Costumes and Toys and Zoos, oh my!
So hey, last year I took a bunch of pictures and then utterly failed to post most of them. But if Yoshiko can finally post the last of her pictures from Japan, I can certainly get around to posting multiple angles of my Professor Layton revoltech.
Around April, I got the Layton revoltech, and promptly set him up on my desk with his little cafe table and tea. Here he is happily discussing a tricky puzzle with my UCSB duck.
I got some pretty flowers at Jo-Ann's to make my mantle "springy."
When I visited my family at Easter, one of the things we did was go down to the history museum. It was really fun! They had rock and crystal displays that we just pored over, they were so fascinating, and in the back was this terrific set of dinosaur displays.
Early on during our visit, Alan pointed out a display of pre-historic fish fossils that got progressively larger on the wall and said "There's Always a Bigger Fish". From then on, just about every time we moved into a new room, lo! There would indeed be a bigger fish, eventually culminating in the monstrosity hanging from the cieling that Alan is looking up at here.
I went to the Toledo Zoo later in the visit, and the signs at the aquarium were just great. If you've been around a clownfish anytime since 2003, you know the kids will not say "Look, clownfish!" but instead "Look, Nemo!"
And here's the sign by the giant crabs telling people that the internet is full of liars.
I actually met one of the curators of the zoo later on, when I wandered into their administration building (it was doubling as a frog and insect exhibit), and told her how much I loved the signs and all the theming and such I'd seen. In turn, she gave me some tips about when the best times to visit were and which parts of the zoo were absolutely must-sees. (For the record, try for June - that's when their extensive butterfly garden really comes to life.)
This fish is so ugly it's almost cute.
Panther Chameleon. I'd never seen such a colorful chameleon before.
Turf wars.
Pretty ducky.
The wolves at this exhibit were either very friendly or else very determined to eat a tourist.
I ordered some mini sakura trees from J-List to perk up my desk. They didn't arrive 'til May, but that's what I get for only seeing the listing in April.
It's just like those Christmas trees you can do that grow snow or ornament crystals (depending on if you use food coloring). You set up the cardboard in the little dish, pour the crystal solution over it, and wait for crystals/blossoms.
One note: make sure you sort of fan out the branches if you ever buy one of these. I didn't realize I was supposed to do that and ended up with very straight branches. Still looked nice, but not as good as they could have.
The crystals start to grow.
I didn't have too many figures the right size for the trees, so I dug around in my older stuff and found my Inu Yasha set and the chibi Tsubasa figures.
Blooms!
It only took a few hours for them to reach this state. You can see that some of the crystals got too heavy and fell off. That was partly because I didn't spread out the branches, so they were all concentrated together, and partly because if you try to move these once the crystals have grown you will be knocking at least some of them down. They're pretty delicate. But it only adds to the effect and it's not toxic, so it's all good.
He's been talking about that puzzle for a long time.
A cherry tree for Chopper.
And one for the Aria girls.
I had ordered five trees, and did four of them initially, keeping back the fifth for next year. But when I realized about the branches, I decided screw it, I wanted to see what it would look like if I did it properly. You can see the difference here.
A few people actually thought I had bonsai sakuras or something on my desk before taking a closer look. They really do look organic.
One of the other things on my desk people keep taking for real is my butterfly in a jar.
Had a date at the Omaha Zoo in May. The guy wasn't anything exciting, but these flowers were very pretty.
And this baby bunny hopping around was adorable.
At the end of June, right before Anime Expo, Haru-chan showed up. She represents spring in NHK's "Haru-chan's Weather Trivia."
Sakuras.
Our air-conditioning got knocked out in July (I think it was lightning that did it?) and the office was really humid (and pretty hot) during the weeks it took to get it properly fixed. I took down the artwork on my desk, since humidity is bad for paper things you want to keep nice, and in the process knocked off a bunch of the blossoms on one of the trees. Making the best of things, I posed Inu Yasha et al for dramatic effect.
Layton has a new visitor! No, no hearts in need of healing (not unless you have a time machine... ::sniff::), but would you be interested in a puzzle about a painting chameleon?
Heh. I'd forgotten I put Haru-chan's cat on Kobato's hat.
I didn't want any of my nice artwork up, but I can't stand having blank walls either, so I drew a few appropriate environments and put my pokemon kids up. They're laminated, since they were originally meant to be keychains (I don't know why Artist Alley thinks laminated cutouts make good keychains, but whatever, that's not what I use them for anyway), so I figured they'd be fine in the humidity.
For some reason, my co-workers were not impressed by my artistic skills.
The Going Merry joined the mantle display.
I had such a good time at Expo that I decided to spend a day at Anime Iowa. Here's me looking mod in the hotel room as I get ready to go.
It was definitely a small convention, with all that that implies (less to do, lower panel standards, the unsupervised kids making themselves impossible to ignore, seeing the exact same people every time you walk down the main corridor, etc), but it was friendly, and lots of people had put effort into dressing up and having a good time.
Tiger vs Bunny!
Going was probably worth it just for this.
Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity, looking utterly adorable and in character.
Examining a rack of anime-themed hoodies, including a prominently advertised (and sold out) Rainbow Dash one.
It wasn't deliberate, but I love the way her cutie mark shows up in the mirror.
"Izaaaaayaaaaaaaa!"
These two just can't go anywhere without fighting, can they?
Battle-damaged Whitebeard. Those were some pretty impressive wounds.
This Toph was just great.
Speaking of, has anyone seen the trailer for Legend of Korra? I haven't, because I loathe spoilers of any kind, but the trailer means it's coming soon!
Ed and Ein were chilling on the grass outside.
Suzaku can't resist a puppy.
D'awww. Holy Roman Empire has such a crush on Italy.
Oh my! Who could this other pointing fellow be?!
Why, it's Phoenix Wright!
Of course, we had tea.
Izaya and Shizuo take their fight to a new battleground: Apples to Apples.
Incidentally, Apples to Apples is the official game of Anime Iowa. This is true.
Luffy and Ace.
Come Labor Day, I did what I do every year for the holiday: I went to a zoo. The local Blank Park Zoo in this case, as it was the last day for the Dinosaurs Alive! exhibit and I hadn't seen it yet.
This is me riding a frog.
The red pandas now have an outside portion to their exhibit, and were out and about.
Too cute.
The dinosaurs exhibit was awesome. Not because it was particularly large or spectacularly real-looking, though it was of decent size and everything moved convincingly, but because it looked like it had come right from the pages of the National Geographic pop-up books I had as a kid. The colors and poses were just like all my old dinosaur books.
Which makes me wonder: when a new dinosaur is discovered, does the artist who draws it get to say "orange" and then that dinosaur is forever considered orange until proven otherwise? Like, is this some kind of archeological rule? Or were these animatronics actually based on the same illustrations as those books? Maybe certain poses are part of collective dinosaur culture now? Or was it all just fantastical coincidence?
These guys, for example. Their movement was butting their heads against each other, and I swear I've seen exactly this picture before.
Hello.
Uh oh.
This t-rex really scared some of the kids when it would turn its head towards them. The other kids just liked to pet it on the nose. Not that you were supposed to touch the dinosaurs, but security wasn't exactly tight.
"It's the circle of liiiiiiiiife..."
More pretty flowers.
The next week, I went to the local renfaire. I already posted pictures from the first week I went, but I went back the next weekend after that. This time, since it was pirate week, I got out my Orphen dress and pirated it up (mostly by adding a scarf over my hair and stripey socks on my feet).
The regular face painters couldn't be there that day so this fairy was subbing in. This is me getting a sparkly parrot tattoo on my shoulder.
I was shocked how many people recognized my dress. One of the guys at the gate, a few different kids, the faerie queen herself, some other kid... It was more than recognized me when I wore it at Anime Expo!
Arrr! There be treasure in that there sandbox!
Dig!
Being a lazy sort of pirate, I impressed this nearby fellow into my crew to make him dig for me.
But after I thanked him for the photo op and he went on his way, I still felt like digging. It's rather fun in short intervals.
Treasure!
Shooting a bow proved to be particularly difficult in these sleeves.
"Dorlemagne," or Dory for short, owns a dress shop at the faire but occasionally likes to dress up as something more befitting her stature: a barbarian from the North. Her she is being fended off by a brave young lad who happened to be standing nearby.
Getting ready for the joust.
Some pirate musicians attempting to figure out what song they all know how to play during the grape-stomping contest. They eventually settled on "What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor" and butchered it only slightly.
"That guy" you may have heard me mention? He's the one in the middle. You will be shocked to learn that Johnny Depp is one of his favorite actors ever.
Dueling is serious business.
The Duke in red has just lost, his balloon popped. Very tragic.
Near the end of the day, I happened to meet some other girls standing in a group and commented that they were arranged chromatically. They in turn noticed that I was in yellow, and we were like, too bad nobody's wearing orange... Firemoon! Come be in our rainbow picture!
And that's April through most of September! Next up: Yoshiko comes to visit!
Around April, I got the Layton revoltech, and promptly set him up on my desk with his little cafe table and tea. Here he is happily discussing a tricky puzzle with my UCSB duck.
I got some pretty flowers at Jo-Ann's to make my mantle "springy."
When I visited my family at Easter, one of the things we did was go down to the history museum. It was really fun! They had rock and crystal displays that we just pored over, they were so fascinating, and in the back was this terrific set of dinosaur displays.
Early on during our visit, Alan pointed out a display of pre-historic fish fossils that got progressively larger on the wall and said "There's Always a Bigger Fish". From then on, just about every time we moved into a new room, lo! There would indeed be a bigger fish, eventually culminating in the monstrosity hanging from the cieling that Alan is looking up at here.
I went to the Toledo Zoo later in the visit, and the signs at the aquarium were just great. If you've been around a clownfish anytime since 2003, you know the kids will not say "Look, clownfish!" but instead "Look, Nemo!"
And here's the sign by the giant crabs telling people that the internet is full of liars.
I actually met one of the curators of the zoo later on, when I wandered into their administration building (it was doubling as a frog and insect exhibit), and told her how much I loved the signs and all the theming and such I'd seen. In turn, she gave me some tips about when the best times to visit were and which parts of the zoo were absolutely must-sees. (For the record, try for June - that's when their extensive butterfly garden really comes to life.)
This fish is so ugly it's almost cute.
Panther Chameleon. I'd never seen such a colorful chameleon before.
Turf wars.
Pretty ducky.
The wolves at this exhibit were either very friendly or else very determined to eat a tourist.
I ordered some mini sakura trees from J-List to perk up my desk. They didn't arrive 'til May, but that's what I get for only seeing the listing in April.
It's just like those Christmas trees you can do that grow snow or ornament crystals (depending on if you use food coloring). You set up the cardboard in the little dish, pour the crystal solution over it, and wait for crystals/blossoms.
One note: make sure you sort of fan out the branches if you ever buy one of these. I didn't realize I was supposed to do that and ended up with very straight branches. Still looked nice, but not as good as they could have.
The crystals start to grow.
I didn't have too many figures the right size for the trees, so I dug around in my older stuff and found my Inu Yasha set and the chibi Tsubasa figures.
Blooms!
It only took a few hours for them to reach this state. You can see that some of the crystals got too heavy and fell off. That was partly because I didn't spread out the branches, so they were all concentrated together, and partly because if you try to move these once the crystals have grown you will be knocking at least some of them down. They're pretty delicate. But it only adds to the effect and it's not toxic, so it's all good.
He's been talking about that puzzle for a long time.
A cherry tree for Chopper.
And one for the Aria girls.
I had ordered five trees, and did four of them initially, keeping back the fifth for next year. But when I realized about the branches, I decided screw it, I wanted to see what it would look like if I did it properly. You can see the difference here.
A few people actually thought I had bonsai sakuras or something on my desk before taking a closer look. They really do look organic.
One of the other things on my desk people keep taking for real is my butterfly in a jar.
Had a date at the Omaha Zoo in May. The guy wasn't anything exciting, but these flowers were very pretty.
And this baby bunny hopping around was adorable.
At the end of June, right before Anime Expo, Haru-chan showed up. She represents spring in NHK's "Haru-chan's Weather Trivia."
Sakuras.
Our air-conditioning got knocked out in July (I think it was lightning that did it?) and the office was really humid (and pretty hot) during the weeks it took to get it properly fixed. I took down the artwork on my desk, since humidity is bad for paper things you want to keep nice, and in the process knocked off a bunch of the blossoms on one of the trees. Making the best of things, I posed Inu Yasha et al for dramatic effect.
Layton has a new visitor! No, no hearts in need of healing (not unless you have a time machine... ::sniff::), but would you be interested in a puzzle about a painting chameleon?
Heh. I'd forgotten I put Haru-chan's cat on Kobato's hat.
I didn't want any of my nice artwork up, but I can't stand having blank walls either, so I drew a few appropriate environments and put my pokemon kids up. They're laminated, since they were originally meant to be keychains (I don't know why Artist Alley thinks laminated cutouts make good keychains, but whatever, that's not what I use them for anyway), so I figured they'd be fine in the humidity.
For some reason, my co-workers were not impressed by my artistic skills.
The Going Merry joined the mantle display.
I had such a good time at Expo that I decided to spend a day at Anime Iowa. Here's me looking mod in the hotel room as I get ready to go.
It was definitely a small convention, with all that that implies (less to do, lower panel standards, the unsupervised kids making themselves impossible to ignore, seeing the exact same people every time you walk down the main corridor, etc), but it was friendly, and lots of people had put effort into dressing up and having a good time.
Tiger vs Bunny!
Going was probably worth it just for this.
Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity, looking utterly adorable and in character.
Examining a rack of anime-themed hoodies, including a prominently advertised (and sold out) Rainbow Dash one.
It wasn't deliberate, but I love the way her cutie mark shows up in the mirror.
"Izaaaaayaaaaaaaa!"
These two just can't go anywhere without fighting, can they?
Battle-damaged Whitebeard. Those were some pretty impressive wounds.
This Toph was just great.
Speaking of, has anyone seen the trailer for Legend of Korra? I haven't, because I loathe spoilers of any kind, but the trailer means it's coming soon!
Ed and Ein were chilling on the grass outside.
Suzaku can't resist a puppy.
D'awww. Holy Roman Empire has such a crush on Italy.
Oh my! Who could this other pointing fellow be?!
Why, it's Phoenix Wright!
Of course, we had tea.
Izaya and Shizuo take their fight to a new battleground: Apples to Apples.
Incidentally, Apples to Apples is the official game of Anime Iowa. This is true.
Luffy and Ace.
Come Labor Day, I did what I do every year for the holiday: I went to a zoo. The local Blank Park Zoo in this case, as it was the last day for the Dinosaurs Alive! exhibit and I hadn't seen it yet.
This is me riding a frog.
The red pandas now have an outside portion to their exhibit, and were out and about.
Too cute.
The dinosaurs exhibit was awesome. Not because it was particularly large or spectacularly real-looking, though it was of decent size and everything moved convincingly, but because it looked like it had come right from the pages of the National Geographic pop-up books I had as a kid. The colors and poses were just like all my old dinosaur books.
Which makes me wonder: when a new dinosaur is discovered, does the artist who draws it get to say "orange" and then that dinosaur is forever considered orange until proven otherwise? Like, is this some kind of archeological rule? Or were these animatronics actually based on the same illustrations as those books? Maybe certain poses are part of collective dinosaur culture now? Or was it all just fantastical coincidence?
These guys, for example. Their movement was butting their heads against each other, and I swear I've seen exactly this picture before.
Hello.
Uh oh.
This t-rex really scared some of the kids when it would turn its head towards them. The other kids just liked to pet it on the nose. Not that you were supposed to touch the dinosaurs, but security wasn't exactly tight.
"It's the circle of liiiiiiiiife..."
More pretty flowers.
The next week, I went to the local renfaire. I already posted pictures from the first week I went, but I went back the next weekend after that. This time, since it was pirate week, I got out my Orphen dress and pirated it up (mostly by adding a scarf over my hair and stripey socks on my feet).
The regular face painters couldn't be there that day so this fairy was subbing in. This is me getting a sparkly parrot tattoo on my shoulder.
I was shocked how many people recognized my dress. One of the guys at the gate, a few different kids, the faerie queen herself, some other kid... It was more than recognized me when I wore it at Anime Expo!
Arrr! There be treasure in that there sandbox!
Dig!
Being a lazy sort of pirate, I impressed this nearby fellow into my crew to make him dig for me.
But after I thanked him for the photo op and he went on his way, I still felt like digging. It's rather fun in short intervals.
Treasure!
Shooting a bow proved to be particularly difficult in these sleeves.
"Dorlemagne," or Dory for short, owns a dress shop at the faire but occasionally likes to dress up as something more befitting her stature: a barbarian from the North. Her she is being fended off by a brave young lad who happened to be standing nearby.
Getting ready for the joust.
Some pirate musicians attempting to figure out what song they all know how to play during the grape-stomping contest. They eventually settled on "What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor" and butchered it only slightly.
"That guy" you may have heard me mention? He's the one in the middle. You will be shocked to learn that Johnny Depp is one of his favorite actors ever.
Dueling is serious business.
The Duke in red has just lost, his balloon popped. Very tragic.
Near the end of the day, I happened to meet some other girls standing in a group and commented that they were arranged chromatically. They in turn noticed that I was in yellow, and we were like, too bad nobody's wearing orange... Firemoon! Come be in our rainbow picture!
And that's April through most of September! Next up: Yoshiko comes to visit!