FanExpo 2011 Con Report

What a long~~~ weekend. I'm home early. Kind of drama with my family. I'm still totally exausted though. I'll try to keep my con report short. ^_^

I got there on wednesday to pick up the badges. Reg was simple since I was there in advance. I actually brought a lot of work to do with me: paints, glue gun, and ample amount of felt. Wednesday was spent giving hair to the 10 plushies I didn't have time to give hair to, and I actually didn't finish it all. ^_^;

Thursday was the first day of the con. It was so slow~~

I shared a table with Julie and Amanda. They were so awesome! ^_^ As you can see in my table merch pic, there are a lot of chibis, but hardly any of my more expensive/more detailed plushies. Just Aang, Howl and Kamina.  I was also taking keychain commissions. I got too many of them, which resulted in sleep deprivation the entire weekend.

Day 1 keychain commissions

I'm an idiot and didn't take pics of the other two days of commissions, but to name a few, I made a bunch of OCs, Blaine from Glee, Doctor Who, Chihiro, Howl, Chrona, Aang... There were 18 in total.

I used Julie's sticker as a ref for Doctor Who.

For future cons, I don't mind taking commissions, but I wouldn't take as much. I decided to do it for this con because I found a bunch of blank keychain heads that I made 2 years ago, and I needed to do something with it! I'm glad I did because everyone was more interested in commissions anyways.  The downside is that I didn't have enough time to finish painting the bodies at my table, so I'd have to bring them back to my hostel to finish up. I originally intended to get the painting out of the way, and the hair glueing could get done at the hostel (but then I ended up doing everything after con hours!).

Keychain version of herself. :D

FanExpo was weird... I found that people didn't settle. Usually, if someone didn't see the character that they really wanted, they'd go for their second choice. Some people did that, but most people didn't, lol. Needless to say, selling my chibis didn't go like hotcakes, and I have a bunch left. (I'll post that in the next few days). I did manage to sell Kamina and Aang, which I'm happy with because the buyers were really excited and happy to adopt them! :) But people who bought my chibis were also happy. :)

N and N. She was SO happy to find him!

Okay, he bought this for his gf,
but I thought it was the funniest thing cuz
he's got piercings and tats and he's holding Stein!

She got Ash at AN, but she got him signed here.

Chrona! She commissioned me for a mini-Chrona.

She commissioned me for two of her OCs :)

lol, that's the same girl as the Link.

lol, we fangirled talked about Reborn together. ^_^ 

Alice came to join us on saturday and sunday. It was fun seeing her. ^_^ But there wasn't much to do at the con itself. I realised that I'm really not fond of gaming, sci-fi, comics and horror. Only Anime, LOL. Well, I like j-pop culture/fashion and anything Japanese... so that's why a con like Anime North sits better with me.  FanExpo was also really commercial; so of course the artists are shoved in the back of the dealers.

I bought a few postcards. One from Jessie Lam. http://axl99.deviantart.com/ I met her at my first year of AN because our tables were next to eachother. I got one of her Pheonix Wright postcards~ I don't even know the game, but she explained what the scene she drew was about (Phoenix playing the keyboard) and I thought it was hilarious!

I also got some postcards from Onoda Yuta http://yutaonoda.com/ I really like his style. (and off the record, the artist himself is quite hot, LOL)

I was also really close to buying a print of Chihiro and dragon-form Haku (it was drawn in a realistic style)...When I saw it with Alice, we both had the tingles (well, I had the tingles, not sure if she did)... but I don't buy prints! Only original prints (i.e. intaglio/relief, litho, silkscreen).  I'm really not into the digital off-set printer stuff... I mean, I understand why most people use it, but I'd rather pay 50~200$ for an original print made in an edition. Anyways, the pic was nice enough for me to continue thinking about it despite my pretention, but when I returned the next day, it was sold out.

All in all, I'd give FanExpo a 5/10. I made less than Anime North, but it was definitely better than Otakuthon. They gave me a form to re-apply, and I didn't fill it in. I'm for sure not returning.  The weekend has been an eye-opener; it made me realise that I miss the fine arts so much!!  I'm still going to stick with the plush commissions for this year, but I think I'll lay low on the cons. Only AN and maybe Otakuthon since it's in my own city.  :p