Armageddon Ends: Day 3

Monday was officially cosplasy day, and I saw a lot of fantastic ones. Didn't recognise most of them, of course, but they were impressive and I kept wanting to ask people to pose for photos, but didn't dare >.>

I bought a skeleton Unicorn t-shirt off Murk for $25 - I spent most of the con wandering past him/saying hi as he wandered past me and going "...oh, I have to buy your t-shirt. Oh, I have no money on me. Make sure I buy the t-shirt". Anyway, I wore it to work tod...uh, yesterday (it's 5am! >.> danged flatmate talking to me and making me watch awesome internet stuff. And many curses and boils on the internet connection which went down on us all). It's not as soft and shiny as my more costly RedBubble shirts, but it's very thick and sturdy (I only care/notice because I'm analysing t-shirt printing right now :D ...and because I'm going to get to hot. I hate summer). Anyway, I wore it to work; my mother went into "What! You can't wear THAT, it's not appropriate!" mode (she plays the role of the fashion-conscience in my life, because I'll go to work in almost anything), but I checked with my boss, who said it was fine, I just looked like a student (yus, camouflaged! ...sadly I failed to either be hidden or scare anyone off - the printing network was down and we had the one non-network, working printer hooked up to one of the desk computers, during assignment-pre-exam period. I was on my feet for hours, and we had at least two people on desk the whole time *collapses*)

Murk came past at one point doing random miming, which was amusing - he was, of course, wearing his Mime Field shirt. He also had a very cool tie.

These guys were next to us on one side (and I enjoyed looking at the pictures on the wall but was too shy to actually look at their stall in front of them), and on the other were some people (or a person with helpers?) selling resin (? or plastic) jewellery - necklaces and earrings and pendants and stuff on very very shiny chains, which were all game desings - Pacman and the Mario mushrooms and such. They were selling very, very well.

Oh, and one of the highlights of the event - or it would have been, if I hadn't only been present for the warm-up and missed the main event, was Thomas the Musician coming and live-rickrolling us after his demonstration music player died - so we got a serenade on his guitar at oru stall, which we got to sing along to, which was AWESOME. And then he apparently was playing pied piper to a large group of cospayers (internet people *shakes head sadly...*) which I missed (I did say 'go find cosplayers' but I think he was doing that anyway, so I can't even claim reflected glory :D but I was already amused about it before hearing it actually happened). Oh. Yeah. He makes music.

The DrawFest stall looked really professional - the cardboard-backed posters in the box made me want to buy stuff, even though I was already going to (see yesterday's post for the shinies)/looking for my own poster to grab for my sister. HUGE props to Murk for that. And all the walls were covered neatly and with many colours. The Robot Unicorn poster was amusing - the sort of thing I'd want to buy for the flat poster collection or give to Archmage for the fun of it XD


Uhhhm, did a whole post on Georges Jeanty already, didn't mention that he was friendly and I'd have enjoyed tlaking to him more, except that I didn't really have much to say and didn't want to monopolise him with boredom. Also was restraining the "OMG I DRAW TOO COME LOOK AT MY STALL" that was trying to get out ;D But then, I want to do that to everyone I meet at Armageddon. Just, I know most people won't be interested, and the famous artist people probably get it a lot. But when I went back, some lovely lady with a gold pass had bought some of my prints, and came back to get them signed. Luckily I have figured out how to have a consistent signature by now >.>

Oh, misc bits and pieces: TPP had a space elf cosplay the first day (the fake ears were apparently annoying) and now I want to watch Star Trek. Also I had candy-floss both Saturday and Sunday :D And then I couldn't face the sugar on Monday and had to break the burgeoning tradition. Stopped by Bria's 501st stall a few times, and scored a free fizzy-tablet-drink. Which should be avoided if it has not completely dissolved.




Sales...
Apparently really good towards the front, but as you got into the second and last main rooms, there were more complaints of people just not buying. It was a lot bigger, by number of stalls this year, and the wrestling wasn't hidden up the end for some reason, like it was last year. But I got a lot of people looking, then either saying they had no money (if I emerged from behind the stall and t-shirt and pictures enough for them to know I was there XD ) or went 'awesome' and walked away. One girl was showing her friend something she bought off me last year, so I got to internally squee at being a) remembered and b) worth pointing out. Also, the one who bought my Careless (phoenix) picture also made me happy and was fun to talk to.

Being squashed three on a stall was a majorly bad idea - I made about $120 from little prints from my small folder over the entire weekend, but I had no room to put my larger folders out at all. And my stickers were squashed around the edges of everything. Actually really, really glad I decided to leave posters in the hands of Murk on the Drawfest stall (that and I still haven't figured out easy/affordable/quality printing for posters).

On my posters; looks like Mystic, Buffy, Firelight and Suddenly sold out, and I gave the last Tui one away to one of my flatmates. And the Alice Inverted poster I had to do for my sister (for her friend) was actually surprisingly popular (I only printed it to get the cheap poster printing. And to see what happened. But I actually sold three posters and a small print and there were more people going "ooooh, oh, I have no money". Also.... FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFfffffffffff. Just realised I printed the first version, which had the YinYang symbol around the wrong way and I spent ages fixing. Also most annoyed with self about some of the URLs - some just weren't as nicely corner-blended as I meant, and the worst culprit, Balance, had a huge one running down the hair that I'd somehow completely missed (and I DO have a good print file for that, I must have mixed them up). Ah well, makes an awesomely eye-catching promo poster.

Zazzle Posters of the above mentioned

Slightly sad, as I wanted a copy of Mystic for myself ;D and Murk was being all paranoid and trying not to get my hopes up (and worried me a bit, then handed me a pile of posters at the end half the size of what I expected and I stood there like an idiot for a little while waiting for the rest) so I thought I'd have one of everything, at the least, left over, so I'd already planned what to do with it! Not that this is bad news. It just threw me and then I had to count posters. I like counting things... >.>

I estimate that I came out roughly even, or possibly slightly profiting (that is... maybe $5, maybe $50, but probably $7.30 XD ) but that's waiting on Murk to recover and get the printing bill before I'm allowed to annoy everyone around me be cavorting and proclaiming that I won! Or possibly moping and strategising for next time <.<

T-Shirts: Some people really liked them, and a few of my website paper things vanished, but not enough that I expect anything to come of it. Unfortunately, they weren't in common sizes - but the designs seem to have been the best I could have picked. I'm probably better off using them as displays and trying to drive traffic to the RedBubble store - it would cost people the same either way, give or take a couple of dollars, and then they can choose their actual size and the style and design they want. And in the meantime, I'll try and find a better/cheaper/acceptable local printer. And then maybe chase after the markets...

Also, turns out that not only does my brother actually like the one he picked out a few months back, but my dad wants one with exactly the same cat on. His credentials as a cat-hater are forever destroyed.

Energy crashed around midday and I drooped everywhere for the next three or four hours, then went into so-tired-I'm-slightly-hyper mode. I think I was miserable (i.e. just standing and sucking all the energy out of the world in exhaustion) at Drake of the Ninjet stand, in passing *beams telepathic apologies*. And I wanted to fall asleep in a corner. And got bored because I ran out of stuff to do. Aaaaaaand too many people for too many days. I need at least a couple of hours alone each day to stay sane. Came home and fell asleep for nearly the next day and a half (well, got up at 7am for a couple of hours then went back to bed). Was smothered by the cat who couldn't believe I'd left her alone.

The NZ comics stand - I didn't look much, but I heard a lot of people were impressed with the improved offerings this year. Was actually trying to get long shot down to the Drawfest stall, but people kept getting in the way.

The DrawFest stall - serious awesome this year and I was very, very impressed by how professionally it was put together (I suspect Murk gets 90% of the credit, but on the off-chance that someone I don't know anything about contributed blood, sweat and pixie dust, I'm leaving it open ^_^ )

Cute free paper drawings from ThePlanPony; a fox of awesome (because 'it looks like a fox'!) and a snakey, pearly, unicorn-dragon-pokemon. I grabbed one for me and one for my flatmate, who took the fox because 'the other one looks like some kind of Pokemon' :D

AAARGH. This was an awesome sketch, and I was very proud of both the likenesses and the composition (referenced of the Serenity DVD while watching it) but the watercolour paper kept eating my soft prismacolor pencil leads and spoilt it. I didn't want to borrow anymore of Arkillian's 'hard' Faber castells, because I'd been doing that all day.

I think I'll try painting over it. (For non-Firefly fans, that's River in the foreground, Inara in the background, and one of River's Reaver-axes - that she's actually holding - in the backdrop. See poster for original reference.

Sketched this on Sunday evening from references, then tidied and coloured on Monday. I like the gold and grey effect, but it looks unfinished... meh :D

Princess Leia - another sketch that I coloured with Prismacolours at the stall on Monday (on computer paper, which wasn't so soft that it ate all my leads!). She has green eyes, because Bria kept complaining that my Slave Leias were wrong, because apparently all Slave Leias must now be of her, and she screwed with my head to the point where I couldn't colour the eyes blue and then made them brown by mistake. And then greened them somewhat. Also, I hate tiny braids!

Random kitty, vaguely Ninjet inspired, with a mouse-balloon. Started colouring, then realised I could have made him a Siamese, but it was too late, I'd added too much black. Officially the weirdest cat I've ever drawn.

Tiny tui I drew and cut out - gave it to my mother as a souvenir.

Day One
Day Two
Georges Jeanty

I have more photos, slowly going through. Nobly resisting the temptation to post Bria's awesome derp face I captured :D Feel free to leave links/mention things I missed, so I can add to the list here.


More Reports:
Auckland Armageddon Summary - Drawfest, by Murk, DeviantART
Day one and Days two and three photos and updates - Xephia on DeviantART