AX 2009 Con Report

Jul 05, 2009 22:27

So after all the panicking and scrambling to finish costumes, AX is finally over and done with. Overall, it was alright and pretty much what I expected of AX. I still don't like the location but... whatever. We made the best of what we had to work with and I had an overall pretty good time so yay. ^^ DAY 0:  For the record, I never go to Day 0... so stop calling me to ask if I'm there, people! I'm not! And if someday, some-con I am, I will call you. ^^;;  I actually spent day zero in a panic, trying to finish my costumes and such. I spent the night at sani_caranza's house, but didn't end up getting there until after 6pm because my mother needed me to watch my brother--and I had lots of last-minute errands to run. So after packing in a hurry, stressing over forgetting stuff, stopping by 5 different stores to pick up supplies, food, and more trim, I finally made my way over to Sani's house, went to church with her and her family, then sewed and hot-glued like a crazy cosplayer, resulting in a lovely night of 4 hours of sleep! And the only reason I got even that was because I realized I forgot to buy some buttons I needed and also ran out of trim, so I couldn't work on my costumes...thus, sleep was the back up plan. >.>

DAY 1:  After running to Jo-Ann's to pick up my much-needed buttons and trim, we left at about noon and we WOULD have been to AX by 1-ish, but... Her parents drove us there, and as soon as we exited the freeway to get to our hotel, we hit massive traffic. Turns out there was a robbery nearby and the entire area for several blocks was surrounded by cops letting nobody through. It was revolting. It took us another hour to get to our hotel--an hour for what should have been a 5-minute drive. Stupid robber or whatever he was. To jail with him! D<

Well, once all that was done, however, we moved into our room, reseved by  lyceeangel who got there the night before. By this point, I was hot, exhausted, and rather annoyed, so I didn't even feel like cosplaying. Not like most of my costumes were even finished anyway. So I ended up just wearing a light blue yukata  with my Kallen wig and wandering around like that. I got my badge, went to the artist alley (where I spent far too much money on amazing arts >< ) and ran into friends and acquaintances. When we went back to the hotel, we went swimming and then  kikyouluver ended up staying in our hotel room. She,  konishii, and I stayed up really late sewing and got next to no sleep...

DAY 2: Avatar day! Because of the stupid Zuko scar make-up that takes forever to put on, I dragged myself out of bed earlier than I usually would, destroyed my face with a bunch of liquid latex and Ben Nye make-up palletes, put on my lovely million-layered Zuko, and headed off with Sani as Ty Lee and Lyceeangel as Prisoner-version Suki (her brother was prisoner Hakoda). I actually had a lot of fun in this costume. We found a really good Avatar group consisting of Azula, Suki, and Mai and took some pictures with them. As soon as we decided to take a few pictures, however, suddenly half the convention showed up asking for photos... as did an Avatar Cabbage Salesman who joined our epic group of win. We weren't able to move from our spot for over a half-hour. It was awesome but tiring.

After exchanging emails with our new buddies, we went on a quest to locate our other friends, who were doing a Yu Gi Oh! photoshoot in some remote area that took us a bit to find--and I was soooo hot in all those freaking layers! In any case, the Yu Gi Oh! group were awesome, we hung out, ate some ice cream, etc etc. I swear, the ice cream men around AX must have gotten rich by the end of the weekend! It was hot and everyone was buying it. XD I had 3 or 4 myself.

After Avatar, Sani had to work the Funimation booth, so I was going to cosplay Code Geass with Kikyouluver, my Lelouch. So I went back to the hotel to finish up my Kallen costume real quick and put it on... AND IT FAILED. Not only was the wig refusing to be styled, the freaking costume fell apart. My machine was being rebellious and not sewing through the vinyl, so I'd used a high-temperature hot glue gun to put the trim and straps on--and apparently, it didn't work. The straps started snapping open and coming unglued, as did some of the trim, and did I mention the wig was being a total jerk?! After about an hour of trying to put the damn thing on, I finally just lost it and started taking it off. I was really upset. Stef (kikyouluver) and I ended up taking some really quick pictures in the hallway outside our hotel room, where I had to hold half my costume on in carefully arranged poses, and that was that. After the tiny and ridiculously lame photoshoot, I gladly ripped the stupid thing off and shoved it behind my suitcase so I wouldn't have to look at the epic failure for the rest of the con. Afterwards, I was really pissed off annoyed and disappointed about all the sleepless time I spent apparantly for nothing, and was really out of it for a few hours. I moped  lounged in the hotel room and watched Ghost Stories until Sani and Lyceeangel came back so we could change into our Sailor Scouts.

Once we changed, we went back to the con center sometime between 10pm and 11pm  to take a photoshoot with Eurobeat King, and it turns out there were some incredible Transformers cosplayers there. Not only did we do our photoshoot with EBK, we got to pose with the Transformers too, and even ended up finding a random Mars cosplayer to take some pictures with us. We hung around for a while, were asked for a zillion pictures, and fought Venom and some Bleach characters. All in all, the Senshi group epicness made up for the utter fail of Kallen, but I'm still rather irritated it failed most miserably didn't work out.

After that, I had to finish my D'Eon coat and Konishii had to finish her Syaoran dress--yes, dress. She was cosplaying from the Sleeping Beauty episode. XD Itsuka also came over to help her and we in turn helped Itsuka buff her Lord Knight armor. I ended up going to bed earlier than planned since I couldn't find my D'Eon buttons and got an okay amount of sleep that night.

Oh, and at some point, Noel shared with us his brilliant plan to cut the stupid shuttle-pass wristbands (only a maximum of 4 were issued per room) in half so that more people could have "one" since it looked like they were just folded inside our badge holders. The brilliantness worked! I had no problems shuttle-riding and Noel is awesome. XD

DAY 3: For the beginning of the day, I helped Konishii and Itsuka into their CCS cosplay, then was too lazy to cosplay myself and accompanied them dressed in normie attire, helping carry Konishii's giant dress and being a bodyguard-thing. We wandered around a bit, met up with Sani, then I wandered around with Lyceeangel who was cosplaying Selphie. She was adorable! After that, I took a short photoshoot of Stef and Aya's Pandora Hearts cosplays and then Stef and I changed into Le Chevalier D'Eon.

At least my D'Eon costume turned out pretty well. Stef and I went to the dealer hall then did a short shoot with EBK and just wandered around the con for a while. Only a few people knew what anime we were from, but we were asked for pictures anyway, so it works. ^^; A Spanish newspaper even took our picture! (El Mundo, I think...?)  We headed back to the hotel around dusk, along with Konishii, and I changed into Mercury with the intent of going back to the convention to join Sani and Lycee who were in their Sailor Senshi cosplay, but we had wanted to go swimming, so they just ended up coming back to the hotel to take a few quick photos together before we changed into bathing suits and went to the pool... but it was closed. It said it closed at 10pm, but everyone insisted that if we were quiet, we could go in after hours. Turns out that plan was a no-go and we had a party in the bathtub instead. I didn't know 5 people could fit in a bathtub, but apparently they can.

Afterwards, we ordered pizza and chicken wings, then went on a walk around the hotel a bit until the food was delivered. I hung out with Lycee and Stef and we talked. It ws fun and mostly relaxing. We went on a quest for the rumored 24-hour mini-mart in the hotel, but didn't succeed in finding it. When the food arrived, we all rejoiced in finally having something warm (and greasy) to eat, then finally went to bed  sometime between 3 and 4am.

DAY 4: Lycee is amazing and got us late check-out, so we didn't have to leave the room until 2pm. Thus, she and I cosplayed as Mello and Near and went to the dealer hall during the late morning. I bought Death the Kid merchendise (oh, and the Princess Tutu DVD box set!) and then we shared a smoothie and made friends with the people at the table next to us. They were really nice and gave us free pins. ^^ After that, we took a quick photoshoot with Sojian and then checked out. Cosplayers have way too much crap! It took 6 of us three trips to get everything down. My dad then picked Sani and me up, and we went to Little Tokyo to have a late lunch around 3pm since Sani and I were sick of eating junk food. I had something called Toban Yaki and it was delicious. X3

After my dad dropped Sani off, he went on ahead since I'd left my car at her house and I stayed for about half an hour before heading back home. I was so tired! I opened the window and blasted rock music to keep myself alert, but I got home fine. I just had to concentrate a little harder than usual and blink a lot because my eyes kept getting really dry... And that's it! Now I'm home and instead of sleeping like I really should be, I just spent an hour writing this. Afterwards, I'll be going on Discedo (the RP I recently joined) and geeking out because even amidst the hectic conness, I actually still missed it. Yes, I'm a nerd. It's hopeless.

In any case, if anyone bothered to read this overly-detailed thing, it's over now! Rejoice!

Pictures from the con will be up soon on my DA. And now I'm off to be a geeky person and then maybe finally sleep at some point tonight. If anyone tries to call me before 2pm tomorrow, don't expect me to pick up. Ciao~

con report, anime expo, longness

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