won the Grand Prize! A white-mage chocobo plush. It's so cute. XD

Afterwards we pretty much just hung out and wandered around with Celina and Julie. Though while we were sitting down near the balcony type thing a group of high-on-sugar teenagers came up to take pics of Donna's costume but turned to Jon and was like "Wow you look really asian!" He was like 'o_o uh... That's because I am..." Everyone laughed and we enjoyed the rest of the hour we had and soon parted ways. On the way back home, we had forgotten our umbrellas, and got soaking wet, I hope I didn't get sick >< but yeah... It was not fun going home. Then walgreen's photo place was under mantience so now I have to go pick up the image cd when Jon gets home.

Overall it was a wonderful time.

Pros: +Very mature convention, no squealing fangirls.
+Wonderful security! They even complemented me on my costume several times.
+DH/AA had wonderful guests, wish I could have gotten Kacee's autograph from Chuck.
+Registration was very easy.
+Had fun taking photos.
+Met a bunch of awesome people and ung out with friends.
+Awesome photoshoot with Kris.
+Klingons
+Mel's Diner
+So many other things I won't lengthen te list with.

Cons: -Couldn't do shopping at all on Saturday but that was alright. 4 1/2hrs to get through DH/AA
-Kind of wish that the DH/AA was split up it was very hard to get through.
-Some idiot flashed me with his camera.
-Some idiot fanboys flirting with pants joke, but I admit it was pretty funny.
-Didn't get Kacee's autograph from Chuck.
-Missed Millia Jovich she was at an RE panel. ;_;
-Some other things I'm sure but I can't think of them right off.

Overall: Awesome con, I will be returning next year. I just hope to have certain costumes done by then.

*****Stars: Surprising right!? AOD had 5 stars, and now Wondercon. But Wondercon isn't your typical convention either.

Photos will be up shortly.

Welcome!

Welcome to Foxberry's Con Report! Feel free to leave a little note or comment on any of my blogs. I will be reporting from local area Japanese Anime Conventions and various other events, so be sure to check in usually the day after an event!