Anime Detour thoughts
NOw I was there on a limited badge so I didnt get to many panels, other than the ones I was on. I had a blast working with Rae, Jo, Anne-Marie and Virginia. As well as Eric and Keith and Anne-Marie's friend with the Johnny Walker Black! Here are my impressions, this is held in the same Hotel as CONvergence, but is visibly more crowded and louder. Mainly I think because the fandom is roughly 15-20 years younger. And the numbers are such that there are roughly 1000 more people in the hotel. The dealers room was too small (accidentally) for the vendors and was really well stocked, I gravitated to the weapons guy and got a little thing.
Costuming! At SF cons, people will costume Saturday for sure, and some will do it Friday night, almost never on sunday. And the highest percentage you will get at a pure SF con is about 50%.
At AD I would say 90% of the con goers were in costume, and that all the time. There is so much good imagery in Anime and Manga that if you were on a binge, you could wear 4 costumes a day all weekend without repeating. Workmanship varied from painted teeshirts to master level construction... We need to teach them about use of materials though; there must be some new anime with a batch of WWII-ish uniforms because I saw a lot, mostly made from cotton and polyester (sigh)
I got to do my geisha makeup on my new fav model, Jo, who is game for anything. It turned out pretty good, I wish I would have had more light to do it and not so many people walking in and out of the work area, but it turned out real well, and I got a lot of pictures - on my FB page if you can get there.
I did about 5 hours of cosplay panels, and got some good info out there on makeup. I also got rid of all my business cards! So I might get some work out of this... Downside was I got asked for a quick quote on doing the Geisha makeup for someone; the first number that came to my head was $100, but I quoted her $50 and even that was too much for her. The thing is you get what you pay for in this as in all things. I can't do a rush job on stuff anymore, and can't give stuff away either.
Costuming! At SF cons, people will costume Saturday for sure, and some will do it Friday night, almost never on sunday. And the highest percentage you will get at a pure SF con is about 50%.
At AD I would say 90% of the con goers were in costume, and that all the time. There is so much good imagery in Anime and Manga that if you were on a binge, you could wear 4 costumes a day all weekend without repeating. Workmanship varied from painted teeshirts to master level construction... We need to teach them about use of materials though; there must be some new anime with a batch of WWII-ish uniforms because I saw a lot, mostly made from cotton and polyester (sigh)
I got to do my geisha makeup on my new fav model, Jo, who is game for anything. It turned out pretty good, I wish I would have had more light to do it and not so many people walking in and out of the work area, but it turned out real well, and I got a lot of pictures - on my FB page if you can get there.
I did about 5 hours of cosplay panels, and got some good info out there on makeup. I also got rid of all my business cards! So I might get some work out of this... Downside was I got asked for a quick quote on doing the Geisha makeup for someone; the first number that came to my head was $100, but I quoted her $50 and even that was too much for her. The thing is you get what you pay for in this as in all things. I can't do a rush job on stuff anymore, and can't give stuff away either.