Aaaand I am back from the con! It was a busy weekend, so I slept pretty late this morning, but it's all good. So, may as well do it now while most stuff is still fresh in my mind (and also to get it out of the way), here's the con report for this year's CTN Expo!


Friday

I got there a little after noon, and discovered the hotel lot was already full, so I had to head over to the overflow lot to park and take the shuttle. Blehs, but oh well. I met up with Ryune there, and we ended up spending most of the weekend hanging out together since we were looking up the same things, going to similar panels and geeking out at stuff in-between.

Spent a bunch of time in the artists' marketplace (I'll probably end up calling it the dealers' room since that's what I associate it with most) just seeing all the neat stuff and talking with dudes I hadn't seen in awhile, like John and Pascal and more guys from Gnomon. Also got to say hi to bluejeans07! Also did some shopping.

I missed the HTTYD panel with Chris Sanders, baww. But I did go to the storyboarding panel that storyboardart.org put on, which was good and informative. Finally, after dinner, we came back and caught the majority of the screening of "Candy Man," which actually ended up being a documentary about the guy that invented Jelly Bellies. (I believe they were showing it a the con because his son was a Disney artist, and he's the one that made the movie.) It was both very sweet and quite sad, especially since this guy who actually did invent jelly bellies has pretty much been erased from jelly belly history, and was conned out of this whole brand he created. But he was really sweet (the family was there for Q&A) and then we got free candy afterwards, yaaay. XD



Saturday

Saturday was the big tough day, since that's when it was the most crowded. Also, it started raining today and rained through most of the weekend, which made things freezing cold and wet. Lucky that most of the con was indoors anyways. A bought a bunch of books, which I listed below. Ryune and I spent a bit of time playing BBS together, and discovered that stuff like the command board is even more fun with others. 8D Also, we finally figured out how d-links with friends in the mirage arena work, and it's actually pretty awesome. You can actually use and power up those d-links outside of battle, so I think if done correctly, you can actually get other characters able to use a character-specific command...like Ven using Aqua's mine seeker, or Aqua using Terra's dark firaga. Kind of awesome.

We also went to two panels...one on character designing from some of the most awesome designers in the industry, and one on how to create a pitch bible. I still don't know if/how I'm going to do anything with that reindeer story (I still don't think it'd work as a TV show) but it was useful info nonetheless.

ALSO, we went and did the scary part, which was to go around to "opportunity alley" and hit up all of the big studios for portfolio reviews. (I signed up for the recruitment event but didn't get any interview bites...from the looks of things, lots and lots of people got rejected for it while the studios were only asking for the (already professional) people to interview. So, oh well, at least it's not just me. Went around to Disney (both features and TV), WB, Blue Sky and Sony Animation (I didn't see any DW booth there). It actually went a lot better than I was expecting...I was guessing I'd get ripped a new one, but the response was actually pretty positive! Mostly I need to work on making shots more cinematic (which means some film study) and a little more action variety. EXPECT MORE BOARDS FROM ME IN THE FUTURE, THEN. Also, I talked to Alison over at Disney TV, and they actually said they'd send me a board test! /*O*\!!!! AAAA I HAVE TO DO WELL ON THAT THEN.



Sunday

The last day! It was still raining, but was also a lot less crowded. I actually spent most of the day going to panels this time...went to the comics-and-animation panel with some really cool comics/animation guys (I'm starting to regret that I didn't go and buy Cheeks' book, since he has some pretty nifty designs), and that was fun. Also got into the "Story Begins" panel with a bunch of the Pixar and DW story artists, like Ronnie Del Carmen and Enrico Casarosa. And of course, that was also awesome and inspirational. It's amazing just how much stuff you actually have to throw out when doing story art. And right after that, I jumped into the "Dragon Flight School" panel, which was showing how they did a lot of biology study and applied it to how the dragons actually flew in HTTYD. That was fun in all sorts of ways. XD

Also wandered around the artists' marketplace again, although I didn't buy anything this time. Ryune and I did a little more BBS, just because it never stopped being fun. BUT! The craziest thing was that I stopped by the Wacom booth because Ryune said they were doing a contest there. Draw or paint something on their Cintiqs using Painter in half an hour, and the paintings are judged and you win a prize. I painted a toasterbeast, just because it was simple and cute. And maaaan I still wish I could get a Cintiq, those things are so shiny and it's so much easier to control your line drawing straight on the screen than from a tablet in your lap. *_* But yeah, I doodled a toasterbeast and then wandered off again for other things. At then at the end of the day they were announcing winners for that contest, and holy friggin' crap I won. I got a copy of Painter 11 (which I had been planning to bite the bullet on and spend a bunch to get it) and an Intuos 4 tablet! *O*!!!!!!! GEEBUS I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT TO HAPPEN BUT I AM WAY PLEASANTLY SURPRISED. I still need to decide what to do with the tablet, since I still have a fairly new one and I don't need two tablets. But daaayum, getting Painter! Epic awesome!

After bidding farewell to everyone and catching some dinner, I headed out for the last awesome thing for the day: a sneak preview screening of Tangled at the Disney animation studios! It was kind of a pain getting in since there were a couple hundred people that had to be processed by a measley two security guards (they were way serious about the security...cell phones had to be left in the car, and everyone was given a quick run-over with metal wands before we were even allowed inside the theater) but it was worth all the wait. I'm actually going to post my review of 'Tangled' in a separate post so that I don't spoil anyone who doesn't want to be spoiled. So look there if you want to see more on what I thought!



Stuffes that I bought:
- The storyboarding toolbox book from the storyboardart.org table
- A Christmas gift for my mom
- First four issues of the comic "Pigtale" by one of the artists there; it looked interesting and four issues was only five bucks
- The Peter de Seve sketchbook
- Bit of an impulse buy: the first three episodes of "Blacksad" in English. I ended up reading through it all, and it was pretty interesting! Often dark and gritty; not what you typically think up first when dealing with a "furry comic."


Overally, a totally fun weekend, both inspiring and exhausting since you get to see first-hand just how many amazing artists are out there in the industry. But I'll definitely head back next year.

Drawing: Got so much stuff I want to work on now I don't even know where to start...

Writing: And same here. |D