dallas and a-kon 2006
back home from the weekend romp to dallas with greymountain and kayoko_chan. tired, but had a lot of fun.
didn't actually see a whole lot of dallas, so i'll get that out of the way. dallas/fort worth airport was very shiny - shinier than pearson int'l. ~35 celcius all three days, but we were indoors most of the time, so it was a non-issue. the only times we went "out" for dinner (meaning not at the food court in the mall of the americas), the first-choice restaurant was closed. some nice architecture, and an unsettling amount of one-way streets in downtown dallas.
a-kon was fun enough. it was nice to see different crowds of cosplayers and artists in the komik market (their artist's alley). i was really excited to see the following bleach cosplays (surprising, since cn2005 had turned me off of bleach costumes so severely): shinigami!isshin, grand fisher w/ puppet (two-person costume), shunsui.
there was a surprising amount of weaponry for sale in the dealer's room compared to cn and an. at least 7-8 booths with large numbers of swords, daggers, claws, axes, spears, etc. picked up the kotoko cd which i missed at an, as well as a couple prints from the komiket, and a random box soul calibur iii figure (which turned out to be kilik).
went to the cosplay competition on saturday for less than an hour. they started late, and we had to leave for dinner if we wanted to get to the restaurant before it closed (it was closed anyway...even though we were there an hour before the time they told us they were going to close when we called). the few skits we saw were alright...nothing special, and some of them seemed to drag on forever. apparantly, though, we didn't miss much, as the rest of the cosplay was subject to rushed cosplayers, cut skits due to time restrictions, and a mishap with a t-shirt cannon being fired at the ceiling, and raining shattered glass ceiling decorations down on a portion of the crowd (yes, you read that right).
we wore our kujibiki costumes on saturday, and were recognized quite a few times. kayoko_chan individually had 25+ pictures taken of her (she was out of the hotel room before greymountain and i, and the boy kept count of her photo ops).
friday, we attended a makeup panel (which the boy got bored at, and left with kayoko_chan). according to greymountain, i now know more about makeup than a lot of girls. the panel was informative as far as general makeup application went, but was lacking in cosplay-specific effects, and makeup for guys.
sunday was an amazing panel on wigs with gren of limit break cosplay. it was originally slated for an hour, but we were fortunate enough to have the panel following cancelled, so she was able to go for a full two hours before getting kicked out of the panel room. from caring for wigs, to gravity-defying styling, to making wigs from scratch, the panel was chock-full of great, great cosplay wig information, and i'm glad i was so insistent on attending it.
all in all, a fun weekend, but i think that will be my last a-kon for a while. the canadian cons keep me busy enough, and there are also closer american cons to attend, if i haven't gotten my fill by then (i.e. otakon).
oh yeah, and pictures are here.
didn't actually see a whole lot of dallas, so i'll get that out of the way. dallas/fort worth airport was very shiny - shinier than pearson int'l. ~35 celcius all three days, but we were indoors most of the time, so it was a non-issue. the only times we went "out" for dinner (meaning not at the food court in the mall of the americas), the first-choice restaurant was closed. some nice architecture, and an unsettling amount of one-way streets in downtown dallas.
a-kon was fun enough. it was nice to see different crowds of cosplayers and artists in the komik market (their artist's alley). i was really excited to see the following bleach cosplays (surprising, since cn2005 had turned me off of bleach costumes so severely): shinigami!isshin, grand fisher w/ puppet (two-person costume), shunsui.
there was a surprising amount of weaponry for sale in the dealer's room compared to cn and an. at least 7-8 booths with large numbers of swords, daggers, claws, axes, spears, etc. picked up the kotoko cd which i missed at an, as well as a couple prints from the komiket, and a random box soul calibur iii figure (which turned out to be kilik).
went to the cosplay competition on saturday for less than an hour. they started late, and we had to leave for dinner if we wanted to get to the restaurant before it closed (it was closed anyway...even though we were there an hour before the time they told us they were going to close when we called). the few skits we saw were alright...nothing special, and some of them seemed to drag on forever. apparantly, though, we didn't miss much, as the rest of the cosplay was subject to rushed cosplayers, cut skits due to time restrictions, and a mishap with a t-shirt cannon being fired at the ceiling, and raining shattered glass ceiling decorations down on a portion of the crowd (yes, you read that right).
we wore our kujibiki costumes on saturday, and were recognized quite a few times. kayoko_chan individually had 25+ pictures taken of her (she was out of the hotel room before greymountain and i, and the boy kept count of her photo ops).
friday, we attended a makeup panel (which the boy got bored at, and left with kayoko_chan). according to greymountain, i now know more about makeup than a lot of girls. the panel was informative as far as general makeup application went, but was lacking in cosplay-specific effects, and makeup for guys.
sunday was an amazing panel on wigs with gren of limit break cosplay. it was originally slated for an hour, but we were fortunate enough to have the panel following cancelled, so she was able to go for a full two hours before getting kicked out of the panel room. from caring for wigs, to gravity-defying styling, to making wigs from scratch, the panel was chock-full of great, great cosplay wig information, and i'm glad i was so insistent on attending it.
all in all, a fun weekend, but i think that will be my last a-kon for a while. the canadian cons keep me busy enough, and there are also closer american cons to attend, if i haven't gotten my fill by then (i.e. otakon).
oh yeah, and pictures are here.