Yes, I just got back from the con a few hours ago, but I'm going to go ahead and do my report on it now, because I know otherwise I won't do it later because school and things and eating of my face and dkjklfjakl.

Reader's Digest Version:

Con was awesome! Very busy and crowded all the time, bought waaay too much stuff, met some fine folks, did several panels, and all around had a good time. Already looking forward to next year!

And now the long version:


Wednesday

Went and picked up Rei and Em at their place fairy early in the morning, and then headed for the long drive down to San Diego! Our hotel was not that close to the con center; it was in fact in Old Town San Diego. However! This was okay, as the hotel was really cute and pleasant and all of the area surrounding the hotel was full of cute shops and Mexican restaurants that were plenty enough tourism for people not even going to con. The weather was great all weekend; plenty of sun but not too hot. :D Instead of driving, we bought a trolley pass for the weekend for $15-20 and went between the hotel and con center with relatively little hassle. Thank you, working public transportation system!

Didn't do too much on Wednesday night except wander around the Dealer's Hall and stake out places I wanted to see/go. ...Oh yeah and instead of focusing on the free swag I bought some stuff. It is included in my LONG LIST OF CRAP at the end of all this. After wandering the Dealer's Hall, Em and Rei and I walked over to Seaport Village for dinner. Kinda wish I had gotten a ticket for the Video Games Live concert. :/



Thursday

Thursday was an extremely eventful day for me! It was for everyone I believe, as most of my roommates went to the Torchwood panel. I instead went to the Disney story process panel, where a bunch of the storyboard artists on Bolt and Princess and the Frog talked about their processes and showed their work, including an entire scene from Bolt. :D It was really informative! More on that later. Then headed down to the Dealer's Hall and hung around with Melissa and Tom, who were just scouring the hall for cool things and a comic that Melissa wanted. Went and bought some KH merch at the Squeenix booth. 8/ They also had prototypes for some of the upcoming KH toys, including KH1!Sora and Riku Play Arts, Halloween Town Sora, and more! :D Not the full set of Formations Arts, however.

Onto another panel! This one was Spotlight on Floyd Norman, one of the first black animators at Disney and knew some of the Nine Old Men. :D Again, very informative and cool to hear him talk! After that I stayed through the Bill Plympton panel, where he showed all of Hot Dog and the first 20 minutes of Idiots and Angels. Afjdlfjak I love his animation. But I missed getting a sketch from him the next day because I couldn't find his booth. ;_;

After that, dinner at the Tin Fish, which is a staple of any San Diego con trip. And then! On to the Star Wars movie awards, which are always enjoyable! Films were decent this year: RVD2 was just amazing in terms of effects and choreopgraphy, there was a short film on Darth Maul with amazing makeup and more amazing fight scenes. Also a really funny Star Wars/Juno mashup-parody. Was not at all impressed with the animation entry...I could animate better than that in my sleep. :(



Friday

Another early start panel for me!...actually staying through two panels. One of them was the general costume designers/storyboard artists/illustrators panel. It was really interesting seeing how live action boards compared to Disney boards...the live action boards were a lot larger, more specific, and in some ways harder to read. The Disney boards were a ton looser, but significantly more frequent and more like a clipped animation than an idea of what should happen. Afterwards I stayed for the Production Design panel! ...Nooot quite as impressed. Mostly it was LOL PRODUCTION DESIGN IS SO AWESOME and yeah, I already knew that. They showed a bunch of clips from the movies they worked on, but none of the actual art. WTF? The whole point of production art being awesome would include SHOWING the art, I would figure! You show the movie and it's more about how the director and actor and compositors are awesome. I don't know. :/

Then back into the Dealer's Hall, where I bought a friggin' ton of stuff AND got my portfolio looked at by a few awesome dudes! One was David Colman, and I bought his art book and a shirt from him and he signed the book for meeeee eee! The other was the booth for a bunch of the artists from that Disney story process panel, and they gave me some good advice and I bought their book with signage, too. :D

Since there were certain panels I really wanted to go to in the evening and David's artbook weighed ten thousand tons, I trekked back to the hotel to drop stuff off and then got an early dinner of pizza along the way. I ALMOST didn't make it into the panels I wanted to attend because the lines filled up SUPER FAST and I was going to cryyyyy. But them Em and Rei came to the rescue and we managed a spot in line! Therefore, I made it into the MST3K panel, which included pretty much the entire cast and all the writers! :D And of course the Crow and Servo puppets were also in attendance! There was tons of joking and dsfajdlksa Joel was still the same adorable weirdness in real life:
Moderator: So how does Gizmonic Institute fare up against the other evil organizations? What kind of backstory and secret plans did you have worked out for Gizmonic?
Joel: ........Um pretty much we knew it was shaped like a G. :/

So I was so glad I got to see the entire cast! :D After that, I sat through advance screenings of the next Stargate: Atlantis and Eureka episodes, but since I'm not up to date on either I mostly went 'Oh hey that's cool.' I'll spoil if anyone cares?! Anyways, I was really staying put for the Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog screening late at night, since I'd only seen the first part! Oh yeah and the entire cast and Joss Whedon showed up for that, too. :D Man, the ending was...a lot sadder than I was expecting?! It was still lol, but...yeah, the ending had me going 8/. I guess that's Joss for ya.



Saturday

Since the Dr. Horrible screening went pretty late, I slept in on Saturday for a good while before taking my time getting to the only panel I really wanted. Since it was in Hall H, which is the massive room of massivity, I had to get in line fairly early. So I ended up sitting through part of the Lost panel and all of the Terminator: Salvation panel (although mostly I read through Digger while doing that.) I was in fact waiting for the Disney/Pixar panel! Their talk this year was on Bolt and UP!

And holy crap, they actually showed a ton of footage from both of those...a whole 20 minutes of Bolt! Some of it was still in storyboard stages or unfinished animation, but I actually love watching stuff like that. The sequences included an episode from Bolt's TV show (which was pretty much every action movie ever + cute puppy), the sequence where the actor cats are tormenting Bolt (which I saw just the boards for for the earlier panel) and the sequence where Bolt helps Mittens escape from the animal shelter. Also, apparently Bolt starts to think that styrofoam is his Kryptonite, LOL. Actually, the audience was totally laughing it up throughout all the sequences...I think there was some stuff in those that should've been put in the trailer, because there were some REALLY clever action-oriented jokes in the opening episode.

And then! Pete Docter came out to talk about UP, and there was a lot of footage from that, too! Production art for the South American jungles and mountains, which was what the movie was mostly inspired buy, and models for Carl (the old guy) and Russel (the eager boy scout). They also had a full animated sequence, of when Carl escapes from the city by attaching balloons to his house and flying away. :D You can totally see the Miyasaki influence in this Pixar film...the whole sequence had a kind of silly, ethereal peacefulness to it, and I almost instantly thought of Howl's Moving Castle or Spirited Away at a particular shot of his house.

Afterwards! I did my final wandering of the Dealer's Hall and picked up Even More Stuff. :x Seriously, I raped my poor wallet this con, but there were soooo many pretty books to buy! And finally, I snagged a bit of uberexpensive con food for dinner and then went to stand in line for the Masquerade broadcast (I really didn't care enough about getting in the Masquerade itself). Dunno where the rest of my crew was, but while waiting in line I happened to start chatting it up with some girls who revealed that they were KH fans. And OMG one of them had read my fics and remembered it! ;_; How nifty is that?!

The Masquerade itself was pretty decent! I think only one act got canceled, and otherwise it ran smoothly. You got your fair share of mehh costumes and mehh acts, and then some awesome ones. The West Side Story as done by Avatar cast was really funny, as was the Hairspray crossover. I was really impressed by the LOTR Orc and the full moving puppet Warg. afjdslkfajlk and now I'm forgetting the other costumes that were cool. OH YEAH there was a really adorable little girl dressed as Luke in an X-Wing. SO. CUTE.

I didn't stay for the awards, but stumbled home after that.



Sunday

I actually didn't do the con today, as there were no panels I was dying to see and I knew if I went back to the Dealer's Hall I'd rape my wallet even more fffffffaaa. So instead I walked with Rei and Alix and eventually the whole gang around San Diego Old Town, where there were plenty of cute little old timey shops and amusing sites of historical interest. We get lunch at a so-so place and then Coldstones, which is never so-so. Also, delicious old timey candy. Afterwards, it was time to head home, since we hit traffic and the drive was looooong. ;-;


But I had such a great time hanging with everyone at the con, and was happy for the chance to go! :D

And here is my final list of OMG Totally Awesome Things That I Purchased While At Con:


- The Art of Animal Character Design by David Colman, and signed, too! :D
- By the same artist, a really cool tiger t-shirt
- V for Vendetta, which I've been dying to read for awhile.
- The Dresden Files #1-3 comics, just because the series is starting to intrigue me Damn you Anzy!
- Who Is Rocket Johnson? by pretty much all of the artists at the Disney story process panel, and signed by them. I am such a huge sucker for themed anthologies, and this one is AMAZING so far.
- Digger volume 3, because Ursula Vernon is my hero
- Chris Sander's Sketchbook #2. (twilitesea, do you want to email me your mailing address and I can send your copy to you once I figure out shipping costs? My email is lynxoftheg AT gmail DOT com.)
- Chris Sander's printed collection of Kiskaloo. It's like the New Calvin and Hobbes, I swear.
- Tellos completed collection. A friend from church lent me this comic when I was in high school, and I'd been looking for it ever since. Really good fantasy series! Now to just find the first volumes of Akiko...
- Dragon Sketches by Bobby Chiu. sdfsaklfjalk how I wish I could paint like that. SUCH cute work!
- Normal KH2!Sora Play Arts figure. :D I already had Final Form, but I kinda wanted a regular one. Either that or Master Form.
- The set of 5 extra Keyblades, including Oathkeeper, Oblivion and the two Ultimaweapons.
- FF trading arts figure...this time I got Tifa. Nice!
- PW trading arts figure. I got Godot, but without his visor. Apparently this is a super-secret extra version of Godot you can get?! And here I thought my prize was just defunct!
- I also got an adoooorable little Wall-E plushie from chobit001. Thank you! ♥
- And of course, a bunch of free comics.


AND THAT WAS MY COMIC CON FOR THIS YEAR. All in all, pretty well-balanced and smooth going. :D Thank you, San Diego, for another good weekend!

AND NOW I'M OFF TO GO CRAWL INTO BED OR EAT A SNACK OR SOMETHING. sdfjafkjkal I have to go work at school tomorrow and I don't even want to think about that. ;_;