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

Georges Jeanty: Encounter and sketchbook review (Auckland Armageddon 2010, Day 3)

Okay, this got ridiculously long, and I have to close up the libary now, so I'm just posting the Georges Jeanty part. Because it was my favourite part of the day and I ended up writing a ton of words :D (heavy writing >.>). Quick intro: Georges Jeanty is the artist who draws the season eight Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics. I didn't know this until this week.

I was browsing through the leaflet of Stuff That Happens At Armageddon on Sunday afternoon and I noticed that some guy who draws the Buffy comics (the recent season eight stuff, which is mostly so very much better drawn it's ridiculous, which I already knew, plus I am an ever-increasing Buffy/Whedon fan XD ) was actually here, and signing and stuff. It started of as a minor 'cool, some person related to a fandom that I'm actually interested PLUS ART' but became a highlight of Armageddon for me - and the more I look him up, the more impressed I am.

If he had a panel, I missed it, but because I knew he was at the con, when wandering out to get breakfast around midday on Monday (...don't ask. I ended up getting chips for me & the Plan Pony & Arkillian) I noticed a poster that looked Buffy-ish on a stall near the front, squashed in next to ... I think it was Marvel stuff. I looked, I flipped through the folder  because I really wanted to know for sure, found it actually really was Buffy graphic novel art, and then noticed the little sketchbooks along the side (and my sympathies for the people who came to MY stall are increased ten-fold. His stall was actually fairly cleanly laid out!)

Anyway, he spoke up then and said they were twenty dollars (me: urk, my sales! [...lack of]) ...with a  free sketch (me...oooh. Oh dammit, I want one anyway), then I think I wandered off... back to my stall to grab money from my float (pushing my earnings well into the negatives for the morning!). I also picked out two of my BtVS fan arts to ask him to sign - the Buffy and Willow ones that were the most awesome (well, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alyson Hannigan). (Again, no Tara in season 8, or I might have picked her; that left my favourite, Willow, and Buffy who was the main character). Anyway, I asked for Willow for my sketch, because she's my favourite (well, it was her or Giles or Tara, or maybe Buffy, but Buffy's everywhere and Tara isn't even in Season Eight, so probably would have been unfair to ask for and Willow just beat out Giles. Cause, pretty! *is shallow*... yes, I way over-analysed all this).

I couldn't pick between the fan arts but he was awesome and signed both. Even more awesome? The bit that made my whole entire week? He asked me why I didn't get the original artist to sign it, and didn't want to spoil the pictures *does foolish dance of crazed artist*

One of the few things I actually bought - a sketchbook from Georges Jeanty, about drawing some of season eight of Buffy, with a sketch of Willow, and my signed prints of Willow and Buffy.

The sketchbook I picked was number 3, which covered one I'd actually read in the library - issues #11-15 (*cough Satsu/Buffy lesbian sex scene cough* ) ... more seriously, I liked what I saw of the discussion about it, and the rest of the book, which contained a whole bunch of sketches and discussion and some actual full 'pages' (sketched, of course, I don't think he had any hand in colouring them). Each of the covers (below) had a page, and an explanation about the references and what he was trying to do (and if he was happy with it!)

 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, issues 11-15

 Anyway, I was more happy than I expected to be with the drawing (...yes. I am REALLY picky, art-wise. This means if I liked it? It was probably good :D I hope >.>) and I took the book and went back and read through it (YES. Entertainment! I as getting quite bored towards the end. I knew I should have bought a book or six!) and was made even more pleased (in an 'artist figuring out this whole traditional/commission thing' way) to see the pencil marks behind the ink proving that artists are allowed to be human XD )

Speaking of books... If I had brought one, I'd probably have grabbed a Discworld book, and to my sorrow and grief only one single (and therefore super-awesome) Discworld fan spoke up about my Vetinari picture that I drew for Wear the Lilac Day, also later that day. And bought two, so is even more awesome.

I'm not a huge fan of artbooks, partly because most of them seem to want to include tutorials and I don't follow those well (or at all) so just skip them. Georges mostly wrote about what he was trying to do and what it was referencing and what influenced the elements of the pictures, which was much more interesting. There are a lot of pictures to look at, and a nearly equal amount of text.

The book's small - A5 sized - and I'm worried about damaging it, bending it open. Unfortunately, the text runs way to close to the edge of the paper and the ends of sentences are tucked right down into the spine (no bleed allowed for) - there are also quite a few typos, and signs that there probably wasn't an editor, but what he talks about is both interesting, and useful. Plus, Buffy.

Photo of one of my favourite pages (it just had a lot of faces I particularly liked...) from the Buffy sketchbook.

A closer up photograph of the sketchbook, and the talking. Quite interesting to read, especially the mind-blowing concept that professional comic artists worry about getting likenesses right too! Also, many typos, but not many in this section XD

(I now want, even more, all the BtVS graphic novels. All of them. To own and have in a row on my shelf. I've even *horrors* started eyeing up the many fascinating BtVS figures available.)

More from the rest of Day 3 to come! (Edit: here )
Day one and day two of Armageddon are already posted.

Auckland Armageddon Convention 2010: Day 2

Sunday was my best day for sales - it wasn't quite as busy as Saturday, but the wrestling announcements were slightly quieter. Slightly. Also, I guess people were coming back through after running around making sure they saw everything. It was also the day I really got into making tiny paper people. I ended up with a small army of faces and fan art poking out of signs and lined up in the (very limited) space around the front.  I drew two Buffys, using my painting as a reference (on left) - the first I was very proud of, and gave away to Asgard, and the second wasn't nearly as good. Sadly, I forgot to photograph Asgard's, so will stalk her site and see if a photo goes up >.>

Also finished off the leather-wrapped, winged girl I started at Doujin Overload (my report here) and stood her up. Interestingly, she was the only drawing from DO that I actually liked when I went through my book - all the ones I did to sort of 'do what was expected' and that I tried to ink neatly (she was just a messy sketch that I got into at the end) were really, truly awful. So, "giving up trying to do what other artists do even though it looks awesome when they do it, and accepting that I have to draw my own way" lesson learnt? Check :D

Photo image dump at the end of the post! (for now)

I also drew a fan art of Drake's awesome ninja cat, Ninjet. She's a white cat, in a black ninja bodysuit. It's actually a clever design - it's simple and easy to draw and very much 'cat'. I remembered him from last year - I told him to join DeviantART so that people could stalk him, as far as I know he hasn't yet - I don't think he remembered me (I'd have been very surprised if he had!), but he recognised my t-shirt (I was wearing the YinYang one) bcause he'd asked about it when I'd wandered off and missed him, while setting up. His site is down and has been for a while - apparently he's moving domains or something - which is annoying, because I wanted to add it to my Ninja Cats page. There's a listing for the comic here, for some kind of linkage. Bought a couple of small prints off him (actually, that was the first day - I used them as references for the fan art)... and he bought two cat stickers off me (both the Yinyang ones; colour and black and white; the other kitties weren't out and I picked them up from home later).

I bought candy floss for the second day in a row. It was fun, especially the way it vanishes as soon as you eat it, although the attack of sugar starts burning my mouth by the end.

I found one of the Star Wars collectors' booths, with a variety of R2D2's, Star Wars suits of armour, and a Han Solo in Carbonite, as well as a large collection of Slave Leias in a large bubble display. I took a couple of photos, for drawing references, but most of them looked pretty tacky (and it was a bad idea, at least for a few of them, as the proportions were way off and I ended up sulking about the drawing a lot. Somewhat loudly at my stall-mates :D Turned it into a stand-up.)

More R2's than I've ever seen in one place before, plus Darth Vader and Stormtrooper armour, Han Solo in carbonite and... a random droid (edit: apparently that's a droid bounty hunter called IG-88)

R2D2 from Jabba's barge, serving drinks that look suspiciously human-blood-coloured

The Slave Leias, trapped in their bubble/force field.

A close-up on the Slave Leia statues and dolls; the two largest in the front, half-sitting, you can look at on Amazon below, the two tall ones at the back are just customised dolls, there's a Lego Leia just to the below-right of the centre, hidden behind the right-hand Leia, and the one standing up, holding onto the rope/pole is the one I tried to draw from.

Some of the more expensive statues looked nice, though, and it turns out that there are some impressive version out there! (I had to look. And now I have to show! Not my photos, just showing off from Amazon - I don't think any of these were the ones on display)



Funniest moment of the day: watching Bria & Vader's heads swivel as they watched a guy in a Stormtrooper outfit walk past as they tried to work out a) who he was, b) if he was one of their guys from the 501st stall, c) why he wasn't wearing it properly (the belt was loose, and ... well, that's all my uninitiated eye could spot ;D ). So Vader (not his real name. Oh, you guessed that?) follows him to the nerf gun stall, and it turns out it's the guy who organises Armageddon, who just bought his shiny new costume and wasn't too happy about having it corrected within five minutes of putting it on.

But they cheered him up with four people shooting him at once with nerf guns (which are awesome, if a rather lurid orange, and shoot a very loooong way... into the rafters in the ceiling *looks idly at very interesting object on far side of room to avoid meeting any eyes*. It wouldn't have happened if I'd been allowed to shoot AT someone!) and having all the foam pellets bounce off his armour spectacularly. It looked fun :D

Bria-Silivren in a fight to the death with one of the Nerf guns. Behind her is the Dr. Who stall (Weeping Angel on right, Dalek on left) and I believe she's cosplaying Marion from the Indiana Jones movie (re-using the Anna Valerious shirt, anyway ;D )

Apparently there were a lot of Dr. Who cosplayers, unsurprisingly, as the Dr. Who speaker had a panel and was signing stuff. There was a nice lady with a little stall tucked against a wall near us with Dr. Who -inspired jewellery - all cogs and wheels and things, in bronze and silver. The site's here - Whovian Jewellery. I haven't seen much of Dr. Who (no telly) so I didn't recognise any.

Day 3 had mimes, skeletal t-shirts, left over posters, fizzy tablets, less money, Buffy comic artist George Jeanty, live rick-rolling, cosplayers, and energy crashing. Also a final tally of my haul. Plus will mention the (awesome) Drawfest stall, posters, t-shirts and earnings, and any other things I forgot.  It's late, and I'm on a crappy computer at my parent's house, so not tonight.


But for now... PICTURES!

My Tui t-shirt, and the back of the stall. And the charming model, of course.

My tiny Willow drawing. I like this one! She stuck out the top of one of my displays for a day and a half.

The second Buffy-head. With the traditional 'what would Buffy do?' caption 

(there's even a book!

)

Complete view of the stand-up gladiator/bondage Angel. Someone (forget who) said she was Slave Leia inspired, to which I say she actually wasn't - the red was more of the memory of an old drawing I did, which had a girl all in red and white.

A first attempt at Dark Willow (failed, but helped me remember what she actually looked like), a headless Leia (because the head was terrible and nobody is looking there anyway), tiny Tara head to go with the nice Willow, and a teeny little 2cm tall tui bird that I gave to my mother.

Tall figure-referenced fail-Slave Leia standing up, with tiny-Slave Leia next to her for reference.

The paper army scouts! Seductive tiny-Slave Leia distracts and seduces; the all-seeing Eye (referenced from my Buffy painting again) sees all; and tiny-Dark Willow floats in a spooky way wherever she chooses.

My Ninjet fan art - copic to fill,

black brush pen lines and shiny silver pen for the sword.

And finally, the posters I bought on the Saturday; Unicorn from Kotorigaro and random-painting-chaos-guy from Murk (a.k.a. Cannibal-Cartoonist)

Also, two awesome guys turned up and came and said hello - actually knowing people at Armageddon makes it 5 times better, and having people attending actually come find you triples the awesomeness again. This guy who I pimped earlier dropped by and inflicted me on his friend who was very nice about it, and bought art (and I gave him a discount, of course ;D ), and the person I skipped out on at Saturday and left to cope with students on his own (I'm sorry! No, wait. I'm not. Here, have this as a token of my forgiveness.) dropped by with his friend (I didn't know I gave him permission to have friends...). Huh. I never did go to the Laserstrike tunnel.

....and the rest must come later.
Click for Day one update.