Signup Season begins!

One of the joys of doing artist's alleys is remembering all the random times and dates when various sign ups open. Tonight happens to be ShutoCon's opening!

Good luck to all the entrants!

NEKOCON

In other news, I heard back from a con I had sent an app into a while back: NEKOCON.

www.nekocon.com

They're a con out in Virginia (as seen in the image above), and I made it into the alley off the waitlist. Which was kind of surprising as I wasn't expecting to get off the list that soon if I did! I'm currently in negotiations trying to see if we can go (which I think we can - only hang up is Youmacon is the weekend before and I'm vending there, buuuuuuut it's local so it's not like I have to pay for hotels and such!).

The show itself seems like it should be a pretty decent size. According to their wiki, about 2 years ago they almost hit 5,000 attendees, so I would think it's at least grown a little bit since then. That's a good sized show for me, and I would think I'd do pretty well there, so I'm very seriously considering going. I have a few days to finish sending in my payment, so I was waiting to see what happened.

I'll keep y'all posted on that, though!

OH in other OTHER news, I updated the etsy shop!

crashbanglabs.etsy.com

I've now got larger versions of the Sailor Moon poster up, as well as adding the two new button sets.

SKY'S END REVIVAL DATE

Soooooooo it's almost July! That's TOMORROW. You know what I said I'd have ready to post? SKY'S END. That's right. It's new, it's shiny, I re-wrote it, and we are DOING THIS THING. There's only one hang up. July 1 is a TUESDAY, and I will be updating on M-W-F scheduling. So I'm making a preview and doing webstuff tomorrow, and WEDNESDAY I shall have proper pages for you all. :)

LET'S DO THIS.

A JAFAX Whirlwind Weekend

This past weekend I visited an old show of mine: JAFAX! For those who don't know, JAFAX is a small* convention that takes place on GVSU's campus up in Grand Rapids. (* I say small because the estimates were close to the 5,000 range on attendees, which is MUCH larger than I remember it being)

I had been up there helping out in the Artist's Alley, making sure they were doing okay since they had moved spots to a new building. Thankfully, the weather was perfect, and the crowds were wandering, so the alley was quite the bustling location. I was exceedingly relieved.

Business!

I did find out part way through the day on Saturday that they needed help/emcees for the fashion show. Lucky for them, I had packed a costume just in case, so I donned my Rarity, and proceeded to keep working!

Twilight Sparkle was there in plush Spirit

I got to do a short photo gathering with a bunch of other MLP cosplayers, and that was a hoot. :) My pal PhD Cosplay went as Photo Finish, and we ran the fashion show, while my husband helped out greatly as a cat herder cosplay wrangler.

It was a very successful weekend for the show and the artists, but man did it wear me out! I've been spending a lot of today recovering from said event. Then it's back to the artist's lair with me!

Getting Back on the Schedule

Okay! Wow. It's been a while (I have a feeling I'm going to say that until I can find enough topics that won't take me 13 years to type up to write about).

For those keeping score, my convention season finally came to a close. And by close, I mean I went to Indy Pop Con, vended, came back, and did stuff, and completely forgot about doing a write up for the show. Honestly though, I think I just posted like 5 convention reviews in a row, so I'll do a retro recap later.

Onto the topic at hand. Now that a lot of my life has calmed down - for those how don't keep up with my cosplay side of things, I basically "retired" from World Cosplay Summit, and most competing [unless under very very very specific circumstances]. Mainly my reasonings came down to the fact that it was starting to be detrimental to my artwork (which is kind of my career now), and my partner needed somebody who was going to be much more available than me.

Doesn't mean I won't stop cosplaying (I have a couple of easy ones I'm working on for GenCon). Just means I won't have to worry about competing like a boss. 

In the rest of the world, I have been having the most absolutely terribly awful worst month when it comes to artwork. Whether it was one thing or another, I was either heavily distracted or insanely depressed. I hate to use it as an excuse, but these things happen sometimes, and THAT'S OKAY. With my July 1st (though more like July 2nd since I want MWF update schedule) deadline approaching, I don't have a lot of work done on the NEW Sky's End stuff.

I have the chapter mapped out plot wise, but I have no thumbnails and I'm starting to get crazy cause I'm running out of time. I was in the mother of all slumps. So I decided I was gonna do something funny - I had just finished reading the book CON JOB, written by a pal of mine, Laura VanArendonk Baugh. Okay, so I kind of read it almost in an entire evening, I was riveted to the pages, and the only reason I set it down is because I had to get decent amounts of sleep (curse you real life!). But don't take my word for it, you should totally read it (especially if you like conventions!)

Oh, did I mention I got to draw the cover? I didn't?! WELL HERE IT IS!

This is my very own dead tree version!

So anyway, I was thinking that in the book there's a cosplayer who is dressed as a character from a story by a group called CLUTCH (okay, it's their CLAMP analog, and it's awesome), and I then thought to myself...

What would CLUTCH artwork look like, and what would this outfit be? So I drew as best as I could (I couldn't fit ALL the layers in the outfit as I wanted, but I think I got close enough), and then tried to mimic CLAMP's ink weight and coloring style as best I could.

I'd say I was successful:

Surprise Gifts are the Best Gifts

Now, the last part of this story is that the author didn't know I was drawing this. So I nonchalantly put it up on my Crash Bang FB page, with just the description of "Character: Achenar Series: Crooked Running Water, Heavenly Wedding Arc".

The reaction was the best I could have ever hoped for. :) I love it when a plan comes together.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to do some storyboarding!

*dons cape* *flies away*

Retro Recap: ANIME CENTRAL 2014

This will probably be my shortest review ever of ANIME CENTRAL you'll see. I honestly don't remember a lot of the show, it was all pretty much a blur.

ANIME CENTRAL 2014

We arrived on Thursday afternoon to do set up (after realizing halfway out I FORGOT my tube of new giant posters). It was crowded like crazy given it was during rush hour time, but thankfully there were starting to be some cops out like Anime Central usually has directing traffic and pedestrians.

My art pals and I carted our stuff over to the sign in area, which I found has undergone a MAJOR OVERHAUL - and it was amazing. All the check in booths were at the front (no arguing with the gate guards about getting my ticket INSIDE the arena this time!), and there was a beautiful gate with all the event information posted on it (you know, like hall hours and such!)

I, of course, did not take a picture of this. SADNESS.

So anyway, we got in, and found our booth areas, which were luckily in a pretty good location! No poles near by, near the center, and we had an opening RIGHT next to my booth so we could leave easily!

Friday morning I had a photo shoot thing, and then headed to my booth for a good chunk of the day. Had a couple of commissions (I was feeling really bare at my booth this year, sadness!), and then had to leave early to head to the WCS interview thingy. That took some time, but I was so exhausted from the work, barely sleeping, as well as getting up super early, that I went back to the room and just crashed out. I think I fell asleep at 10, and I slept until 8 the next day.

Saturday I spent most of the time at the table, I decided to bring Weaver with me, since I like being fancy at the table, and OMG I FOUND OTHER FFXIV COSPLAYERS. They were all really adorable, and convinced me to take a short jaunt outside to join them in the Final Fantasy photoshoot. Which was the shortest photoshoot ever, and I was glad cause I had to run back, rest for 20 minutes then get changed for judging and set up. :P

Blackmage?, Kan-E-Senna, Summoner, Weaver, & Y'shtola

I had a fun time, and we all got to talk about our servers and characters and the like! (so many servers means none of us were on the same one. WHOOPS)

Judging went well, I was very happy with the judges as I was practically undressed during the whole thing. Made all that hand stitching on my collar parts worth it! XD SOMEBODY NOTICED IT. YAAAAY!

Then we went BACK to the room, changed, and headed to the set up where we built the sets quickly as I was running out of steam.

Said hi to some friends, then went and crashed on the bed again.

Sunday was Performance day, so I spent almost the entire time doing that. We didn't win, but that's okay! The winners were AMAZINGLY FABULOUS and I'm super happy for them. :) I hope they knock em dead in Japan.

I traveled back to the booth for the last hour or two, then tore down the booth, then we carted ourselves home.

I then realized I pretty much forgot to take ANY pictures of anything while I was there (except the final fantasy ones, and that's ONLY cause a friend of mine was holding my camera. XD)

It was a good show, as always, I did okay for having very minimal items at my booth, and I am raring to get things ready for next year so I can be all gangbusters and have ALL THE PRODUCTS!!