AT LAST, I RETURN TO THE INTERNETS AFTER A WEEK IN SAN DIEGO. I will likely forget a lot of important and/or hilarious things, but will try to report what I do recall.

Overall, this con was fun! :D I ended up sharing a room with tegurunrampant, ormery, yamikonumber7, caedhe, gaelic_bohemian, corrielle and their friend Risa. Despite the large amount of people in the room, it all went very smoothly and everyone was 110% awesome! Tegu stuck with me most places and I got to show her all the coolness of SDCC, Kia did some epic cosplays, Squeak was ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS seriously she's a laugh riot IRL, I got to meet universejuice and she was ALSO made of awesome, Neko got to hang with us on Saturday and got free books, and Em and Rae of course were there to be more awesome! Friends really do make a con.


Wednesday

After last-minute packing, a break for lunch and such, we got on our way! About standard traffic going down to San Diego, although I heard it got worse later in the day. Tegs and I went down and got our badges quickly...ohgod I never want to not have pro badges, it's so much easier to use those. We did the crazy looking around the dealer's hall deal, and Teg and I ended up staring in awe at all the Squeenix trailers at their booth until they finally showed the trailer for Over 9000 Days. Xion's English voice is purdy good! Also saw trailers for Dissidia, FFXIII and FFXIV. Squeebles!

And ohgod, then in the room Kia read aloud one of Squeak's books for Orlando the Marmalade Cat, and we seriously laughed for about an hour straight. It was pure lolarity.

Thursday

FIRST REAL DAY OF CON. Tegu and I got up early so's that we could get in line for the Disney 3D panel in Hall H. Because heckyeah, previews for new Tron! But there was one thing we were not counting on, and that was TWILIGHT FANS. Yes, the Twilight panel was directly after the Disney 3D panel. So the entire line was stuffed with people who were planning to room-camp for Twilight. Needless to say, we did not get inside in time. B| But we KNEW BETTER FOR LATER.

But that is all A-OH-KAY, because instead we made it to the Disney Master Classes panel, which was pretty and inspirational and had GLEN KEANE and that made me squeeeee forever! ALSO

ALSO

Guess who autographed my sketchbook. 8D YES, YES HE DID and I seriously dissolved into a gushing fangirl for about half an hour. That pretty much made my weekend. XD

We did more sweeps of the dealer's hall, nabbed quick dinner, then met up with Kia to go to the Video Games Live concert on the marina! And bwee, that was a lot of fun, too! Actually a lot more interactive and laid-back than the Final Fantasy concert a few years ago, as there were people participating in a Space Invaders game with musical accompaniment, people who got to play Guitar Hero with orchestral help on-stage, and a lot of encouraging audience participation. They had some awesome music too, including this guy who was an incredible piano player. One thing I noticed that was odd...it seems like Squeenix was really stingy with footage for this concert, even though every other musical piece had footage from the game in question up on the big screen. But for their rendition of Hikari, they just showed clips from various KH-related Disney movies, and for One-Winged Angel they only showed FFVII cosplayers and fanart. Ouch Squeenix, way to drop the ball. Aside from that, concert was definitely worth the monies and time! :D

Friday

We tackled the Hall H line again, and this time we were successful! We got in in the middle of the Warner Bros. panel, so we saw some footage from Jonah Hex and other WB stuff, although I guess we missed Where The Wild Things Are, awww. Then came the Disney and Pixar panel, which was mostly them showing off the stuff they're releasing in 3D: Toy Story/Toy Story 2, and Beauty and the Beast. 3D BATB surprisingly looked okay! They really have worked out the 3D tech no it's not overly intrusive. They talked a bit about the fact that they're creating a lot more shorts, and introduced Prep and Landing, which looked lolarious and cute. XD AND OF COURSE, they also talked about Princess and the Frog, and showed us both the villain song and a clip between the prince and princess being stuck as frogs. Aaaaaaah it just made me grin so much and I CANNOT WAIT because 2D animation is so prettyful aaah.

OH ALSO FORGOT TO MENTION. John Lassiter was hosting this entire panel, because he was obviously excited about everything. And then to talk about Ponyo, they brought out OMG HAYAO MIYAZAKI. That seriously got a standing ovation from the whole audience, because dude, MIYAZAKI. They talked about Ponyo a bit (slower going, since a translator was needed) and showed a clip from the movie. Aaaaah the animation in Miyazaki's films is always so imaginative and flowing, and Ponyo was no exception.

We stayed through for the panel on 9, which included Shane Acker, Tim Burton, Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connely, and more awesome dudes! I still really want to see this movie, it just looks different and epic and creepy. I hope it does well at the box office, considering it's animation + post-apocalyptic/steampunk asthetic, and American audiences still aren't over the whole ANIMATION IS FOR KIDS deal. But I can definitely see why Tim Burton latched onto this movie; it's his sort of style. They showed a clip from the movie, which looked just as freaky as the previews and ended on THE worst part. The only thing I wish was that there were more female characters...it looks like the only girl character out of that entire group is Number 7.

After the panels, there was more Dealer's Hall, and we then went to nom dinners at Tin Fish, as per tradition. I missed the Rifftrax live panel, but we then got into the Star Wars Film Awards showing! Oh, before that I happened to run into famira, and we chatted it up for a bit since it's been forever since I've seen her. :D The film awards were great fun, I was pretty impressed with animation this year. The most popular one had some great VFX, acting and shots, but the subject matter was kinda ehh. The winning film, however, had me rolling in the aisles with laughter. Watch it here.

Saturday

More missed panels today, unfortunately. :P We did get into the Jobs In Video Games panel, which was pretty informative (although they didn't mention the main reason WHY it's very hard to leave the industry once you're in it, which is how they do royalties. XD) I did pass out a card or two afterwards. :D

Missed the Quick Draw panel and sign-ups for any portfolio reviews I was dying to do, so then Teg and I looked around the art show (not that impressive this year.) More Dealer's Hall, I met up with Kia and Sarah again and we tried to get into both the Iron Man 2 panel and the Mythbusters panel, but failed both times. 8( Curse you, room capacities! We did often have a laugh just talking in line, though.

After a bit of scuffling around, we managed to make it into one of the overflow rooms for the masquerade! I was really impressed with most of the skits this year, there were only a few that were real duds. (Why are the KH costumes/skits always one of those duds?) But there were some things that were either really beautiful or totally hilarious. Didn't stay to see who won what, because most of us were exhausted and there would be some early starts later.

Sunday

While most in the room got up superearly to go to the Doctor Who panel, I decided to snooze a little longer and then help pack up the room before heading back to the con. There, I mostly spent more time in the dealer's hall. This time I was poking around for anyone who wanted to look at portfolios of mine, since hey, I DID have them on me. Most big booths I went to were either too busy or no one knew if they had anyone available to look. I thought about going to the EA booth until I remembered that booth babes scandal, and how I'd heard of modelers and animators who'd worked there before being treated poorly, and decided not to waste my time. I did have some small success with the Sony Online booth, since the guy there said that he liked the look of it and asked to keep a copy! Hooray! \:D/

The rest of the time I also took to finally try some game demos. I did the demo for Edgeworth's game, Perfect Prosecutor, and was squeeing the whole time. It was much like PW, with the same kind of investigating, just with a decidedly Edgeworth slant. And there was Gumshoe and Maggey Byrde, eeee! I am so getting that when it comes out, I had lots of fun on just a demo. I also did the demo for Days, and holy crap, that game was HARD. GEEZ. I probably bugged everyone else around me because I was sitting at the demo for like 20 minutes just trying to complete ONE mission, which was difficult enough because I kept DYING. While I figured out the controls okay, Roxas had like ONE potion and no cure and he was not nearly fast enough and jumping and camerawork was a big pain and the Heartless there were REALLY REALLY STRONG or something. Still gonna get the game, but sheesh, I hope the learning curve levels out a bit in the actual game.

It took awhile, but finally we hit the road again for home! Sheesh, the traffic was pretty crappy on the 5. When we got home, we spent a lot of time just relaxing and reading our swag. A hot tub after days of walking around is soooooo nice until cranky stupid neighbor ladies show up to squawk at us, ugh Teg made my family some absolutely delishus curry turkey burgers and french silk pie, yummmm! Thank you Teg! ♥


And finally, the usual list of swag from con:

- A bunch of free comic samplers from Vertigo (seriously they were passing out a lot) and other places
- David Coleman's new sketchbook
- Claire Wendling's main sketchbook (ohgeez I seriously need to never go into the rare/discontinued books booth ever again; SO MANY NICE THINGS I WANT)
- Pascal Campion's new sketchbook (he was seriously THE nicest guy and I need to email him back)
- Chris Sander's new sketchbook
- Akiko volume 1 (got this book for four bucks because the cover had come unglued from it, but I've been looking for it FOREVER)
- Watchmen (I'm not real interested in the movie, but I have been meaning to read the book for awhile)
- A-and...I could not resist...I gave in and I totally bought the Sora Static Arts figure. IT IS SO SHINY EEEEEEEEEE.
- And beanclam, I got you a copy of Adam Hughes's sketchbook, so I need to mail that to you!


And now I am at work and have to go catch up on a ton of tags and other stuff. 8O FORWARD

Drawing: Did just a few sketches at con

Writing: ALL THIS