otakon 2012

I’m back from otakon! I’m pretty content with it since I didn’t run into horrendous trouble. My trip was fine in spite of the thunderstorms, I didn’t starve thanks to my friends, I met a lot of people and actually got to talk to them this time around, and I sold well and didn’t have to haul monstrous amounts of items home. Every day since the day before I left I was worried about something for the next day; I usually don’t worry much but mannnn was there a lot to think about that’s totally out of my control ): as usual I went in thinking to myself oh my god I’d never want to do this ever again, and came out thinking it was all worth it, THE DILEMMA

Wednesday to Thursday there was this enormous storm moving through the area, from Toronto through my drive to Buffalo where I fly out. Though it ended up just being light drizzles and completely cleared up by the time we got into the air, Baltimore ended up being DISGUSTINGLY HOT holy crap it was like 105 and I felt like I was drowning in my own sweat and then enveloped in a ball of flames… It didn’t help that I was pulling a 50 lb suitcase and a heavy backpack  about 3 blocks out from the light rail stop I had gotten off at. I almost fell out of the airport shuttle when I was getting those suitcases up LOL… AND THE DRIVER LAUGHED AT ME BECAUSE I WAS LIKE HNGGGGGG >n< while trying to pull my shit up. Everyone showed up late so I just chilled in the hotel for like 6 hours with a king’s suite all to myself, it was pretty sweet!!

Somehow I actually managed to have a memorable time with people this year at otakon–not to say other cons were bad, it’s just that I normally rarely ever remember my interaction with other people there…… I just don’t pay very much attention to people in general, but not this time! lengthy shoutouts to people who I haven’t seen since at least last year: Bara, Juby, JC, Nainsoo, Andrew, Finni, Korilin, Sharon, Nargyle, Will, Noa, Zim, Emily, Ellen, Crystal, Christine, Steve, Frozenlilacs, and Christina!! I hope I didn’t miss anyone because there were a ton of people ;-; My island was also somehow entirely Canadian, and while I don’t quite remember the names and URLs of a lot of the people who came by or who I chatted with, it was really nice meeting them too! I should have known them since apparently they all go to AN as well, but I guess I never get to walk around or do anything at AN, I didn’t really know anyone ): I have this huge problem with meeting these people IRL, because I also never remember to ask for people’s names or websites either. Half the time if I did learn their names, it would take me a couple of years to finally figure out like OH, SHE IS THAT PERSON ONLINE… and just be completely in the blank before that revelation. So everyone I met in our Canadian island fell into that category HAHAHA… I didn’t learn of anybody’s names even though I talked to them multiple times over the weekend q___q I also ran into Tom who I will be doing some commissions with, which was really cool because he lives all the way in the UK and I had no idea he’d be here LOL. Sharon and her friend Tyler helped take care of a lot of us at the AA so for once, we didn’t starve, we got to have breaks, and it wasn’t an overly exhausting weekend even though we slept late and got up early everyday. There was also a hysterical drunk show at our hotel on Saturday night which was comedy gold to me since none of my friends irl are the drinking/clubbing type. If there was an artist alley away from home utopia, I think this weekend would have been it.

I managed to sell out of most of my popular prints and all of the books I brought (which was not that much since I’m so pathetically weak, it was impossible for me to bring any more) so I went and bought some stuff!! Mainly a ton of stuff from Bara since I forgot to do that last year, and an expensive artbook of some game that I don’t know but apparently a lot of my friends do LOL;;; Did a book trade with Mayshing whose original 2masters book from like freaking otakon 2007 I already had. Em was so nice to stuff me with Teahouse goods that I also didn’t have a chance to get last year INCLUDING THIS ENORMOUS LINNEUS HERE that I just may make into a lifesize cardboard cutout for hilarity, and I did a print trade with Nargyle ;-; I really wanted some prints from juby but I grossly miscalculated my takedown and transportation time. I just ran out of the convention center right after I packed up while everyone else is still going around talking to friends, so I ended up with absolutely no time at all to ask for prints from her even though SHE SAT RIGHT ACROSS FROM ME THE WHOLE WEEKEND LMFAO FML ]: And I got some sickly cute sheep itamz from finni INCLUDING THIS SHEEP FROM JAPAN THAT’S REALLY JUST A BALL OF FLUFF HAHA. ANDDD I GOT TWO ORIGINAL CHIBI VELOCES FROM ANNA and ZETALLIS Q_____________Q I am such a happy mudkip but I feel bad I didn’t manage time well enough to go thank them again ;_;

By some divine luck, I managed to ink 4 pages while I was there, so I feel a bit better about sitting back and taking a break yesterday and today since I didn’t really want to work anyway. I sat around and wrote stuff about the world setting of spirits and gods in Carciphona for a bit, so now I’m happy enough to jump right back at work!! hopefully getting volume 3 printed before christmas is not out of the window yet but we’ll see HAHA.