The New Greek-Zealand Riot Police and the Student Education Protest

There was a student protest at Auckland University on Friday the 1st of June, about the recent educational cuts, leading on from a protest the week before. However, unlike the first protest, this one attracted an incredible overreaction from the police, who turned up in overwhelming numbers, and violently arrested 43 people. This led to more students joining into an impromptu protest march against police tactics that ranged through the centre of the city all evening.

The first protest
The budget came out last week, and last Thursday they had a smallish sit down protest (in that it was contained spatially. There were 400-500 students) in the University grounds, on a road going through it (I saw the end of it) which lasted about five hours. It was against some of the recent, rather dreadful, cuts to education and student support, making it even harder to access - or even finish, for current students - University education, along with making repayments much higher, starting much sooner (and yes, this affects me too).

Blockade The Budget’s Statement of Intent

This is a call for a stop to the neoliberal attacks on New Zealand’s education sector. All over the world people are fighting against the commercialisation and privatisation of education. This current approach to education is only further preventing universal and equal access to education. Education should be accessible to everyone and be non-discriminatory; it should never become class based. Our current government views education as a business rather than a fundamental right of massive social significance.

The National government is attacking education on all fronts. Early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary education are all on the chopping block, affecting both students and teaching staff. Early childhood subsidies are being frozen, primary and high schools are being subjected to dubious policies such as performance-based pay, larger class sizes and drastic decreases in teacher numbers. In the tertiary sector students are being penalised for trying to academically better themselves through higher education.

This government and the ruling elite are only prepared to cut funding from easily targeted public services to address debt. Such services are essential to the future growth of our nation. This government fails to acknowledge that the cost of National Superannuation is $9.58 billion while the cost of student loans is only $1.59 billion. There are other alternatives to this so-called ‘Zero Budget’ and its questionable projected outcomes. Rather than addressing the issue of debt head-on, the government is using education as a scapegoat to further delay its own action in regards to the growing inequalities in our education system.

This is a call to all students, teachers, and workers within the wider education sector to stand up and make a change. This budget will only further disadvantage our society. It is our duty to resist.

Scoop

 There were two police keeping an eye on things, a few annoyed motorists and not much else. The most notable response was from Bill English, the deputy prime minister in the current National government who said that

Speaking to a business audience in Wellington this morning, Mr English said of the students: "Yes, there's a protest movement out there but who's really listening to them?"

The comments were in response to a question from the audience.

"They get on TV and they can make a bit of a racket," said Mr English, "dragging a few rubbish bins around, they need some Greeks to show them how to do it.

"It gets reported, mainly because it blocked the traffic… [but] who's listening? Most people actually think the students got a pretty fair go and they should count themselves lucky that they've still got interest free loans and get on with it because, you know, get your training finished and get a job and start contributing."
Read more at 3news

So the students took him up on that - some wore togas to the nest protest, which happened on Friday 1st June about 3pm.

The second Protest


A group of students (allegedly about 100) from Auckland University went on a protest march up Symonds Street (the same one as before, through Uni, near the city centre), after politely notifying police in advance (as it fairly standard, though not required). They paused for lectures about Plato from a sociology lecturer and the police moved in straight away and started trying to move them off the road. The students responded by sitting down in a group and where surrounded by a ring of police.

At this point, and onwards, there were up to 80 police officers there (clear from the photos - some people claim 100, but 80 is probably accurate. The minimum in the initial response was about 40. It's hard to tell at what point they all arrived as they moved in gradually and were also in the surrounding streets). It was an instant over response and a clearly intentional, pre-planned strategy. They shut down this part of the protest by 4.30 - about an hour after it began, not including the time it took to walk up Symonds street. To reiterate: the police kept them in one place, blocking the road, for an hour, until they had arrested nearly everyone, using kettling and snatch arrests.


Most of the arrests started after what was apparently a different unit arrived, mostly younger male officers, who charged straight in and started dragging people out of the crowd and arresting them. Just about every arrest was violent - people were dragged, carried, thrown to the ground, had wrists and arms twisted, and were generally manhandled. NONE OF THESE PEOPLE SPECIFICALLY DID ANYTHING. It is one thing to single out protestors getting rowdy, but in this case that is not what happened.

A large number of people started videoing and taking photographs - apart from the dozens of videos on YouTube, you can see many people in many of the videos and photos taking their own recordings. They continued chanting and passively resisting (for example, going limp, holding on to each other - all entirely legal), including chants of 'Peaceful protest'. The protestors did not respond with violence or rioting.


After they had systematically arrested 43 people, the remainder were kettled in on a grassy area beside the road. One of the supposed ringleaders (i.e. a person with a microphone  - Omar Hamed, who has unfortunately been accused of sexual harassment. I say unfortunately, because it also delegitimises this protest, and as it wasn't 'his' protest, who he is doesn't matter) was suddenly arrested at this point. The protest reformed at about 4.40, with about 500 students marching down Symonds Street (possibly more, possibly as low as 300, but again, 500 looks most accurate.

 People joined in as they went, mostly people who had been watching the previous arrests and getting more upset at the police. The police continued attempting to kettle them in, managing to pen the group against the business school at one point, and make another arrest, but - apparently due to some quick thinking - the protestors dodged through the actual university and out the over side to Albert park, and from there down to Queen Street. They continued the constant movement tactic to stay out of reach of the police and police vehicles.

At this point, there were (allegedly) about 100 police officers on and around Queen street, but they couldn't keep up with the protestors. The protest headed to the police station at this point and surrounded it, calling for the release of the 43 people arrested without cause. After which they headed to Aotea square and then went home around 7pm (at about 6.45, the police said they'd be letting the arrestees go).

Of those 43 people, all but 4 people who didn't cooperate (i.e. probably wouldn't share their personal details) were released, and this was decided before 7pm. Less than three hours after most of them were even arrested.


Injuries, complaints and police behaviour


Recorded in videos/photos (also mentioned in comments from various witnesses, which prompted me to find evidence; see resources section until this is better organised)

• At least one officer has been recorded on video punching protestors on the ground (several videos, see resources section)
• A police officer or officers had removed their badges (photos)
• Police unnecessarily manhandling female protestors (Keyword: unnecessarily. They were definitely handling them roughly, and as the people had committed no crimes, did not resist arrest, and were not charged it was entirely unnecessary violence. The arresting officers were 95% young white males)
• Young women being dragged along the groun by their ankles (generally after being pulled out of the crowd)
• Police were strangling protestors on the ground (video)

Debatable (according to comments, but videos/photos are just ambiguous or confusing enough not to be sure)

• kicked people lying on the ground
• Police were laughing about their job
• Multiple officers without badges

Anecdotal (comments only, no photographic records yet found by me or possible in some cases)

• Groping of female protestors
• Were trying to provoke people in order to manhandle them further. 
• There were also officers who were not happy with the violence of their colleagues, 
• The initial unit that blockaded the students, mostly older men and women, were more restrained and professional. 

While most of this is anecdotal, it has come in from MANY sources, there is no contradictory evidence, and no statements from the police.

Injuries
There were numerous minor injuries, and a few more major ones, from bruises to a girl being strangled into unconsciousness (allegedly; there is a blurry video of police strangling protestors on the ground, though and it was apparently a standard tactic).

One student was apparently beaten up very badly while in the cells (not sure I should post his name, but he is seeking witnesses in order to lay charges. Note that I did not get this from him, but from concerned witnesses asking who was assaulted).

Students and the people organising the march are now collecting evidence in order to lay complaints about police brutality (on the Blockade the Budget FB page and reported on the Radio NZ site).

For a very interesting explanation of how police responses and protests generally work in New Zealand, and why it was a deliberate attempt to instigate a riot can be found at The Standard.

The only statement from the police is this very concise statement on their site.

June 1, 2012, 5:32 pm
43 arrests have been made by Police as a result of protest activity in down town Auckland this afternoon. The activity included a sit down protest on Symonds Street in the central business district soon after 3pm necessitating traffic diversions to ensure the safety of the protesters and alternate vehicle access for motorists. The road was cleared and opened by 5pm.

Superintendent Mike Clement
District Commander
Auckland City District

Negative Reactions Towards Protestors


Apart from the initial excitement, most of the major media follow up has a) ignored that the protestors didn't start the violence nor provoke it and b) focussed mostly on people being inconvenienced by the protest.

'It wasn't a student protest'
It has been claimed, in a fairly textbook attempt to legitimise the protest, that it wasn't really a student protest. It was. Even if it wasn't, that doesn't make the points invalid, or the reaction appropriate. Obviously there will always be a variety of opinions, especially in a body of people as large as the University of Auckland, so there are students who didn't approve. But - apart from people I knew there, most of them knew each other. The vast majority where students, and it was a protest about student issues.

Personally, I am considering very strongly going to the next one, and I am technically not a student anymore. But I would still consider it a student protest, even if I happened to be in it.

'Those crazy students are just running wild and want attention'
A. They weren't running a pointless protest. If you don't think the education cuts and changes matter, fine, but they (and I) consider them important. If you didn't realise there was a point, well, there was. Even if the media haven't always mentioned it.

B. Duh. Attention is the point of protest, otherwise it's a waste of time.

C. They weren't running wild. It was actually an incredibly well behaved protest, and the violence was incited by, and mostly on the part of, the police.


'They don't have the right to hold everyone up'
A. Yes, they do. The right to protest is enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Start slapping rules around 'how' one can protest, when and where, means that protesting suddenly becomes pointless. Protest is one of the only major ways for the general public, or specific groups, to actually make themselves enough of a problem to be listened to (assuming nobody wants to listen to them in the first place).

B. Besides, if they weren't in the middle of the road, who would have noticed them? What's the point of a protest that isn't noticed? Walking in the road says 'look, we are really serious about this, LOOK AT US'.

C. The student protest initially moved fairly quickly and would have been over equally quickly if the police hadn't blocked them in. Aside from that, the previous week, police cooperated with the protestors and redirected traffic for them.

D. It's not like traffic never happens. Plenty of events and problems can shut down a street for a while, and yes, people ALWAYS complain. That doesn't make it a big deal, it's just one of those common annoyances that everyone can emphasise with, and there isn't really a 'good' side to.


What was achieved? What was the point?

 The students
Could have not protested, but by doing so they have:

1. Raised awareness of the issue
2. Made it really obvious where they stood
3. Technically, it's not too late to reverse the budget, as it is a confidence & supply agreement, so IF National's coalition partners backed off the changes could be changed.
4. Some commuters were inconvenienced, which as a) a shame, but b) happens all the time in the middle of the city, and c) is perfectly legal.
5. They did not break any laws and remained peaceful (shouting is peaceful, disrupting traffic is peaceful. They didn't hurt anyone, scare anyone - at least, until the police started wading in, or damage anything). If you start regulating how people can protest, then you are preventing people from protesting. A reasonable institution isn't going to have much to worry about, and an unreasonable one is going to exploit everything they've got to make sure people don't protest.

Which leads me to...

The police
If they'd left the protest alone, it would have just gotten in the way of traffic for a little while and then gone. Instead, it turned into a major event and caused a great deal of outrage.

1. It is possible that this simply reflects 'new' (or old - Springbok riots, anyone?) people behind the scenes, ideologies and policies that demand a dramatic response shutting down dissension, or large gatherings of people. It is possible that students are seen as a safe target, or having two protests close together triggered some kind of tolerance limit. Perhaps it was seen as a straight forward practice run, an exercise in shutting down protests.

Which means that it will probably happen again, regardless of what is being protested, and that this was simply the first time it has happened recently. It may depend who is protesting, as an Old Granny March may be ignored, but they were hassling people with grey hair along with the students.

(Except it isn't the first time - the police response at the Glen Innes protests against the beneficiaries objecting to being evicted was also violent. Although it wasn't in front of as many witnesses, about an issue that affected a smaller group of people, and there were fewer people owning good cameras around. But again, they are considered a target/easily demonised group - beneficiaries, with a few social justice people mixed in to blame for starting it).

2. It looked like an attempt to start a riot.
This would have a) made it easy to demonise 'rowdy violent students' (because as soon as one gets recorded hitting a cop, or smashing a window, the entire protest is discredited), and b) has distracted from what they are actually protesting against, turning it from 'evil government destroys tertiary education in New Zealand for New Zealanders' into 'those students are protesting again!'.

 3. Someone WANTED people to pay attention to what the students were doing. But this seems like a pretty unpleasant way to do it.

So in summary: someone giving orders to the police are a) inexperienced or not that bright, b) politically motivated and c) insecure and reactionary. I'd pick the last two.



More reading (where I got my information from)


Apart from the below, I've spent several hours reading the many many comments from participants, bystanders and people who knew people there, and watching the videos.Some where helpful outlines, other bits I had to put together. Nothing contradicted the event outline each gave, except for the usual minor errors in numbers and identities that were made in news articles (some have since been corrected), but some were confusing.


What is kettling?
Kettling is forming a solid line and trapping a group of people inside that line, against a wall or similar. [See wikipedia]

It's a highly controversial tactic to shut down a protest. Great for containing crowds, not great if those crowds have a right to be where they are or if it's used to silence them. One of its problems is that it traps everyone in the vicinity, even innocent bystanders, and that police can prevent people from leaving for as long as they choose.

What are snatch arrests?
Snatch arrests are when a group of police dash in and try to snatch a target in order to arrest them. They are less effective when the police are outnumbered and the crowd is organised. They are best used for singling out troublemakers, but in the 1st June protest, they were being used to grab anyone and everyone.


Protestor Responses/ Public Commentary
Twitter #blockadethebudget 
A timeline on the Standard 
Blockade the Budget Facebook Group
Dealing with kettling and snatch arrests while remaining peaceful and legal: essentially, form a wedge to break open kettling lines and hold on to each other, out number the police, and separate police from target.

Photos
NZHerald
There are also many amazing photos, mostly findable through Blockade the Budget, but I'm not sure how public they are.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61939712@N07/sets/72157630005737492/with/7317875846/
http://www.flickr.com//photos/12492550@N03/show/
Facebook photo album of five police wearing the same fake badge number Z557 at the Occupy protest about 4 months ago and news article.

News Articles
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/7034457/Student-protester-grabbed-by-throat
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/7031348/Arrests-at-student-protest
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/budget-2012/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503257&objectid=10810205
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10810121


Videos
How legit are these? Well, they cover a lot of recognisable moments (e.g. arrests of specific people) from very different directions, are uploaded by multiple users, vary hugely in quality and length, and all feature many people using cameras and phones in the crowd. Some are only fragments of the overall event, but can generally be pinned down to a timeline when compared to other videos. The soundtrack is quite distinctive as well, with quiet at the start, roaring and shouting when the police try to grab people, and chanting.


YouTube Videos from the Blockade the Budget protests 


Some specific ones

• You can see the initial sit down and first arrests in this one, the dramatic change from 'okay, we're being stopped' to 'WTF ARE THE POLICE DOING?', and a policeman punching someone at 2.06 - the same one who appears in several other videos)
• Start of the sit down speech and arrests over the rest of the sit down
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bQIlN86ZFs&feature=related - more general footage from other angles, including a policeman shoving a protestor for no reason at 6.46 (one of several occurrences throughout the videos). You also get to see a few togas. At 9.23, police charge into the line pushing the group of people back (from videos inside the corral at this point, their are people on the ground and unable to move, while they are told to move back and pushed).
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60Eq7G08v_Q picks up from the same point shown at 9.23 above, and shows clearly just how many police were there, along with the time between the initial sit down and the second march, with the students being kept off the road, as well as a few arrests with people being dragged out by their feet (e.g. a girl being pulled out and hustled off from 3.32)
• 3news video: students surround a police car later on in the march demanding they release someone they are trying to take away (a legal move to prevent an illegal arrest)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTHqbUemDys&feature=related - various moments throughout the entire protest

http://www.3news.co.nz/More-protests-to-come---students/tabid/309/articleID/256436/Default.aspx [Video]

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/raw-video-police-clash-protesters-4906662 [Video]
http://www.3news.co.nz/Arrests-at-student-anti-Budget-protest/tabid/309/articleID/256395/Default.aspx [Video]

About the cuts and the protests on CloseUp (based on the first protest) http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/tuesday-june-5-4912197/video

...there's a lot more, but there's no one definitive place to go. Which is good, actually, as it means you're getting a lot of viewpoints and getting a good overall picture.

Police Numbers
These were difficult to estimate, as videos and photos only showed small sections at a time, the point of the protest isn't always clear, and the people recording generally weren't free to move around to show different areas.

I've screencapped a couple of videos that actually pan around and counted the number of visible, distinct police shown, marking them with red dots. I marked the ones I hadn't counted before - if they aren't dotted, it's because I counted them in the screencap just before or after. I've left the times on the YouTube videos, so you can see for yourself if you wish.

This will not be all of them. There are people hidden behind each other, including police in groups, as well as others behind the camera person or down the street. But what I can see supports the initial estimate of 40 in the first response, with more police arriving afterwards.


Most photos and videos only show a small area and often feature the same people as that's where the action is, but you can see 15-20 in just about any given shot. The 'best' photo, taken from high up in a university building after the sit down and before the Queen Street dash, clearly shows 47 police (possibly more, it gets a little hard to distinguish individuals).

Credit 

Credit

Credit

So in summary; the students may not have taken lessons from the Greek riots, but the police sure did. And that was a major, major over reaction to a relatively mild protest.



Support groups and protests are now being planned at the other universities around New Zealand (Wellington seems to be the most organised so far. Hilariously, they're meeting on Tory Street for the initial planning session).

WTF John Key Quote of the Week

"And Act has been very stable so Act returning to Parliament is something I would like to see as opposed to something I wouldn't like to see."


From this NZHerald article: Greens vote could put Labour in Government - Key




Seriously? Act? Stable? A party that imploded, suffered a hostile takeover, and now only has two real members, both of which are completely opposed to each other, and are actually National Party stooges -oh, wait. Yeah, stable. As in 'they will jump when I tell them!'. That, or John Banks and Don Brash will cancel each other out and somehow create stagnation stability.

Pukeko Chicks

There's a small pond round the corner from my house, and the first baby birds of the year can be found there. Currently there are three little pukeko (Purple Swamp Hen) chicks, being looked after by eight other adults.

More Pukeko Cards

Mooooooooooom! by NZPhotography


Pukeko and Chick Splashing by NZPhotography
View more Pukeko Mousepads

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

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.