Anime North 2009 - Tue-Wed-Thu-Fri
May. 31st, 2009 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dejanaNow that I've recovered somewhat, it's time to start my con report, which will probably be easier than my usual since I didn't actually do a heck of a lot. With all the last-minute cosplay work, I didn't make it to a single complete panel I wasn't personally on. My con behavior seems to bend closer to the Fanboys' every year - a lot less programming, a lot more hanging out with friends (although for different reasons). ^_~
Con report starts earlier than normal, because this year there was Kasey! :D
Tuesday
Our story starts on Tuesday the 19th, which I spent working on cosplay stuff right up to the minute it was time to leave for the airport. My sister had the day off, so she came along, which was fortunate because I got all the way to the exit before realizing I didn't know which terminal Southwest flies into. Sister guessed the smaller one, which turned out to be correct, and before long we had a![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nephthysmoon (Kasey)! :D Meanwhile, I was busily writing out the packing list since I hadn't had time to start packing OR even make a supply list yet. x_x
Whatever Kasey says about Minnesota being cold, it was HOT on Tuesday. It does get hot here on occasion. :P We went over to the Mall of America for dinner, since it's right next to the airport and the only convenient tourist trap. I had hoped to do more work over dinner, heh, but we ended up at a burger place, so that didn't happen. Yummy foodz, though. And Kasey got to see the Avatar ride, haha.
On the way back, we made what I hoped would be our final stop for supplies; I'd meant to go before heading to the airport but kept plugging away on the costumes instead. I took the long way back to my house so Kasey could see both cities, and to introduce her to I-94, with which we would become intimately acquainted the following day. Ugh. Then it was back to my place... for more work. I had had these lofty dreams of having everything ready when Kasey arrived, and only needing to hem her dress and pack the car... lol no. Kasey did me the favor of baking the necklace pendants while I made jewelry, started the bow for her dress, and who knows what else. The Serenity pendant got messed up, but Kasey had brought her Ginzuishou necklace, so we were able to use that instead and it saved me from making a third chain. I also got to see Kasey put on the nearly-finished dress for the first time and omg. I had seen it assembled, and on a dressform, but nothing compared to seeing her actually wear it. So gorgeous. I couldn't stop squeeing. *_*
Kasey also became my hero by attempting to get what might be an actual bird out of my bathroom vent (long story...) but sadly that plan was a failure. Still, hero. There was a worm! That's something! :D? Eventually we had to stop everything so I could pack up and we could get to sleep. Fortunately, we didn't have to get up too early the following morning.
Wednesday
Wednesday I got up, showered, made French toast, and printed off the maps and directions and things for the trip. My sister was cranky with me when we left and wouldn't say why, but later she sent me a text to say she was sorry and that she was just sad she couldn't come with us. Aww. We had to make one more stop before hitting the road, so we got going quite a bit later than I wanted, but a lot of that was my fault for being so unprepared. In the early afternoon, we were on our way. And then it was time for REVENGE! mwaha. When I visited Florida last summer, Kasey made fun of me for being so interested in common staples like palm trees and sand. Well, now it was Kasey's turn to be fascinated by ordinary things. Like pine trees. And rocks. And fields. Fields, people. With crops in. I loled, because I am mean.
We were distracted from the monotony of Wisconsin by the CDssache was kind enough to burn for us. First was the "ultimate driving mix," which turned out to be... songs about driving. And cars. A bit more literal than we were expecting, hee. An unexpected lullaby track followed by "Asleep At The Wheel" was a lolarious stroke of genius, however, as was the second CD, sache's version of an entire convention condensed into 80 minutes. By the time that one was halfway through, Kasey and I were overcome by an insane urge to draft "Con: The Musical."
I can't remember what we did for dinner on Wednesday, but it must've been before we hit Chicago, because we were running so late I couldn't even get a pretzel at the toll road oases. ;_; But we got through it, making reasonable time, and I decided I'd be satisfied if we at least made it to Michigan by the end of the day. So we stopped in Michigan City for the night... thinking we were across the state line... only to find out later that Michigan City is not, in fact, in Michigan. WTF, Indiana? State envy? We got to stay at a very nice Super 8 for a very affordable price, at least, and walked over to Steak & Shake for late-night treats. :D And then I raised the waistline of the Serenity dress a little before bed. Yes, in the hotel room, with a sewing machine. Not the first or the last time. >_>
Thursday
Thursday we were up early. Sleep deprivation rapidly became a theme on this trip. We were losing an hour to the time zone change, so we had to get on the road ASAP. Since I now had the waistline of the Serenity dress in the right position, Kasey was able to sew on the final row of pearls in the car. That was the only component I hadn't had time to add in advance, but it turned out to be better that I didn't, as I was able to adjust the dress to hide a lot of the gap on the bodice that came from having the circles higher than accurate.
Even with leaving early and light traffic at the border, we didn't make it to Toronto until everyone else was at dinner. However, that gave us plenty of time to move in our tons of stuff, get Kasey's badge, and run across the street for Subway and supplies (mostly snacks and drinks this time) from the convenience store. On the way out I found the panelist registration table was already open, which I hadn't expected, but at that point we were going to have to get our props checked in on Friday anyway. I did pick up my badge, though, and got lucky that the guy who happened to be manning the table at the time didn't care if I didn't write my real name on mine. Mwaha. :3
As soon as we arrived, Kasey got comfy.
Then I got back to work on more cosplay stuffs. Meanwhile,shel_b_129 (Shel) and mechaboydos (Dos) were done with dinner and were headed back to the hotel... and we waited for them... and waited... a loooong time... go public transportation, go! When they finally got back I asked why the heck they didn't just text me to come pick them up. Dos confessed it hadn't occurred to him. There were more lols, because again, I am mean. >D
At least we had time to get Shel to try on her dress, so I was able to cut the bottom to the right length and get the shoulder strap decorations glued on... which, despite my careful measuring, ended up too high... curses and alas. And I got the jewelry finished up, I believe. By then it was probably pretty late, so I'm betting that was about it for Thursday.
Friday
Friday there was no urgent need to get up early, but I still had a ton of work to get done. I let Shel and Dos know we were awake, and they came down while Kasey was finishing her shower. At some point, Kasey mentioned that she was naked in there, and Dos literally launched himself toward the bathroom so fast that he slipped on a blanket and crashed to the floor. More lols were had. Poor Dos.
A friend of Kasey's who lived in the area,nyruserra, came to visit and did us all the huge favor of helping with cosplay work. Shel did some ironing, Kasey sewed some hems, and nyruserra did some hand-stitching of hooks and things. Dos was equally eager to help but there were only so many tasks I could delegate, so he made a food run for us. Everyone was so helpful, I never could've pulled it off without them. :)
In the mix I crammed another episode of Fushigi Yuugi and some episode summaries from online and took an hour off for the FY panel, the first panel of my lineup and one of the first panels of the con. My fellow panelists were familiar faces, including Chaos andice_rose, and although the audience was very small it seemed to go well. And I think I managed to cover my preparedness fail reasonably well. >.> I came out of there motivated to watch the OAVs, which I never bothered with before.
After the panel, Chaos andice_rose came upstairs with me to meet everyone, and we grabbed the props and headed across the street to the convention center together. nyruserra didn't have a badge, so she had to wait outside while I waited in the looooong prop check line with Kasey and Shel. We got a number of compliments on the props while we were just waiting in line, which was a great omen. :D When we were finally done, we had dinner at the Swiss Chalet and then locked ourselves back in our room for more work. We did take some time out to watch Dr. Horrible, which went over well. (Note to self: Big LCD monitor works well, but laptop internal speakers are FAIL.)
shel haz fleurs
Fit test after attaching hooks to the back of the Serenity dress. There was a LOT of extra fabric on this thing before cutting and hemming. It covered the entire bed.
Shortly after that picture was taken, the extra was cut off the dress and Kasey hemmed the lining and main layer. The transparent outer layer needed a hem tape finish, so she couldn't do that one, and unfortunately I had to let it go for the weekend since we ran out of time. :\ Shel's wig was also cut and styled Friday night. We stayed up so late working that we had to resign ourselves to missing the Sailormoon photoshoot Saturday morning. As it was, my attempt to make gloves for the Saturn costume failed horribly, and I had to accept that Shel's costume would be missing that particular piece. :(
By the time we went to bed, though, everything else was finished at least to the point of being useable for Saturday. Whew! Such a close call. I am NEVER taking on a project like this two and a half months before the deadline EVER AGAIN (with moving in the middle, to boot!). I still can't believe we pulled it off, haha.
But cosplay day is a story for part 2!
Con report starts earlier than normal, because this year there was Kasey! :D
Tuesday
Our story starts on Tuesday the 19th, which I spent working on cosplay stuff right up to the minute it was time to leave for the airport. My sister had the day off, so she came along, which was fortunate because I got all the way to the exit before realizing I didn't know which terminal Southwest flies into. Sister guessed the smaller one, which turned out to be correct, and before long we had a
nephthysmoon (Kasey)! :D Meanwhile, I was busily writing out the packing list since I hadn't had time to start packing OR even make a supply list yet. x_xWhatever Kasey says about Minnesota being cold, it was HOT on Tuesday. It does get hot here on occasion. :P We went over to the Mall of America for dinner, since it's right next to the airport and the only convenient tourist trap. I had hoped to do more work over dinner, heh, but we ended up at a burger place, so that didn't happen. Yummy foodz, though. And Kasey got to see the Avatar ride, haha.
On the way back, we made what I hoped would be our final stop for supplies; I'd meant to go before heading to the airport but kept plugging away on the costumes instead. I took the long way back to my house so Kasey could see both cities, and to introduce her to I-94, with which we would become intimately acquainted the following day. Ugh. Then it was back to my place... for more work. I had had these lofty dreams of having everything ready when Kasey arrived, and only needing to hem her dress and pack the car... lol no. Kasey did me the favor of baking the necklace pendants while I made jewelry, started the bow for her dress, and who knows what else. The Serenity pendant got messed up, but Kasey had brought her Ginzuishou necklace, so we were able to use that instead and it saved me from making a third chain. I also got to see Kasey put on the nearly-finished dress for the first time and omg. I had seen it assembled, and on a dressform, but nothing compared to seeing her actually wear it. So gorgeous. I couldn't stop squeeing. *_*
Kasey also became my hero by attempting to get what might be an actual bird out of my bathroom vent (long story...) but sadly that plan was a failure. Still, hero. There was a worm! That's something! :D? Eventually we had to stop everything so I could pack up and we could get to sleep. Fortunately, we didn't have to get up too early the following morning.
Wednesday
Wednesday I got up, showered, made French toast, and printed off the maps and directions and things for the trip. My sister was cranky with me when we left and wouldn't say why, but later she sent me a text to say she was sorry and that she was just sad she couldn't come with us. Aww. We had to make one more stop before hitting the road, so we got going quite a bit later than I wanted, but a lot of that was my fault for being so unprepared. In the early afternoon, we were on our way. And then it was time for REVENGE! mwaha. When I visited Florida last summer, Kasey made fun of me for being so interested in common staples like palm trees and sand. Well, now it was Kasey's turn to be fascinated by ordinary things. Like pine trees. And rocks. And fields. Fields, people. With crops in. I loled, because I am mean.
We were distracted from the monotony of Wisconsin by the CDs
sache was kind enough to burn for us. First was the "ultimate driving mix," which turned out to be... songs about driving. And cars. A bit more literal than we were expecting, hee. An unexpected lullaby track followed by "Asleep At The Wheel" was a lolarious stroke of genius, however, as was the second CD, sache's version of an entire convention condensed into 80 minutes. By the time that one was halfway through, Kasey and I were overcome by an insane urge to draft "Con: The Musical."I can't remember what we did for dinner on Wednesday, but it must've been before we hit Chicago, because we were running so late I couldn't even get a pretzel at the toll road oases. ;_; But we got through it, making reasonable time, and I decided I'd be satisfied if we at least made it to Michigan by the end of the day. So we stopped in Michigan City for the night... thinking we were across the state line... only to find out later that Michigan City is not, in fact, in Michigan. WTF, Indiana? State envy? We got to stay at a very nice Super 8 for a very affordable price, at least, and walked over to Steak & Shake for late-night treats. :D And then I raised the waistline of the Serenity dress a little before bed. Yes, in the hotel room, with a sewing machine. Not the first or the last time. >_>
Thursday
Thursday we were up early. Sleep deprivation rapidly became a theme on this trip. We were losing an hour to the time zone change, so we had to get on the road ASAP. Since I now had the waistline of the Serenity dress in the right position, Kasey was able to sew on the final row of pearls in the car. That was the only component I hadn't had time to add in advance, but it turned out to be better that I didn't, as I was able to adjust the dress to hide a lot of the gap on the bodice that came from having the circles higher than accurate.
Even with leaving early and light traffic at the border, we didn't make it to Toronto until everyone else was at dinner. However, that gave us plenty of time to move in our tons of stuff, get Kasey's badge, and run across the street for Subway and supplies (mostly snacks and drinks this time) from the convenience store. On the way out I found the panelist registration table was already open, which I hadn't expected, but at that point we were going to have to get our props checked in on Friday anyway. I did pick up my badge, though, and got lucky that the guy who happened to be manning the table at the time didn't care if I didn't write my real name on mine. Mwaha. :3
As soon as we arrived, Kasey got comfy.
Then I got back to work on more cosplay stuffs. Meanwhile,
shel_b_129 (Shel) and mechaboydos (Dos) were done with dinner and were headed back to the hotel... and we waited for them... and waited... a loooong time... go public transportation, go! When they finally got back I asked why the heck they didn't just text me to come pick them up. Dos confessed it hadn't occurred to him. There were more lols, because again, I am mean. >DAt least we had time to get Shel to try on her dress, so I was able to cut the bottom to the right length and get the shoulder strap decorations glued on... which, despite my careful measuring, ended up too high... curses and alas. And I got the jewelry finished up, I believe. By then it was probably pretty late, so I'm betting that was about it for Thursday.
Friday
Friday there was no urgent need to get up early, but I still had a ton of work to get done. I let Shel and Dos know we were awake, and they came down while Kasey was finishing her shower. At some point, Kasey mentioned that she was naked in there, and Dos literally launched himself toward the bathroom so fast that he slipped on a blanket and crashed to the floor. More lols were had. Poor Dos.
A friend of Kasey's who lived in the area,
nyruserra, came to visit and did us all the huge favor of helping with cosplay work. Shel did some ironing, Kasey sewed some hems, and nyruserra did some hand-stitching of hooks and things. Dos was equally eager to help but there were only so many tasks I could delegate, so he made a food run for us. Everyone was so helpful, I never could've pulled it off without them. :)In the mix I crammed another episode of Fushigi Yuugi and some episode summaries from online and took an hour off for the FY panel, the first panel of my lineup and one of the first panels of the con. My fellow panelists were familiar faces, including Chaos and
ice_rose, and although the audience was very small it seemed to go well. And I think I managed to cover my preparedness fail reasonably well. >.> I came out of there motivated to watch the OAVs, which I never bothered with before. After the panel, Chaos and
ice_rose came upstairs with me to meet everyone, and we grabbed the props and headed across the street to the convention center together. nyruserra didn't have a badge, so she had to wait outside while I waited in the looooong prop check line with Kasey and Shel. We got a number of compliments on the props while we were just waiting in line, which was a great omen. :D When we were finally done, we had dinner at the Swiss Chalet and then locked ourselves back in our room for more work. We did take some time out to watch Dr. Horrible, which went over well. (Note to self: Big LCD monitor works well, but laptop internal speakers are FAIL.)shel haz fleurs
Fit test after attaching hooks to the back of the Serenity dress. There was a LOT of extra fabric on this thing before cutting and hemming. It covered the entire bed.
Shortly after that picture was taken, the extra was cut off the dress and Kasey hemmed the lining and main layer. The transparent outer layer needed a hem tape finish, so she couldn't do that one, and unfortunately I had to let it go for the weekend since we ran out of time. :\ Shel's wig was also cut and styled Friday night. We stayed up so late working that we had to resign ourselves to missing the Sailormoon photoshoot Saturday morning. As it was, my attempt to make gloves for the Saturn costume failed horribly, and I had to accept that Shel's costume would be missing that particular piece. :(
By the time we went to bed, though, everything else was finished at least to the point of being useable for Saturday. Whew! Such a close call. I am NEVER taking on a project like this two and a half months before the deadline EVER AGAIN (with moving in the middle, to boot!). I still can't believe we pulled it off, haha.
But cosplay day is a story for part 2!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: May. 31st, 2009 04:28 pm (UTC)When I make you make cosplay stuff for me, I'll totally give you more than two months. <3
no subject
Date: May. 31st, 2009 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 31st, 2009 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 31st, 2009 10:39 pm (UTC)I just want you to know that I planned THE ENTIRE CD around that joke. THE ENTIRE CD.
no subject
Date: Jun. 1st, 2009 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 31st, 2009 10:50 pm (UTC)As for the two and a half months thing. Sure, you cut it close, but it was a beautiful project! You really did do a great job. :)
no subject
Date: Jun. 1st, 2009 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jun. 1st, 2009 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jun. 1st, 2009 07:23 am (UTC)The problem would be that Eric wants to cosplay too so we would only be able to make paired characters.
no subject
Date: Jun. 1st, 2009 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jun. 1st, 2009 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jun. 1st, 2009 07:40 pm (UTC)Or you could do the anime versions of Serenity and Endymion! After making the manga version and watching the first season of the anime in the rewatch on .moon, I'm kind of wanting to try making the anime version of the dress as well. It would be neat to have an anime and a manga version together.
no subject
Date: Jun. 1st, 2009 03:04 pm (UTC)You know we never did get a picture of my present. *sigh* I'll have to do that one myself.
no subject
Date: Jun. 1st, 2009 07:37 pm (UTC)