View of Life

Bro Calendar 2020!

2019-07-03T23:43:12Z

SLOTS ARE FILLED! THANK-YOU EVERYONE!!

OKAY! HERE WE GO! IT'S THE TENTH AND FINAL BRO CALENDAR!

The Bro Calendar is a 12-month calendar that features that special, awesome relationship between two (or more!) people that may or may not be related. Think Jet and Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Or Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Those sorts of relationships. This calendar is to celebrate characters being bros. You can see the 2019 calendar here.

Technical Details:
-Image should be at least 8.5"x11" (landscape, NOT portrait!) and the resolution should be AT LEAST 300ppi.
-Due date is Friday, November 1st.
-Color is preferred, but shaded greyscale is acceptable too.
-PG-13 max, please!

Any groups of FICTIONAL characters are allowed! It doesn't matter if they are from an anime series, manga, video game, American comic, TV show, etc, etc. They're all okay. And gender DOES NOT MATTER. Sure, it's a "bro" calendar, but female characters are DEFINITELY allowed. You are free to draw characters used in previous Bro Calendars, but please do not draw characters that are already being used for the 2018 calendar. If possible, I'd like to have only one page per series (so, not like three months of One Piece characters, even if they're all different characters), but I won't stop anyone from signing up for a series that is already being used as long as the characters are different!

I cannot pay you, but for your effort and troubles, you will be sent a copy of the calendar. You DO NOT have to live in the United States to participate, I will happily send you a calendar whatever country you live in. And your images are your own, please feel free to use it for prints at Artist Alleys or the like! (I do not make money off of this project, any money gained from these sales will go directly to recuperating printing costs. In the off chance that I make enough to cover costs, the profits will go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.)

If you would like to participate, please comment on this entry with the following:
-Characters you want to draw and series they are from
-Month you'd like to claim (NOT NECESSARY)
-How you'd like me to contact you (usually I will try to reach everyone through LJ PMs, but if you'd prefer email or a Twitter DM, let me know!)

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment here, send me a LJ PM, a message on twitter (@kaitou_ace), or email me at dragynstorm (at) gmail (dot) com. I will be trying to remain in contact with all participants, giving updates and reminders on due dates.

Thank-you for your interest and time!

PARTICIPANTS:
@kaitou_ace - Hiccup and Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon
@KawaiiMess - Kaito Masaharu and Higashi Toru from JUDGMENT/Judge Eye
@alamort - Zeta and Vaseraga from GBF - OCTOBER
@T1mco - Lancelot and Vane from GBF - FEBRUARY
nayung - UNKNOWN
@BlindRoyalGuard - Sparda boys or the Redfield siblings
queenvera - Buster Bros from Hypnosis Mic
@trirocksalt - Prompto and Noctis (FFXV) or Persona 5 - SEPTEMBER
@klimtsonian - Assassin's Creed boys
@PacificPikachu - Ashe and Caspar from FE3H
@elisabethkaseda - UNKNOWN
@PomPomPrompto - Ritsuka and Mafuyu from Given - JUNE

Bro Calendar 2019!!!

2018-06-10T02:32:16Z

LET'S DO THIS AGAIN! THE NINTH BRO CALENDAR!

The Bro Calendar is a 12-month calendar that features that special, awesome relationship between two (or more!) people that may or may not be related. Think Jet and Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Or Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Those sorts of relationships. This calendar is to celebrate characters being bros. You can see the 2017 calendar here.

Technical Details:
-Image should be at least 8.5"x11" (landscape, NOT portrait!) and the resolution should be AT LEAST 300ppi.
-Due date is Friday, November 2nd.
-Color is preferred, but shaded greyscale is acceptable too.
-PG-13 max, please!

Any groups of FICTIONAL characters are allowed! It doesn't matter if they are from an anime series, manga, video game, American comic, TV show, etc, etc. They're all okay. And gender DOES NOT MATTER. Sure, it's a "bro" calendar, but female characters are DEFINITELY allowed. You are free to draw characters used in previous Bro Calendars, but please do not draw characters that are already being used for the 2018 calendar. If possible, I'd like to have only one page per series (so, not like three months of One Piece characters, even if they're all different characters), but I won't stop anyone from signing up for a series that is already being used as long as the characters are different!

I cannot pay you, but for your effort and troubles, you will be sent a copy of the calendar. You DO NOT have to live in the United States to participate, I will happily send you a calendar whatever country you live in. And your images are your own, please feel free to use it for prints at Artist Alleys or the like! (I do not make money off of this project, any money gained from these sales will go directly to recuperating printing costs. In the off chance that I make enough to cover costs, the profits will go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.)

If you would like to participate, please comment on this entry with the following:
-Characters you want to draw and series they are from
-Month you'd like to claim (NOT NECESSARY)
-How you'd like me to contact you (usually I will try to reach everyone through LJ PMs, but if you'd prefer email or a Twitter DM, let me know!)

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment here, send me a LJ PM, a message on twitter (@kaitou_ace), or email me at dragynstorm (at) gmail (dot) com. I will be trying to remain in contact with all participants, giving updates and reminders on due dates.

Thank-you for your interest and time!

PARTICIPANTS:

ensuing - Yuki, Haru, Natsuki, and Akira from Tsuritama
queenvera - Cu Chulainns from Fate Grand Order
astrokittie - Yang and the Admiral or like idk Mittermeyer and Reunthal from LoGH
@elisabethkaseda - ((undecided)) from ((undecided)
@kaitou_al - Blood Blockade Battlefront or Nier Automata
@Animikean - Red and White Blood Cells from Cells at Work
acidgraffiti/@DEVLREX - Yuri and Joe from Megalo Box
@guntaabee - World Trigger, GranBlue Fantasy, or hypmic
Chelsea - Peach and Rosalina from Mario/Nintendo DECEMBER
bishieobsessed - Yuri Lowell and Flynn Scifo from Tales of Vesperia
kiwimangoodness - Hank and Connar from Detroit: Become Human - SUMMER MONTH
@peach_oniisan - Prompto and Noctis from Final Fantasy XV - AUTUMN OR WINTER MONTH

Bro Calendar 2018

2017-07-16T22:02:33Z

It's time for Bro Calendar signups! This'll be our 8th Bro Calendar. The only detail that has changed is the due date.

The Bro Calendar is a 12-month calendar that features that special, awesome relationship between two (or more!) people that may or may not be related. Think Jet and Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Or Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Those sorts of relationships. This calendar is to celebrate characters being bros. You can see the 2017 calendar here.

Technical Details:
-Image should be at least 8.5"x11" (landscape, NOT portrait!) and the resolution should be AT LEAST 300ppi.
-Due date is Friday, November 24th.
-Color is preferred, but shaded greyscale is acceptable too.
-PG-13 max, please!

Any groups of FICTIONAL characters are allowed! It doesn't matter if they are from an anime series, manga, video game, American comic, TV show, etc, etc. They're all okay. And gender DOES NOT MATTER. Sure, it's a "bro" calendar, but female characters are DEFINITELY allowed. You are free to draw characters used in previous Bro Calendars, but please do not draw characters that are already being used for the 2018 calendar. If possible, I'd like to have only one page per series (so, not like three months of One Piece characters, even if they're all different characters), but I won't stop anyone from signing up for a series that is already being used as long as the characters are different!

I cannot pay you, but for your effort and troubles, you will be sent a copy of the calendar. You DO NOT have to live in the United States to participate, I will happily send you a calendar whatever country you live in. And your images are your own, please feel free to use it for prints at Artist Alleys or the like! (I do not make money off of this project, any money gained from these sales will go directly to recuperating printing costs. In the off chance that I make enough to cover costs, the profits will go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.)

If you would like to participate, please comment on this entry with the following:
-Characters you want to draw and series they are from
-Month you'd like to claim (NOT NECESSARY)
-How you'd like me to contact you (usually I will try to reach everyone through LJ PMs, but if you'd prefer email or a Twitter DM, let me know!)

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment here, send me a LJ PM, a message on twitter (@kaitou_ace), or email me at dragynstorm (at) gmail (dot) com. I will be trying to remain in contact with all participants, giving updates and reminders on due dates.

Thank-you for your interest and time!

@Animikean - Undecided
queenvera - Yusuke Kitagawa and Protagonist - Persona 5 - Spring or Summer month
bishieobsessed - Kaiba brothers - Yu-Gi-Oh!
nayung - Undecided - World Trigger, Granblue Fantasy, or Fate Grand Order
(@alamort - Favaro and Kaisar - Rage of Bahamut: Genesis/Virgin Soul) - MAYBE
@T1mco - Iskandar and Waver - Fate/Zero - OR - Booster Gold/Blue - DC Comics
@elisabethkaseda - Kuroo and Kenma - Haikyu!!
ensuing - Nikaido and Ren - March Comes in Like a Lion
Chelsea R - Pearl and Marina - Splatoon 2 - Summer month
@yarrayora - Arago and Ewan Hunt - Arago - October
@eruemcee - Rick and Morty - Rick and Morty
@cosmosmith - Ichimatsu and Jyushimatsu - Osomatsu-san

Bro Calendar 2017

2016-06-17T00:53:12Z

How sad is it that I haven't posted in nearly a year? Pretty sad. I'll finish those Japan trip reports sometime! =\ Anyway!!

WE ARE FULL! Thank-you everyone!!
Holy crud! It's time for Bro Calendar signups! This'll be our 7th Bro Calendar. Oy oy, I'm feeling old here… As is now the norm, the quidelines are practically the same as they are every year.

The Bro Calendar is a 12-month calendar that features that special, awesome relationship between two (or more!) people that may or may not be related. Think Jet and Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Or Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Those sorts of relationships. This calendar is to celebrate characters being bros. You can see the 2016 calendar here.

Technical Details:
-Image should be at least 8.5"x11" (landscape, NOT portrait!) and the resolution should be AT LEAST 300ppi.
-Due date is Friday, November 11th.
-Color is preferred, but shaded greyscale is acceptable too.
-PG-13 max, please!

Any groups of FICTIONAL characters are allowed! It doesn't matter if they are from an anime series, manga, video game, American comic, TV show, etc, etc. They're all okay. And gender DOES NOT MATTER. Sure, it's a "bro" calendar, but female characters are DEFINITELY allowed. You are free to draw characters used in previous Bro Calendars, but please do not draw characters that are already being used for the 2015 calendar. If possible, I'd like to have only one page per series (so, not like three months of One Piece characters, even if they're all different characters), but I won't stop anyone from signing up for a series that is already being used as long as the characters are different!

I cannot pay you, but for your effort and troubles, you will be sent a copy of the calendar. You DO NOT have to live in the United States to participate, I will happily send you a calendar whatever country you live in. And your images are your own, please feel free to use it for prints at Artist Alleys or the like! (I do not make money off of this project, any money gained from these sales will go directly to recuperating printing costs. In the off chance that I make enough to cover costs, the profits will go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.)

If you would like to participate, please comment on this entry with the following:
-Characters you want to draw and series they are from
-Month you'd like to claim (NOT NECESSARY)
-How you'd like me to contact you (usually I will try to reach everyone through LJ PMs, but if you'd prefer email or a Twitter DM, let me know!)

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment here, send me a LJ PM, a message on twitter (@kaitou_ace), or email me at dragynstorm (at) gmail (dot) com. I will be trying to remain in contact with all participants, giving updates and reminders on due dates.

Thank-you for your interest and time!

dev_chieftain - Steven Universe n' Connie (maybe also Greg and the Crystal Gems) - from Steven Universe - JULY
nayung - World Trigger (maybe)
ensuing - Mob and LIKE A BUNCH OF OTHERS - Mob Psycho 100
bishieobsessed - To Be Determined
@JuneTreeDraws - King and Ban - Seven Deadly Sins
stud_monkey/@Kaeilash - Fire Emblem: Fates (Leon/Takumi or Ryouma/Xander) or Voltron (everyone or Keith/Lance)
@alamort - Avilio and Nero - 91 Days [OR Sugimoto and Asirpa from Golden Kamuy] - NOVEMBER OR DECEMBER
TOFU+BEAST - To Be Determined
@elisabethkaseda - Seijoh 3rd years - Haikyu!!
kiwimangoodness - Hinata & Komaeda - SDR2
@kaitou_al - Yamatonokami Yasusada + Kashuu Kiyomitsu - Touken Ranbu
quixocity - Saitama and Genos - One Punch Man
@466_P - Kekkai Sensen
@verasaur - Adam Jensen and Vaclav Koller - Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Bro Calendar 2016

2015-07-23T00:01:42Z

I'm a bit late on this this time around but… it's time for signups for the sixth Bro Calendar! As usual, most of this is copy-paste from previous years as not much has changed, but if you're interested, please glance over everything to make sure you're clear on guidelines!

The Bro Calendar is a 12-month calendar that features that special, awesome relationship between two (or more!) people that may or may not be related. Think Jet and Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Or Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Those sorts of relationships. This calendar is to celebrate characters being bros. You can see the 2015 calendar here.

Technical Details:
-Image should be at least 8.5"x11" (landscape, NOT portrait!) and the resolution should be AT LEAST 300ppi.
-Due date is Friday, November 13th.
-Color is preferred, but shaded greyscale is acceptable too.
-PG-13 max, please!

Any groups of FICTIONAL characters are allowed! It doesn't matter if they are from an anime series, manga, video game, American comic, TV show, etc, etc. They're all okay. And gender DOES NOT MATTER. Sure, it's a "bro" calendar, but female characters are DEFINITELY allowed. You are free to draw characters used in previous Bro Calendars, but please do not draw characters that are already being used for the 2015 calendar. If possible, I'd like to have only one page per series (so, not like three months of One Piece characters, even if they're all different characters), but I won't stop anyone from signing up for a series that is already being used as long as the characters are different!

I cannot pay you, but for your effort and troubles, you will be sent a copy of the calendar. You DO NOT have to live in the United States to participate, I will happily send you a calendar whatever country you live in. And your images are your own, please feel free to use it for prints at Artist Alleys or the like! (I do not make money off of this project, any money gained from these sales will go directly to recuperating printing costs. In the off chance that I make enough to cover costs, the profits will go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.)

If you would like to participate, please comment on this entry with the following:
-Characters you want to draw and series they are from
-Month you'd like to claim (NOT NECESSARY)
-How you'd like me to contact you (usually I will try to reach everyone through LJ PMs, but if you'd prefer email or a Twitter DM, let me know!)

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment here, send me a LJ PM, a message on twitter (@kaitou_ace), or email me at dragynstorm (at) gmail (dot) com. I will be trying to remain in contact with all participants, giving updates and reminders on due dates.

Thank-you for your interest and time!

Months available: Currently ALL MONTHS are available! The cover is open as well if you are interested in drawing that!

Participants:
ensuing - Ledo and Chamber - Gargantia
queenvera - Hisoka and Illumi - Hunter x Hunter
bishieobsessed - The Elric Brothers - Fullmetal Alchemist
@kaitou_al - Wild Tiger & Barnaby Brooks Jr. - Tiger & Bunny - OCTOBER
@elisabeth116 - Karasuno Volleyball Team - Haikyuu!
sygmus - Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey - Ace Attorney
@elisabeth116 - Asta and Yuno - Black Clover
@466_P - Zap and Leo - Blood Blockade Battlefront
@BluVortechx - Lisbeth and Asuna - Sword Art Online
@Nayung - World Trigger
@Animikean - Kino and Hermes - Kino's Journey
ensuing - Ushio and Tora - Ushio and Tora

Japan Trip 2014: Nagano C: A Day of Relaxation, 10/09/14

2015-04-12T06:40:12Z

60 Images. Worksafe. Little bit of the swears, but a grand lack of ranting!

Woke up, chatted with people online, then ate breakfast with my mom. I don't know if I mentioned this in the last update, but these breakfasts were AMAZING. Super delicious, but there was SO MUCH FOOD. I couldn't get close to finishing the previous day's breakfast, so my mom asked if we could just split one for the other days and it worked out really well! This day was a big one for the both of us. We were each on a quest to visit a museum… but different museums in different towns. Mine was close by and easy to access, but my mom's was in an entirely different city and far from the train station. I wished her good luck as she headed out and then I was on my own!

I set out myself shortly after and headed the opposite way she did, just maybe two hundred meters up the street to the first gate of Zenkoji Temple. I'm not as interested in temples as I am in shrines, but I heard this was the site of some activity between Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen in the 16th century. The area was a base for Kenshin's forces, I guess? I wasn't able to find information about it at the temple (though I didn't look very hard). Side note: There's a statue of Kenshin vs Shingen elsewhere in Nagano!)

Anyway, up the street there was a little path with lanterns, then a big formal gate.

I think this was the center of the big gate, Nimon.

Baku and Komainu, perhaps? They were on each of the corners, and there was another set of beasts inside the chicken wire.

You can almost make out one of the beasties at the top of this pillar.

Through an even bigger gate and to the left was Daikanjin Temple. It's fairly small, but it had these lovely Komainu.

I took tons of pictures of the main temple, but realized after the first fifty or sixty that my settings were all wrong and the pictures were completely blown out. I tried to go back and retake them, but as I am posting these in the order I took them things may seem out of place!

This is behind the main building of Zenkoji Temple. All of the lanterns were donated for various people, groups of people, or objects.

Front of the temple with a lovely bell in the foreground.

Looking down the steps from the same spot as the previous image.

This chap was on top of the incense burner and either smoke would come out his mouth or it'd get caught in there. He had wax(?) dripping out of his mouth.

Each foot of the incense burner had a serious beastie.

TADAAAAAAAHHH IT'S THE MAIN BUILDING! …it's actually not that big, but once you get close it feels pretty imposing.

At some point I decided to pay the entrance fee to see the treasures and underground passage. I held little interest in the treasures (the enormous drums on display were way cooler to me), but the underground passage seemed interesting. It's a test. You take off your shoes and hold your right hand to the wall. You can't use your phone or anything, you just have to walk with your hand on the wall. As you walk further from the entrance, the light dims until it's pitch black. Somewhere on the wall is the "Key to Paradise." It's said that if you touch it, you receive eternal salvation. Pretty sweet, eh? The walk is creepy. VERY creepy. It's so dark but you can hear the shuffling around of everyone else in front and in back of you. A girl a little in front of me starting freaking out; screaming and sobbing. She eventually decided to get out and ran into me on her fervor to get out. I felt bad for her. I soldiered on, trying to find that key, but no luck. It was a real intense experience that I'll definitely do again if I'm ever in the area. Amazing what taking away all light does to you.

Before I get to more pictures, let me tell you about some of these memorials they had all over. They were for a large variety of really interesting stuff.

A Few of the Memorial/Monument Sites on the Zenkoji Temple Grounds:
-Memorial for the Women of the Tokugawa Household
-Senninzuka Monument (for the souls of 1000 peasants who staged an uprising, I think? My photo is blurry)
-Takao Lantern (for a famous courtesan)
-Memorial for Undelivered Mail
-Monument for the Spirits of Flowers
-Memorial Pagoda for Souls in Deserted Graves
-Memorial Monument for the Sato Brothers (oldest on the premises! They died tragically for their master, Minamoto Yoshitsune. You know, the famous Yoshitsune, trained with Tengu, Benkei is his bro? That one.)
-Mujina Lantern (for a Mujina that was very devotional but was bawled out when his true form was discovered)
-Old Monument to Sanado Family Retainers
-Memorial for Used Pins and Needles
-Monument to the Song "Hato Poppo" (Cute Pigeons)
-Monument to the Haiku-Poems of Taneda Santoka
-Monument to the Haiku-Poems of Issa
-Monument Dedicated to the Haiku-Poems of Seigetsu Inoue.
*phew!* And I probably missed a bunch.

The cows Yoshiko and Mitsuko!

This is Churei Den (War Memorial Pagoda). This pagoda holds the ashes of 2.4 million war dead from the last 150 years.

This is a cool phoenix on a lantern in front of Churei Den. I kneeled too quickly in the wrong spot and smashed my knee against the base of this I thought it was gushing blood. It wasn't, it barely bruised, but it hurt sooooo badly.

The box of dried bush thorn is a bit unusual. I asked my mom about it when I was showing her these pictures and she says she thinks they put them in the eaves to prevents birds from hanging out.

Old pines.

They were taking photos of the thing in this building. That guy is helping to reflect the light to where they need it… perhaps? The object inside is the "Kyozo," a sutra repository.

TURTLES!

This is the Sanmon Gate. For a fee, you could go inside it. I did not. At this point, it was late morning and it was getting crowded!

Looking down the path towards Nimon Gate.

Sculpted pine.

Another shot of the front of the temple.

Dragonfly!

A serene stream. This area was maybe 50-75m to one side of the main temple, but it was so nice and quiet.

Main temple building behind the trees and you can see the top of Churei Den to the right.

…Walnut tree, I think? It was HUGE.

A man ringing the bell in Shoro. Or is the bell called Shoro? My photo of the info plaque says "Shoro (Temple Bell Tower)". The bell is from 1687 and was chosen as one of the "100 Beautiful Sounds" of Japan. It was a beautiful sound.

You can see Churei Den's top again through the sea of trees. It's incredible how well the trees hide everything from above when it seems like they are somewhat sparsely spaced when you're on the ground.

Oh wow, I guess this is the spot for the main goal of the day! It's just one street over from the temple!

There's a flower clock! Cool!

Da-da-da-DAAAAAAAH! I was here to see The Power of Manga: Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishinomori at the Nagano Prefectural Shinano Art Museum.

No cameras were allowed inside except for a few specific spots. The exhibit was truly incredible and inspiring. They had so many pieces from all times in both artists' lives. I'd been to the Tezuka Museum and a Tezuka exhibit in San Francisco, but I'd never seen any of Ishinomori's work in person. *_*

This is the Tokiwa Apartment Building. (I think!) It's where a lot of very influential manga artists stayed for a time. Oh course, this is a reproduction.

Atom and Joe!

Françoise and Sapphire!

I—Is this a Leiji Matsumoto exhibit in Karuizawa? I tried to mentally figure out if I could head to Karuizawa to see this after I finished at this museum, but in the end I decided to take it easy. The museum my mom headed to was in Karuizawa, hahahaha.

Oh gosh, this Tezuka-Ishinomori exhibit though, so freaking amazing. Early Kamen Rider sketches, Kikaider designs, Go Ranger mask sketches, Black Jack pages, Buddha art, oh man oh man ohhhh maaaaan. There was a section about general themes (Life, Hometown, Person, Don't Give Up, Science, Love, War and Peace, Threat of Nature, Female Image, Sound, Time, and something that translates to "Reflection-Bull's Eye-Expression) that had made me cry because the chosen images were so powerful. T^T

At the end there was a section of tribute works. They were all cool, but there was a pair of pictures by Takeshi Obata (Death Note, Bakuman., etc etc). One for Dororo, one for Cyborg 009. They were… so gorgeous. I wanted… no, NEEDED copies of them, but the gift shop let me down. There's probably some legal reason they couldn't sell postcards or posters or whatnot of them. I bought the exhibit guide instead, so even though they're not huge versions and I can't put them on my wall, I can still flip through the guide and see them. Plus all the other incredible pieces and memorabilia from the exhibit!

But, damn. They're incredible. I showed them to my mom and even she (who greatly dislikes manga) thought they were incredible.

Walked back to the temple in order to head back to the ryokan. I tried to make a kitty friend, but they weren't interested. =(

Between the Sanmon Gate and Nimon Gate was this house(?) with lovely lanterns in front.

I spent a long time taking pictures of the lanterns and house, so I'm posting two of them. =T

Shachihoko!

Exiting the temple grounds, heading down the street…

I wanted to get a late lunch and wander around, but first I needed to drop off my big camera (actually my brother's camera he kindly lent me) and my museum purchases. I dropped them off at the ryokan, but took a handful of pictures of the place before heading out again.

Stairs! There were stairs everywhere.

Everywhere. This is looking down from our floor (3rd floor-ish) to the closest bathroom.

Down the hallway passed our room.

Down more stairs.

Inside our room!

And again, our room!

I took a breather, dropped off my stuff, and headed out again.

Nearby kabuki theater.

Cat and Chopper!

Medicine Dog with one beefy arm. (Trogdog?)

A head for a lion dance (shishi-mai).

I found a convenience store and grabbed some gyoza and the latest Weekly Shonen Jump. I sat on a planter at a street corner and tried not to look super suspicious and out of place.

Cool elephant statue. They had a giraffe one and a hippo one too.

After seeing so much amazing art, I decided to find a Starbucks to get a drink and doodle a bunch myself. I was inspired! As I meandered through the city, I found myself near the main train station. All of a sudden I looked up and BAM! There was an Animate. I wasn't planning on buying much until I got back to Tokyo, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to look.

Ha ha.

HAHAHAHAHA.

I wasn't… that bad. I found a couple Tales of Xillia 2 clear files I hadn't seen in Tokyo and didn't want to miss out having them so I grabbed them. I… may have also picked up Devils Line v3… BUT IT HAD A BONUS PAPER WITH AN ANZAI DRAWING ON IT and I kinda needed that so yeah… That was more than I had planned on buying, so I went to the cashier but was frozen by the Irregular at Magic High School section. I fought so SO hard, but Tatsuya, my beloved Onii-sama and the world's greatest Gary Stu, had my heart in a tight grip and I ended up getting THE FREAKING CUTEST TATSUYA PHONE STRAP OMG.

I was so ashamed of my purchases, especially beloved Onii-sama, but to this day that strap brings me great happiness, I guess it's alright. There was a Starbucks in the same building so I got a drink and doodled for a couple hours.

It was so relaxing and so nice. The entire day was just what I needed.

This was… a clothing shop? I love the store window. It says "Under Construction," but that might have been part of the store's name/design? It seemed like it was open and themed similarly inside.

SELF DEFENSE FORCE

MOE DEFENSE GIRLS

I like this sign because the red circle looks like an elephant to me. Perhaps that's the intention?

That bear on the left is creepy because it has human hands. Maybe raccoon hands? Maybe it's actually supposed to be a raccoon????

Lion dance lions!

Back at the ryokan. Grenade! (aka Fire Extinguisher, I believe)

The view from one of our windows.

And finally… more stairs. So very many stairs.

I worked on Terra Formars until my mom got back, we talked about our days, then she went to get dinner. Since I had eaten lunch so late, I wasn't particularly hungry. I grabbed more gyoza and some drinks at a nearby 7-11, hurried back, took a super fast shower and was back in the room before my gyoza was cold. Worked some more as I watched The Devil is a Part-Timer and some Kamen Rider I had ripped for entertainment~

THAT'S ALL! For now. Next we'll leave Nagano and go to Kyoto. If anyone is interested in any of the art from the Tezuka-Ishinomori exhibit, let me know and I can take pictures of the exhibit book. I'm not going to scan it, sorry, I don't want to harm it in any way, but I'll take pictures of whatever you'd like.

Japan Trip 2014: Nagano B: A Ball of Fury, 10/08/14

2015-03-07T06:42:47Z

Warnings: 54 images, ranting, tmi?, ranting,RANTING, swearing.

Phew… Okay. This is going to be long.

I slept fairly well and when I woke up I chatted with Nur as I read some My Hero Academia (well, tried to read, as you may remember that my Japanese is incredibly lackluster). It was the first time Nur and I had messaged each other in a week, so it was nice. Once my mom got up and ready to go for breakfast, we headed down to the dining room. Breakfast was lovely, but there was SO MUCH FOOD. I don't think I finished HALF of it in the end. But it was all good. And the first time I've had a traditional Japanese breakfast, I think?

Part way through breakfast, my mom starts freaking out about the incoming typhoon again. I assume my reactions (which were mostly disinterested shrugs) to her worry had not been to her taste, so she looked hard at me and said in the textbook definition of condescending tone, "if a station master told you not to go on the train because of the typhoon, would you still go?" That was that last straw. I had been putting up with her freaking out and telling me all the ways I was going to suffer/die/be in trouble for a few days now and I was tired of it. She would not listen to what I had to say on the matter and I couldn't take it anymore. I snapped.

Putting aside the fact that a station master would not tell me I shouldn't get on the train, they would SHUT DOWN THE STATION, I said, "of course I wouldn't go on the train. I appreciate your worry, but please stop. I'm going to be careful. I will to my best to be safe. So please stop telling me how I will die. It's just too much." "Stop yelling!" She said. "I'm NOT yelling!" I replied, even though I had raised my voice, haha… She got flustered and told me I was making a scene and to stop embarrassing her. (…there was only one other guy in the room…) But embarrassing her? Like her snarky comment didn't embarrass me earlier! Or her loud comments about people we passed on trains or on the street!! Is it only bad because now there's a guy who can speak English within earshot? I bet plenty of the other people that she commented about could speak English too and knew what she was saying. Sorry you're embarrassed, WELCOME TO THE CLUB. She left to get back to the room and it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I didn't realize it had been bothering me so much. I felt… good. I looked at the other guy in the room and he met my gaze and sorta shrugged and we exchanged a few lines about touristy stuff. I don't think he gave a fuck about our argument. I ate the rest of my meal in peace and headed to the imminent tongue lashing that awaited me in our room.

Yuuup. I got a talking to about putting on "a show" for the guy there. Uhhh, yeah, no, I would have snapped even if he wasn't there. She had started it, don't get upset when your problems aren't absorbed by me. I'm not going to sit there and just take everything you throw at me. "I've never embarrassed you in public," she said.

…

……

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH oh wow HAHAHAHAHAHA oh gods HAHAHAHA are you fucking kidding me? I doubt there is a parent out there that hasn't embarrassed their kid! I didn't actually laugh when she said that, but I think she knew that I thought that was bullshit because she asked me for an example. WELL THAT'S EASY, there are many to choose from. I told her about the time she embarrassed me in front of a friend and then that friend told my other friends and the whole thing was joked about (at my expense) for years after. "Oh, so I'm the butt of your friends' jokes? Great." UHHHHH, YEAH, them making fun of me makes you the butt of their jokes. Sure. Yeah. Okay. But nope! She's right. Always right.

Thank goodness Nur was still online, because I needed to rant SO BADLY. And bless My Hero Academia, it greatly helped soothe my raging soul.

We walked back to Nagano Station and got on a train for Matsumoto. Mommy seemed real upset about the argument, but I was just angry in general. It was my mom being my mom. I don't think she's used to me talking back to her because I haven't really done it in years. (At some point I had learned it was better to just absorb the crap she threw at me than to argue with her, but in this case I couldn't stand it anymore!)

Goats on a gate!

Tsurikichi Sanpei on a fishing tournament(?)/event flyer! ♥

The train was a one-man train that had to switch tracks all the time and took a good hour or so. I was exhausted for whatever reason, so I kept dozing.

When we arrived in Matsumoto, my mom decided that my directions to our true destination, Matsumoto Castle, were no good. Never mind that I had downloaded a GPS map that clearly pointed the way (guess GPS doesn't need your phone to be a phone to use, so this vector map app I had, Galileo, was awesome for this sorta stuff), or that there were tons of signs pointing the way all over!!

Ninja frogs!

Other side of the ninja frogs!

(We easily made it to the castle, by the way.)

I told my mom that one of Matsumoto's (and Nagano's) specialties was apples, so she bought some while I took pictures of koi in the castle moat.

Swaaaans.

The castle!! Unfortunately, parts of it were being restored, but it was still beautiful!

My mom with the castle! Every day she'd wear something fairly nice. I was always in a t-shirt, lol.

Shachihoko, one of the roof ornaments on the wall.

SAMURAIIIIIII

Pardon the blurriness of some of these interior photos, the lighting was low and my photography skills leave something to be desired! We had to remove our shoes before entering the castle. It was fun pattering around on the smooth floors. The stairs were REALLY steep too. You can sort of see how steep in this photo.

SHACHIHOKOOOOOO

This is part of the castle eaves, I think?

Guns!

More guns! They had lots and lots of guns on display.

Cool boxes.

Tiny badass cannon. I'm not sure this is original to the castle since it has the Hosokawa Clan symbol on it, and the Hosokawa clan is from way down south in Kumamoto…?

Sunlight streaming in...

More windows.

I may be remembering this incorrectly, but one daimyo had a dream in which he was told that if he put ____ of rice up in the roof of his castle, it would keep the castle safe. So here's some holy rice, continuing to keep the castle safe. The main part of the castle is still the original building! Good job, holy rice!

SHACHIHOKOOOOOO so many SHACHIHOKOOOOOOO

The iconic red bridge is being restored.

Original castle grounds building foundation areas???

Fourth floor, thought to be the Lord's Chamber.

STEEEEEEEP steps. These were about a foot and half for each step, and they weren't the steepest of the steps. The steepest were also worn smooth and were really slippery because we were just wearing socks! Going up wasn't all that hard, but coming down was!

Moon-Viewing Wing.

Leaving the interior of castle.

The lovely roof of the castle.

More roofness.

Holes for pouring hot liquid or dropping rocks on your enemies. At least, that's my guess.

Pretty pine tree.

Matsumoto Castle: regularly called one of the best castles in Japan. I can see why! That blocked off section is the Moon-Viewing Wing.

Out at the moat.

More moat!

WTFFFFFFFFF Disney castle coins?????

Taiko-mon Masugata (square-style double gate).

My mom loved this rock. She wanted it for her garden.

What's going on here? I don't know.

Our pass to the castle included admission to the nearby Matsumoto Marugoto Museum, so we checked it out. We learned about local history and local crafts.

I love this little bookstore(?) crammed between two boring buildings.

Temari (thread balls), one of the specialties of Matsumoto.

Koma-Inu!

Koma-Inu! This one is the partner of the previous one.

Mommy ate one of her apples while we were at this shrine, she said it was one of the best she'd ever had. We watched people feed and get swarmed by pigeons.

Grasshopper rocking horse… rocking insect?

I just thought this looked kinda neat.

Giant clock in a building!

More temari!

Get your anti-bear spray here!

I hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was well into the afternoon. I bought ice cream to stave off my hunger because I'm a healthy kid.

Do I spy an Animate? =3 But it was not a day for animate, I could resist the pull.

Waiting for the train back to Nagano~

Caught a Shinano train back and I fell asleep on the train. I don't know why I still so tired.

We were going to try to get our tickets from Nagano to Kyoto, but I had messed up. I thought there was a shinkansen connecting the two, but there wasn't. Instead it was a 4-hour ride, which killed my original plans of leaving Nagano early and going to Himeji before checking into our hotel in Kyoto. It was completely my fault, I was upset, I was PMSing, I was tired, and I made the mistake of complaining that we were staying at another ryokan that's way out of the fucking way so we'd never have the time to do what I wanted. Plus, ryokan make me feel super uncomfortable because I always feel out of place. My mom got all upset because she was excited about this next ryokan and said that if I was so upset, maybe I should just find a different hotel that I'd be more comfortable in. This just made me more frustrated because it wasn't her fault, I had agreed to these places, I was angry at myself and I told her that, but then she got all defensive? When I repeated that I was mad at myself because it was completely my fault, she got even more defensive and a little angry. Gwah. I shouldn't have said anything, the whole afternoon argument was because of me, but then she started doing this martyr thing that my sister does and it was definitely not helping.

Apples, 'cause you know, they are an area specialty~

Li'l itty bitty creeky weeky.

Olympics yeaaaaaah.

This bus was covered in children's doodles. Very cool.

A bar? Maybe?

We wandered around for a while to try to find a place to get food. I get cranky when I'm hungry and I was already frustrated because of all the other junk that had gone on during the day, so I was very "whatever" about places my mom suggested. She wanted soba (another area specialty), I just wanted food. We finally settled on a little place and she had her soba. I just had curry. I was fading fast, so mommy let me head back to the ryokan by myself. I took a shower (in the shared bath! I'm super uncomfortable showing much skin in public, so I washed really fast to avoid anyone coming in), messed around on my computer some, and passed out.

So that day sucked. SUUUUUUCKED. But the castle was awesome. The next post will be about an amazing day, I swear!! Most of my trip ranting is over now. M…most…

Japan Trip 2014: Tokyo C and Nagano A: DID YOU SAY TRAINS?, 10/06/14-10/07/14

2015-02-17T18:56:34Z

WHERE AM I WHAT'S GOING ON OH HEY LET'S POST MORE JAPAN TRIP STUFF

Warning: 46 images, work safe, ranting, trains, more ranting

So uh, yeah, where was I? Last time I fangirled extensively about World Trigger and LIFE WAS GREAT and yeah.

Let's pick up the morning after. You may recall that a typhoon was blowing through. My mom had bought little fancy sandwiches to eat in our hotel room so we wouldn't have to brave the storm. They were tasty, but we both wanted a bit more. We braved our way to Precious Coffee so my mom could get her caffeine fix. It was only a few hundred meters away and we didn't get too wet in our mad dash over there. There was tons of wind and rain, but it wasn't quite as violent as I thought it'd be. We were able to scurry back to our room and huddle away until the storm passed.

My mom was really impressed by the Japanese weather teams on TV, they all said that the typhoon would be out of Tokyo by noon, and it was out of Tokyo (Ueno at least) exactly at noon.

You can see the edge of the storm leaving! It didn't seem to cause too much damage to the immediate area, thank goodness! (It sounds like it was AWFUL in other areas though.) However, as we were climbing some stairs we found a large smear of blood going down them. There was a lot of blood, it was freaky. We didn't see anyone injured in the area, so hopefully it was mostly the rain water making it look like there was more blood than there actually was!

We got lunch at Yoshinoya. My mom was looking at fancy-ish places to eat and I was like, "…how about cheap terrible-for-you fast food?" I couldn't believe she agreed. I got a delicious curry cheese beef bowl which made me SO SICK but it was SO GOOD I would order it again. THE TASTE IS WORTH THE SUFFERING.

My mom had tried to go to Nippori the previous day but most places were closed. She suggested we go together and I was hesitant but agreed.

Devilman!! Man with a Mission!! Every time I see this I think "Database, Database, just living in the Database…"

I don't know what's going on in that second-storey room, but DINO SKULL!! I think everything up there was fossil-related. Probably replicas, but still very cool.

NIPPORI.

FREAKING NIPPORI.

My mom's big shopping goal of the who trip was to get some nice indigo-dyed fabric. Nippori is like… "fabric town" so it was a good place to look. I was perfectly happy to just assist her search. But no. NO. THIS TERRIBLE PLACE. WHY DID I GO THERE? Even with holding back, I found myself with like four yards of fabric I really have no use for. I just really liked them T_T;; I got some Detective Conan fabric (IT HAD KID-SAMA ON IT, CAN YOU BLAME ME?), some cool brush paint-esque dragon fabric, and some with this little pup on it… I think it might be an adorable Fu Dog. My mom was pleased. I don't remember her ever being so pleased about me buying stuff before. She picked up a lot of cool stuff herself. It was a good afternoon. If I was a cosplayer living in the area, Nippori would be heaven. I kept seeing stuff and going, "oh, this would be PERFECT for my _____ cosplay!"

Cute Halloween decorations in Ueno Station.

My mom had looked up places to eat and found a collection of restaurants on the second floor of Ueno Station. I had never been up there. We split an ebitempura curry udon and a tempura banana. The tempura was PERFECT. So delicious!

Looking from the second floor to the first, including the escalators that take you to the subway lines.

I really wanted to get two specific Yokai Watch plush (one for me, one for Nur). There was a toy store nearby and I decided to check there. No luck, but I was able to get a tiny Yakul plush! I've always wanted a Yakul!

I tried just about every ginger drink I could. This one was okay, but not very gingery.

Cubby and Yakul!!

I packed a little and watched a drama before going to bed.

Woke up the next morning and the script for World Trigger ch78 was up early so I was able to finish it before heading to a bakery (Hokou?) to grab bread and then to Precious to get coffee.

Cute Godiva packaging in Ueno Station.

Cute boys on an ad in the station. (I fully admit to being incredibly embarrassing when I saw this, even though I had been able to fangirl a couple days earlier, Osamu just fills me with such happiness!!)

We checked out of the hotel and headed to Kappabashi. The hotel kindly watched our bags for us.

Kappabashi is kitchen town! My mom had a great time looking at all the different tools. We spent a long time in a knife shop, picking out knives for my brother and dad.

You can easily see Sky Tree from Kappabashi! It's only a couple miles away.

Kappa!

We didn't have a whole lot of time to explore and soon I was encouraging my mom to wrap it up and begin our hike back to the hotel.

I was a little disingenuous about having to hurry, because I always wanted to stop by Shitaya Shrine on the way back.

Shitaya Shrine is pretty small, but I like it. It's nestled away and quiet.

They raise a few chickens there too! This kitty was just… making sure they were okay.

My favorite part of the shrine area is the small Inari Shrine (of course!).

Peeking in on the Fu Dogs for the main building.

There's an Inari Shrine and opposite it is a large collection of kitsune statues!

Unfortunately many are damaged, but they're still so lovely!

And cute!!

We arrived back at the hotel and we were about to leave when a worker came up to me and asked if I wanted to leave some bags there. They knew I was coming back in about a week and suggested leaving things I didn't need during that time. YES PLEASE I WOULD LOVE TO LEAVE STUFF. I left all my WT doujin and my fabric there. It was SO helpful! You can see the cute One Piece bag I got for shopping at the One Piece store (a special "2th" anniversary bag, perhaps?). You can also get a glance at the fabrics I bought.

Our Shinkansen to Nagano left from Ueno Station (convenient! All the others I've been on left/arrived at Tokyo Station!) and it took us a little while to find the Shinkanse area, but we arrived with plenty of time to relax and find some ekiben! We had so much time to wait, I should have let my mom explore more of Kappabashi!

NOW WHO IS READY FOR SOME TRAAAAAINNNSSSS?

The cool thing about being on the platform well before your train is supposed to arrive is being able to see all the other trains coming through.

An E2 Series train.

What is that…?

Oh! It's an E5!

A better picture of the E5's front.

An E2 coupled with a… 400 series, maybe? I'm no expert on these, I just love trains. I have a cheat sheet I'm looking at for the names, so I may mess up a few!

Zooming towards us is…

An E4!

Train break! Here's my mom with Cubby! I think she wasn't that interested in the trains at first but she started getting excited when different types of Shinkansen would pull in.

E4, I think.

An E6! This is one of the newest models.

A lovely lineup.

An E7!! This is the current newest Shinkansen style. We rode one of these to Nagano.

My picture isn't very good, but I think this may be an E1.

Our train arrived, we got comfy, and broke out the ekiben! I was very excited about getting ekiben and tried to pick the more interesting-sounding ones.

Here's one…

…and here's the other. They were both pretty good!

Cubby wanted some ekiben too, but we told him he'd get his paws dirty.

Saw these mountains (off in the background) from the train. I don't know if I've seen mountains shaped quite like that before.

After a few hours of travel, Terra Formars work, and going through places I know about only because of anime/manga, we arrived in Nagano! A little underwhelming.

I would say that Tokyo was "my" part of the trip with my mom and Nagano and Kyoto were "her" parts of the trip. As such, I sort of expected her to know where we were going and be the one to take charge. I didn't expect her to be the one trying to talk to people, but I figured she'd at least make sure we had maps to our hotels. NOOOOOPE. I was hoping my mom would be prepared, but just in case I had printed pictures of the front of our Nagano hotel and a couple maps. The maps didn't have enough detail and I wasn't sure which station exit to use. My mom suggested I talk to a station master, but I was pretty burned out about being the only one that did anything to try to get us where we needed to be, I was whined a bit. BUT WELL, she doesn't speak ANY Japanese and even my awful skills were better than no skills. So I talked to a station master and he showed me the proper exit and told me how to get there. His instructions were simple and clear and I was very thankful. I told me mom I knew where to go and instead of going, "yay! let's go!" like I had hoped, it was something like, "what did he tell you?" When I told her, she then asked for what he had said in Japanese, then she doubted my translation of it? It was odd. LUCKILY I had discovered on my near-useless maps that our ryokan was pretty close to Zenkoji Temple. You had to take the same street to get to the temple, so as long as we kept following the signs and didn't actually get to the temple, we'd be fine. I knew the distance from the station to the ryokan and the distance from the station to the temple, so I could estimate our distance from the ryokan every time I saw a temple sign. Excellent!

Looks like the city animal is the red panda? Cute!! You can see the VERY useful signs for Zenkoji Temple; one street sign, one on the sidewalk.

I had forgotten the Nagano Police mascots were super hot. ♥ I wanted to get sexy police mascot merch, but I never got around to trying to find a police station and asking about it.

OH MY POOPS THIS CALLED OUT TO ME, I NEEDED TO SEE IT.

This was one of the special sites during the 1998 Winter Olympics, but I don't remember the importance of it.

It was about at this point that my mom started freaking out. She feared we were lost and although I kept telling her that we were on the right track and we still had about 10 minutes to go, she kept suggesting we ask someone for help. "Please trust me, I'm sure we're going the right way" didn't help much. We found a Moss Burger and my mom said, "I'll do my best to watch the bags." Which is a weird thing to say, yeah? I was a little upset that I had to do the direction asking again (although, like I said earlier, I SHOULD be the one doing it), but I put down my bags and started walking towards the door. She called out, say SHE was going to ask and that's what she had just said, but yeah, no, she hadn't (probably just a slip of the tongue), so I gently waved her off and asked. The poor girls (they were probably only high schoolers) looked a big shell shocked, but took my map, ran to the back room, printed out a bigger version, and pointed me the right way.

…it was exactly the direction we had been going.

We made it safely to the ryokan and the extremely kind couple that ran it helped us take our bags to our room and showed us the facilities. It took a little doing to explain to my mom why we weren't supposed to walk on tatami mats with outdoor shoes on or why we are supposed to do this or that. Most of my final answers to her "but WHY?" became "because that's how it is," which is terrible but she accepted it and tried hard to be a good guest.

We checked our email and the such. We'd been getting updates over the last few days about ANOTHER typhoon coming and my mom promptly freaked out when she got the latest update. It was supposed to be a biiiiig one and it was supposed to hit after I had left her to go back to Tokyo. I told her it'd be fine, but she was still freaked out about it. I was told all sorts of things, don't go down alleys (b/c you'll get raped), don't go out at night (b/c you'll get murdered), don't go out during the typhoon (b/c YOU GONNA DIE). Gwah.

In order to thank the ladies at Moss Burger for their help, we ate there for dinner, lol. I love me some Moss Burger, so I was very pleased.

Afterwards, we walked to a couple bookstores we had passed on our trek from the station to the ryokan and I looked for a couple books. I ended up getting a couple volumes of manga for nighttime reading.

This was at the front of an Okinawaan restaurant.

And this the restaurant's front. Cute!

We got back to the ryokan and I showered as fast as humanly possible (I wanted to avoid anyone else in the shared bath, I'm just not comfortable with bathing with others). I looked up the manga exhibition, and it turned out that the museum was maybe a half mile from where we were staying. JACKPOT!!! I told my mom pointblank that I didn't have an interest in the museum we had come to Nagano for (she knew I wasn't that excited about it beforehand), and that I knew she didn't have an interest in this exhibit, so maybe we should just go to our own museums and then meet up later? She took it further and suggested spending that whole day apart. Sounds great! We'd go to Matsumoto the next day, then have a day apart before going to Kyoto. As you can tell from this ranting post, my mom was starting to really get on my nerves.

Japan Trip 2014: Tokyo B: WORLD TRIGGER, WORLD TRIGGER, and WORLD TRIGGER, 10/05/14

2015-01-23T02:27:15Z

Somehow I have not uploaded any World Trigger userpics yet. That's crazy.

Warnings: 40 pictures, worksafe, light swearing, extreme fangirling

I didn't mention this in the previous post, but we found out after we arrived in Japan that a typhoon was on its way. This was Typhoon Phanfone. My mom was crazy worried about it, but I wasn't too bothered. It was the 18th typhoon Japan had experienced just that year, so it couldn't be too crazy, right? But yeah, mommy was worried, especially since we were spending the day apart. Phanfone wasn't supposed to hit Tokyo until the next day, but still… she's my mom, as she says, "it's her job to worry."

ANYWAY!

I made sure I was up by 6:30 for…

THE PREMIERE OF THE WORLD TRIGGER ANIME!

Taking photos of a tv is stupid but I'll do it and post them because it's World Trigger! And it's Osamu, my beloved baby brother! ♥

Shame the anime is pretty much awful. Bad animation, bad pacing. But the story and characters are still fantastic!! I still enjoyed it because I was watching it as it aired in Japan. Goddamn am I a weeaboo.

Got breakfast with my mom at a local coffee shop called "Precious Coffee." It was nice and quiet, but a storm front pushed in by the typhoon, or perhaps the leading edge of the typhoon itself was dumping buckets of water all over. We exchanged our rail passes and then went our separate ways. I travelled to Tokyo Big Sight. I wasn't sure which stop on the monorail was mine, usually I can just look out the window and tell, but the monorail's windows were completely fogged up so I just took a guess and miraculously got it right.

I was at Big Sight for Borderline2, a World Trigger-only event!! AHHHH SO EXCITING!!! I was really nervous too. Really really nervous. Luckily, shiroro met up with me and kindly took care of me. Thank-yoooooou!! ♥♥♥

There were a number of "only" events going on that day… I don't remember all of them, but I think there were Final Fantasy, Haikyuu, Daiya no Ace, Magi Prince, Fate, and a Souske-oriented Free! ones. We first stopped at Kurot's table and picked up her Haikyuu book. I had no idea it was Kurot (whose I'd been following off and on for many, many years) until later, hahahaha. I should've put two and two together when Shiro told me about her being from Canada and some other stuff! We walked around the Final Fantasy area, then headed to the World Trigger stuff. Shiro talked to all the artists for me so I wouldn't have to stumble over my cringe-worthy Japanese. She helped me give chocolates and copies of the English version of World Trigger to artists I liked too. Thank-you Shiro!!!!! I was so scared, and you swept all that fear away. GUYS SHE EVEN LET ME PUT MY GAJILLION BOOKS IN HER BAG. GAAAAAHHH ♥ Ran through the Sousuke section to pick up some books that a friend had requested, but wasn't able to get too much because I was running out of space and money, hahahaha, oops.

They had themed food, kyaaa~ The World Trigger food is dorayaki!

THE SPOILS!! Most were mine, but some were for friends. After giving away all the goodies I brought, they were juuuuuust able to fit in the Thousand Sunny bag I bought the day before.

Our doujin shopping done, we huddled over our books and hurried to the train station to head for Ikebukuro. Shiro suggested we put our bags in a locker (genius!), I got some more money, and we headed through the rain to Sunshine City.

YES WORLD TRIGGER AD YES

YES WORLD TRIGGER J-WORLD AD YES

(please produce more promotional art, World Trigger anime)

OSAMU!!! OSAMU!!!!!!! BELOVED BABY BROTHER!!!

We were heading to J-World because they were having a World Trigger event. They had a big cutout of the main characters out front. ♥

We looked around real quick and then headed to the J-World Kitchen for food.

First round: Replica bread and melon soda!

Kitchen eating area!

Ramen Ichiraku from Naruto!

Shiro got Tachibana's mochi!

Then she got the Replica cake.

Another view. It was sesame-flavored!

Another shot of Replica bread! (Replipan!) It had sort of a butterscotch filling in it?

I also got the Trion Cakes, I think the white one was lemon and the black one was sesame.

Close up of the cookie. I got a little too excited and bit into it before taking a picture. >_>;;

You got a random coaster for every World Trigger food item you got, and these were our spoils! We traded so we could have our preferred characters' coasters. XD

After food it was time for World Trigger games! This Rad was above a stamp area (collect the five stamps, get a card).

Cut outs in the main World Trigger game area!

Anime designs too! I took close-up pictures or every single one of those sheets, lol.

♥♥♥♥

For anyone who likes KuroBas! They were having a Halloween KuroBas event, I guess.

We joked about how our power levels would be on this scouter, and I knew I was going to get a power level of like… five, but somehow I was crazy powerful! It must have been all the fujoshi energy I had that day.

This picture sums up my life.

Ilgar!

World Trigger postcards. If you brought a copy of any WT book, you'd get… two, I think? It was a shame we didn't know, because we had copies in the locker we'd put our stuff in. I brought a book the second time I went and got some postcards then!

A glorious wall of color pages!

HELLO BEAUTIFUL NEW BELOVED SERIES.
My Hero Academia, people, My Hero Academia. It's flipping adorable and lovely and awesome and I love it so goddamn much I can't take it. This was a ACTUAL DRAWING. IT'S GLORIOUS. This is easily my second favorite series to run in Jump in a few years (World Trigger is #1, of course.). I want to work on this series so badly, I can't express it in words. My freaking SANITY was saved by this series (story in later post, haha). I just. This series. I love it.

White board for fans to draw on! They had a section where you could write Ashihara-sensei (the World Trigger mangaka) a note, so we did. Mine was TERRIBLE and SAPPY and REALLY FANGIRLISH.

World Trigger info boards!

Congratulations to anyone who made it this far! You've pretty much gotten through the heavy fangirling!

J-World wasn't just World Trigger, of course! We checked out the rest of the place. I had just started reading and watching Haikyuu, so it was a treat to see the Haikyuu stuff!

Best door sign?

So cute!

HNNNGHHH, they're all so great! T_T~♥

Big Jump mural!

And then we left J-World. What a fun place! I'm definitely going back next time I'm in Japan!

Shiro said this was just a regular bike store, but when Yowamushi Pedal got big they took advantage. Very smart, bike store! Very smart.

We wandered around Ikebukuro, looking at different shops before having to split up and head back. Thanks again, Shiro! You're incredible and I had an incredible time!

I got back before my mom did (we only had one key), so I just read doujin in front of our door. I only read worksafe ones out there! I took off my shoes too, because my feet had gotten soaked from all the rain. Luckily only one person passed by while I was waiting. It must have quite the sight! XD;;

Stuff from Borderline2!

Stuff from J-World! ALWAYS OSAMU GOODS. ALWAYS.

And another of these Monster Hunter drinks!

Thanks for reading!

Japan Trip 2014: Tokyo A: Lotsa Places, 10/01/14-10/04/14

2015-01-20T03:49:18Z

It's been over three months since I got back from the latest Japan excursion and I'm finally getting around to posting. There are reasons for this!! Good reasons!! …the most prominent one being that I'm very, very lazy. But enough about that, ON WITH THE PICTURES!

101 images, lots of rambling, list swearing, fangirling. Worksafe.

My mom retired from teaching in June of 2014. For years we had planned to go to Japan after she retired because she's always wanted to see Kyoto, and a good opportunity came up in October 2014. We planned to spend 11(12?) days together, then she would join up with a Kyoto garden tour group and I'd go back to Tokyo then back to California on my own (she'd come back about a week later).

This'll probably be the longest entry, I'm estimating the others to be about half this length. These first days were so full of taking my mom to all sorts of places I had been before (and therefore did not take many pictures of), I thought they worked well together.

At the BART station, waiting for our train to the airport! We brought Cubby, King of Bread and Donuts. He's the wolf stuffed animal my mom is holding. He's a very important member of the family. We got him a collar and tag with my email address on it just in case he got lost. I made him a passport (complete with his photo and personal info) so his traveling to other countries would be completely legal. Didn't want this king to cause any international incidents!

Saw this at the airport. It caught my eye because it refers to a city riiiiight next to where I live. And it's probably heavily photoshopped, but the picture on the right is VERY MUCH the high school that's maybe half a mile from my apartment. There's a trail right behind those stands that I bike on all the time, and that's very much what it looks like. Sure, that's kinda the point of the ad, but it's still a little freaky!

There was no one in the seat next to me, so Cubby got his own seat! Lucky wolf.

The flight was fine. I was a little worried because there wasn't any seat-back screens, just a few main cabin ones, and there was only one meal listed on a 10+ hour flight, but everything was perfectly fine. I was interested in the first movie they showed (Maleficent) and a one of the reality shows (one on making aquariums???). I had bought lots of snacks for the flight so we wouldn't get hungry with our one in-flight meal, but they actually gave us two meals and a "snack." Their "snack" was a turkey sandwich and ice cream. Quite the snack!! I was snooping on a guy a row over… he was reading some Young Jump manga, then playing Persona Q. I wanted to talk to him, but I figured he was probably Japanese (since Persona Q wasn't out in the US yet) and I wasn't in the mood for the possible having to converse in my broken Japanese.

We had a bit of a scare before the flight when my mom couldn't find her iPad and we thought she left it at home, but it turned out she put it in her purse instead of her bag. Phew!

Cubby wanted to get his passport stamped at Immigration, but the officer there just looked at it, looked at Cubby, and nodded him through. Hahaha

While waiting for our bags at Narita Airport, I met three friendly people from Arizona; Lisa, Corey, and Daniel! They were really nice. It was their first time in Japan and they were a little nervous about finding their way to their hotel, but it turned out they were going to take the same train (Skyliner) into Tokyo, so I was able to at least get them going in the right direction. We rode the train together and chatted a bit. Lisa later emailed me and told me Corey had proposed to her in Odaiba! How lovely!

After getting to Ueno, we checked into the hotel, dropped off our stuff, and went walking in Ueno Park. This is near the Benten Shrine. If you look real close there's actually a black kitten hidden in this picture!

I took mommy to all my favorite spots in the park and had to convince her to stop posting everything to Instagram. XD;; I was worried she'd eat up all her international data in the first day! I tried to take her to the little noodle shop Nur and I like, but she was repulsed by the plastic food in the windows. We got dinner at a convenience store instead, lol.

View from my bed! It was a bunk bed room, which I was really excited about. I love bunk beds! And yeaaaaah, baseball on tv!

Monster Hunter drink. They had different versions, so I took pictures of each one I got. They were tasty, but I'm not sure what they tasted like. =T

My beloved Andersen Bakery in Ueno Station was closed for remodeling the entire time we were in Japan! There were plenty of other bakeries and breakfast was easy to obtain, but… ANDERSEN!!!!! We got breakfast the next morning at a place right next to one of the park entrances. I got a lightly sweetened apple bread, my mom got curry bread, and we both got Hokkaido milk. Delicious!

Then we walked over to Akihabara. This was a cool place we passed by.

My mom is a coffee fiend and needed her fix. We stopped at a Tully's so she could fuel up. I took the time to help her go over katakana and hiragana. I would find simple signs and have her translate them. I had given her study sheets a few months before we left and she had brought them. I'm not sure if it was helpful but she was a lot faster at our translation game the further we got into the trip!

Took mommy to Kanda Myojin, a gorgeous shrine near Akiba.

It was pretty empty. Nice and peaceful!

I saw this poster near the shrine and it made me laugh SO HARD. These ladies are so mildly interested. It's practically the definition of mildly interested.

Just a block or so away from Kanda Myojin is Yushima Seidou, a Buddhist Temple. There's a great dolphi—

THE DOLPHIN!!! IT'S GONE!!! NOOOOOOoooooo

This temple has Baku!

And dragons! And tigers!

This shop had cool things.

Cool thing.

So cool.

Roppongi was our next stop! And of course, that means seeing Maman!

Tokyo Tower doesn't look that far off!

There was a special Margret exhibition at the Mori Art Center(?).

Those are all basically the same with different colors, lol. I wanted to go after I returned to Tokyo, but I got too busy buying doujin. >_>;;

Last ad for the exhibit, I swear!!

Cool fountain. They used to have fish they took to space in here.

I found a dead cicada. While checking it out, this little spider ran out of a crack and started pumping it's chelicerae (maybe? it was the white parts) at me in a seemingly threatening way. I'm arachnophobic, but somehow it was just really cute?

This picture doesn't capture the shininess of the cicada's wings. It was a big sucker!

A trip to Roppongi means a quick stop at the robot park!

My favorite of the robots, the (sorta)Heroman-colored one!

We walked towards Tokyo Tower and my mom kept complaining about being hungry, so we kept our eyes open for a place to get lunch. It was early though, and a lot of places weren't open yet, I wanted to go to a family restaurant but was too… embarrassed, I guess to vocalize my desire. During this walk I was able to find the only copy of the latest issue of Shonen Jump I saw that week. It had a World Trigger cover and color pages. I NEEDED IT.

Cool building.

Good choice of One Piece flag, Mr. Trucker.

The forbidden love between a boy and a policewoman...

Speaking of police, these guys would hang out two at a time in their little fort. Not sure why, but I enjoyed ~~creepily~~ watching them. Maybe it was for traffic purposes…?

Here's my mom at that one cult temple that's near Tokyo Tower. It's a Buddhist sect that focus on ancestor worship, if I recall correctly.

We finally got some lunch at a chain place that had good curry.

TOKYO TOWAAAAHHHHHH

My mom doesn't like heights much. We didn't go up the tower. Headed to Zojo-ji Temple instead. It's a huge temple nearby.

"Hey guys, how I need a picture of a talisman/amulet!" How about this 300 pixels x 300 pixels version?" "Perfect! I'll just blow it up to three feet by three feet!"

Last time I was at this temple, I was able to go into through this gate with these cool dragon doors that led to a neat area whose importance I was in the dark about.

Dragon door!

Other dragon door!

Welllllll, before coming here, I had learned that these doors protect the graves of 15 Tokugawa shoguns. It was just dumb luck that the graves were open to the public last time I was there (I think it was a religiously important day).

Zojo-ji bell. It's held up by two dragon heads!

I love Japanese crows! They're so big! This one kept watching me as I tried to get pictures of it.

My mom and I walked a bit to a theater maybe a half mile away so I could get a ticket for a performance of The Lion King when I got back to Tokyo. I was really excited to see it.

Great safety poster in the subway.

Went to Shinjuku! I wanted to take my mom up the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. It's pretty tall and I thought it's be a good view and a little less frightening than going up in a tower.

Of course, all I could think of was Terror in Resonance.

We were able to barely make out Mt. Fuji from the observatory, which I was really hoping to show my mom. Going to the observatory is free, so if you're in the area you should do it~

A rake in the lobby of the building, to rake in good fortune.

Cool tree (roots?) outside a nice restaurant.

Found this on our way to Tokyu Hands. Didn't get any donuts. Cubby was upset when we told him.

My mom loved Tokyu Hands and we both bought pens and pencils. <3

Jump Store in Tokyo Station! Technically, it's under Tokyo Station I suppose… I wanted to go here because the World Trigger doujin event Borderline 2 was in a couple days and I wanted to pimp out my bag, hahahaha…

There was a Yokai Watch game area that I REALLY wanted play in, but there was a huge line and I think it was only for little kids. BOOOOOOO

We were exhausted and hungry again and began to look around for food shops. Mommy declared she wanted ramen. Conveniently, Tokyo Station's Ramen Street was right next to us and we wandered down it. My mom didn't find any place she wanted. Turns out, she just wanted to noodles in broth. She complained that all the ramen we say "had random stuff in it." I told her that's how ramen was, it usually has that stuff in it, but she wasn't interested. (Later she had real ramen, I think really what she wanted this day was soba.) Instead of getting dinner, we went to a bar. My mom enjoyed her beer, but I just felt awkward because I don't drink. I had a very tiny, very expensive soda and then just twiddled my thumbs. I eventually ushered my mom out of the bar a little sooner than she wanted because they were getting ready for the rush hour crowd and I did not want to be stuck in it.

Pretty sunset at Ueno Station.

We got dinner at that noodle shop she wouldn't go to the previous day because of the plastic food. It changed her mind about places with plastic food, HUZZAH!

After dinner I started prepping bags to giveaway at Borderline2. =3

I slept poorly and woke up very early. Fell back asleep and then woke up again at 6am. I wanted to watch Log Horizon S2 at 5:30! Grrr!

Kaitou Kid? In my local station? Yes please!!

We headed over to Harajuku and got breakfast at the Andersen there. I had been whining about the temporary loss of the Ueno Andersen and my mom kept saying, "oh come now, it's just a bakery." BUT THEN SHE ATE THE DELICIOUSNESS AND LOVED IT. She went back there the next day too, bwahahah~<3

Free! Truck! What is it for? Is it just an ad? I will never know.

Great ad.

Cool store front.

This whole entrance is covered in mirrors. You can see me taking the picture in a couple of them!

At the top of the building with the mirrored entrance there is a cafe and a Starbucks, along with this outdoor area. They were having a "Hallo Wind" promotion(?) with wind chimes and pinwheels in Halloween colors everywhere.

All the steps were hexagons. Very cool.

I tried to go to the Eva store that was in Harajuku, but it was a… Maji Prince store…? I think it's changed to a Haikyuu store now? Maybe it'll just rotate through fandom stuff. (No, please stay a Haikyuu store until I get to visit please please PLEASE!)

Harajuku station, which is gorgeous and I've passed by a few times but never actually looked at.

Goddamn I love trains.

Sake offerings at the Meiji Shrine.

Wine offerings too!

These were up around the shrine's interior. Maybe because a wedding was taking place? The wedding party, priests, and mikos walked through the shrine as we watched. That's something I never though I'd see!

Cool architecture at the shrine.

Roofs! And a guy's head.

Yoyogi Park was real close and I thought it'd be cool to show my mom, but it was all locked up! I later learned that there was a dengue fever outbreak in it. =O

We saw a bunch of people walking with purpose nearby and decided to see what they were up to. They led us to the…

Road of Hokkai-Foods! It was a street fair celebrating Hokkaido foods!

Mmmm, spiny crab~

There was so much delicious-looking food, but I got the most unimpressive-looking thing. It WAS delicious though, and just what I wanted. It was some sort of fish stew. The broth was hot and the fish was very cold. The difference in temperatures was neat.

My mom got this beauty. O_O And she let me try some of it!

I wandered around while she finished eating and came across some sort of basketball tournament.

Back at the food fair, I took great joy in photographing some of the mascots they had. Here's Cute Clam with Cape.

Mountain Tummy Pine Tree, Rishirin.

And my personal favorite…

COUNT NAUTILUS. Look at how amazing he is. What he was representing or who he actually was, I do not know. But I do know that he is AWESOME.

Stalls! Stalls everywhere! My mom tried to get some ice cream but couldn't find any. She bought a yogurt drink that blew her mind instead.

This is one of the 1964 Olympic buildings.

Cool shop front we saw on the way to Shibuya.

Awesome Halloween display.

Some sort of Namco… detective… cafe? I wanted to go, but I didn't want to go badly enough to actually find out about it, whoooops.

I heard there was a noitaminA store in the Shibuya Parco and needed a new bag to carry the gifts I was bringing to Borderline2, so off we went.

But there is no long at noitaminA store in the Shibuya Parco.

There is a One Piece store though! SHAAAAAAANKKKKKSSS!!!!!! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

(yes, the sign says do not touch, but it's a photo spot and you're allowed to put your head in the hat)

Chopper!

Law!

Hell, I'm not even a big One Piece fan, but this place was SO COOL. I was able to get a nice Thousand Sunny tote bag with a flat bottom there.

Natsume Ono art at Village Vanguard!

I like this mural lots, but I dunno what it is for/from.

Wrapple's logo is lovely.

Shibuya scramble crossing.

Necessary Hachiko picture.

Parasyte ad!

Nube ad! My poor mom kindly waited for me to take photos of so many fandom things…

Another fantastic safety poster in the subway.

Tokyo Station!

More Tokyo Station! We were heading to the East Imperial Gardens. Unfortunately, we got there at 3:30 and it closed at 4:30. @_@ I felt bad rushing my mom through. I thought it'd close at 5 at the very earliest!

I adore these lamps!

We finished our super fast tour of the gardens and headed over to the Imperial Grounds… well, as much as we could see.

Perfectly groomed grass.

We watched the guards on the bridge change and slowly made our way to the subway. I told my mom about nearby Hibiya Park and she was interested, but I was more interested in heading to the hotel to catch the first episode of Magic Kaito (I'd been to the park before). We decided to split up. I gave her directions on how to get back (Hibiya Station has a subway line that goes directly back to Ueno) and rushed to the hotel for delicious KID-sama.

One more excellent subway safety poster.

TOICHIIIIII

KID-SAMAAAAAAAAAAA

My mom got back halfway through the episode and was definitely NOT into it. She doesn't understand my fangirling, alas, alas.

I took her to the delicious tsukemen place nearby and we both devoured our dinners.

Got back, finished prepping my Borderline2 gifts, and headed to bed.

Next update: Borderline2 and J-World with shiroro!!

Bro Calendar 2015

2014-06-22T00:21:53Z

Suddenly it's Summer and that means... Yes! It's time for signups for the fifth Bro Calendar! Wow, I can't believe this is the fifth one. Yikes, time goes by so fast! Most of this is copy-paste from previous years as not much has changed, but if you're interested, please glance over everything to make sure you're clear on guidelines!

The Bro Calendar is a 12-month calendar that features that special, awesome relationship between two (or more!) people that may or may not be related. Think Jet and Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Or Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Those sorts of relationships. This calendar is to celebrate characters being bros. You can see the 2014 calendar here.

Technical Details:
-Image should be at least 8.5"x11" (landscape, NOT portrait!) and the resolution should be AT LEAST 300ppi.
-Due date is Friday, ~~October 17th.~~ November 21st!
-Color is preferred, but shaded greyscale is acceptable too.
-PG-13 max, please!

Any groups of FICTIONAL characters are allowed! It doesn't matter if they are from an anime series, manga, video game, American comic, TV show, etc, etc. They're all okay. And gender DOES NOT MATTER. Sure, it's a "bro" calendar, but female characters are DEFINITELY allowed. You are free to draw characters used in previous Bro Calendars, but please do not draw characters that are already being used for the 2015 calendar. If possible, I'd like to have only one page per series (so, not like three months of One Piece characters, even if they're all different characters), but I won't stop anyone from signing up for a series that is already being used as long as the characters are different!

I cannot pay you, but for your effort and troubles, you will be sent a copy of the calendar. You DO NOT have to live in the United States to participate, I will happily send you a calendar whatever country you live in. And your images are your own, please feel free to use it for prints at Artist Alleys or the like! (I do not make money off of this project, any money gained from these sales will go directly to recuperating printing costs. In the off chance that I make enough to cover costs, the profits will go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.)

If you would like to participate, please comment on this entry with the following:
-Characters you want to draw and series they are from
-Month you'd like to claim (NOT NECESSARY)
-How you'd like me to contact you (usually I will try to reach everyone through LJ PMs, but if you'd prefer email or a Twitter DM, let me know!)

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment here, send me a LJ PM, a message on twitter (@kaitou_ace), or email me at dragynstorm (at) gmail (dot) com. I will be trying to remain in contact with all participants, giving updates and reminders on due dates.

Thank-you for your interest and time!

Months available: Currently ALL MONTHS are available! The cover is open as well if you are interested in drawing that!

Participants:
sjen - ________ from Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
scaper84 - Characters/Series Undecided
sygmus - Lucas and Claus from Mother 3 (MAY OR APRIL)
nayung - Characters/Series Undecided
ensuing - Shiroe and Naotsugu from Log Horizon
tensergorn - _________ from Free!!
bishieobsessed - Takahashi Brothers from Initial D
queenvera - Hannibal and Will Graham from Hannibal
shiroro - Jin and Osamu from World Trigger

Dragon Drawing Prompts

2014-06-18T04:08:57Z

Hey all, long time no post! Things have been crazy, but that's not what I'm here to write about.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is out! It's great!

I thought I'd do a call for dragon prompts like I did when the first movie came out.

So give me one noun and two adjectives and I'll try to make a dragon out of it!!

Doodles: World Trigger, Psyren, Pokémon, World Conquest Zvezda Plot, + Asst stuff

2014-03-09T06:56:27Z

It's been a while since I posted doodles. The last year or so has been pretty busy, so I haven't been drawing all that much. I've been drawing a lot of World Trigger stuff because it's my beloved baby, but maybe I'll just post most of that stuff together later. It's very silly stuff.

22 images, sexual references in text, otherwise worksafe!

Holiday card for my His Favorite editor. I never know what to draw for him, so… dicks.

Pretty crappy Osamu from World Trigger for the Jump Team's holiday card.

Grumpy Miwa from World Trigger for my World Trigger editor's holiday card. I used to hate Miwa, but now I rather like him. I like his newly super fluffy hair and his tsun-tsun-ness. He'll start to turn on the dere soon! I'm sure of it!!

Tegami Bachi for my… yeah, Tegami Bachi editor. I tried to make it tiki-themed because she really likes tiki stuff. This is one of my favorites of the holiday cards, it was really fun to draw!

X card! Wanted to just draw Inuki, but it was looking boring, so I tried to make it more like a tarot card. Nekoi is the Stength card, so Inuki is also Strength? Kinda? I think my X editor's favorite character is Seishiro, so I drew a Death card on the other side.

LINKED FOR PSYREN v16 (last volume) SPOILERS!
My other favorite card of the bunch. I had JUST read Psyren 16 for the first time and was blown away. Some of the imagery is really cool, and I wanted to draw some Nova Psi stuff.

Ruby and Sapphire for my Pokémon Adventures editor! Recently finished work on the Ruby/Sapphire arc. Sad times, it's my favorite arc. Ruuuuby!!! ♥

Toya and Yamimaru for my Millennium Snow editor!

Rikuo from Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan and Kasahara from Library Wars for the editor of those series! I wish I had redone this one. =(

Shokichi for my Terra Formars editor. I filled the card with cutout cockroaches. =3

Pokémon gathering for the editor of the Pokémon Movie 16 manga. I added Genesect in at the end because it seemed like something was off.

For my Hide and Seek editor. It's always the boys love titles that stump me when it comes to making cards!!

As the picture says, filling this was my New Year's resolution, and I juuuuust made it with a day or so to spare! Huge assortment of things in it, all sorts of fanart, comics, cosplay notes, monsters, and original character work.

Drew this for N7 (November 7th) day! My beloved Shepard: John Cake Shepard.

I got into Yowamushi Pedal, then found out they had some official goods where all the characters are kitties, so I doodled this.

Kon from Tokyo Ravens. Really enjoying this series, and Kon is adorable times a million.

My quick ema contribution to pixiv's 10,000,000 user ema celebration thing.

The latest Yozakura Quartet anime series was really awesome. I hope there is a sequel at some point (and not just another retelling, lol).

Osamu doodle! I'm so happy he sorta looks like he should! Much better than the Osamu card I had earlier in this post. Evil Shiroe from Log Horizon on there too.

I'm really enjoying World Conquest Zvezda Plot, which is airing this season. Asuta is my favorite.

Another Asuta. Doodled this at Starbucks. I sorta like how it turned out, I'm sad I drew it on crappy paper.

Annnnd that's all for now! Thanks for looking!

Prop Making 2013 - CinderClaw the Terrible Terror and Skyspear the Deadly Nadder

2013-11-18T02:08:42Z

At the beginning of the year I went to see How to Train Your Dragons Live and had a super great time. I left the show wanting my own giant animatronic dragons, but that's a little… beyond me, so I decided instead to make some small dragons and cosplay as Hiccup at San Diego Comic Con.

I wanted Nur to cosplay with me and he eventually agreed and we went as Book!Hiccup and Movie!Hiccup. (I was going to be Movie!Hiccup and I tried to get him to cosplay Astrid, but for some reason he refused. Huh.) This post is going to show how I flailed around for ages and eventually created two small dragons to carry around as we cosplayed.

Warnings: 55 Images!! Some swearing! Rambling!

This is the first design I made. This was from early January. Originally, both were going to be a Terrible Terrors, because those are the smallest of the dragons from How to Train Your Dragon (movie-verse thus far) and pretty much the perfect size to carry around with me. One was going to be a marionette, one was going to be a hand puppet. I had a lot of ideas bouncing around here. Some I kept, but some like blinkable eyes on the hand puppet and retractable tongues were eventually cut.

You can see a little doodle for my Jack staff at the top too!

These are from March. I told myself I couldn't start actually making my dragons until I finished all my cosplay for for Fanime, but I still worked on the designs ever so often. By this point, I'd decided to make one Terrible Terror and one baby Nadder and I had named them, CinderClaw and Skyspear.

Final on the sketchbook designs. These are from April. Things are a tiny bit clearer by this point and I wasn't just throwing everything at the wall hoping it'd stick.

June! Time to start on these two! I decided to work heavily on CinderClaw first. I only had a month and a half to make both of the dragons and I'd rather have one completely done than two half-done. And CinderClaw was first up because he was the first design and he was going to be the dragon I was going to carry around. It's selfish, but I'm the one making them, if we only had one, I wanted it to me "MY" dragon. Book!Hiccup's Toothless isn't a Nightfury, it's pretty much a Terror, so I wanted my "Toothless."

Anyway! I drew out a basic version of CinderClaw so I could figure out the sizes of the different parts of his body. I cut out sections of paper to use sort of like patterns.

I made his head out of upholstery foam, elastic, and some plastic mesh (on the inside to help give the head shape). The white bits are plastic armature. VERY expensive, but VERY nice. A lot of the armature pieces are similar lengths and I didn't want them mixed up, so I labeled them with painter's tape.

I couldn't put the armature together myself (there is an expensive tool to do it that I did not buy), so I taped it together for the time being. I also put a joint in the jaw to help it open cleanly.

Checking the eye positioning. I bought half-spheres from U.S. Plastic Corporation and painted them. I haven't gotten any pictures of it, but CinderClaw's eyes glow in the dark slightly. I just loooooove me my glow-in-the-dark paint.

Made him a torso out of upholstery foam. He looks like a dragon-corgie with his short little legs!! By this point, my mom and dad had helped me put the armature together. Thank-you!! ♥ If I plan on using this type of armature again, I'll just buy the tool and avoid the frustration!

Decided the foam was not giving me the form I wanted, so I started wrapping him in quilt batting. Muuuuuch better.

Now his muscles are all here.

I made wings out of steel wire and a netting material and drilled holes in the wing armature for them to fit in. Terrible Terrors have spikes along their backs, so I used worbla for those. I also reworked his head, making it much rounder and chopping off most of his nose spike. The joint in his jaw is gone, it made the mouth to hard to open. It was replaced with more elastic.

And all of a sudden he looks a lot more dragon-ish! I made his claws, horns, and nose spike out of Sculpy, roughed them up a bit with my pocket knife and some sandpaper, then coated them with a varnish. I simply hot glued all the pieces except the back spikes to him. The back spikes were sewn/tied in best I could. NOTE!!!!!!: The hot glue WAS NOT the best choice. It worked GREAT for everything on the head, but the claws fell off often. I'm not sure what the best way to attach them would be, I used super glue later and even that did not always play nice. Oh! And! As an extra precaution with the horns, I used elastic tied around them and then each other and then hot glued in place. It helped keep them nice and sturdy.

Skyspear makes her first appearance here! Originally I was planning on finishing CinderClaw first, but progress was coming along pretty well, so I decided to start her too. Nur was gone one day and I just sat in front of the tv for many hours, trying to build her. I had a lot of trouble with the head because the back of it goes into this heavily-spiked frill, but eventually it worked out. Her tail is most of one of those wiggle snake toys and swings really nicely when she moves. I had way too much trouble trying to get the tail to stay straight and so it swings at an angle instead of side to side, but it works!! Her legs are only connected to her torso at the top since I wanted them to be able to forwards and backwards. She was designed to be a marionette, after all.

Like CinderClaw, her spikes and claws were made of Sculpy. She has a lot more than Cinder!! Her frill alone has 13 spikes. Nur helped a lot making these. They were roughed up after they baked, then the claws (dark brown) were varnished and the spikes (beige) were painted a couple times with different browns (which were then wiped away so only a bit of color remained in the cracks) to give them more of a natural horn look.

Skyspear is looking a little more dragon-ish! Her eyes were made the same way as CinderClaw's.

From the back! Deadly Nadders have a dew claw/back claw that makes it hard for Skyspear to sit down, so she always has to sit in weird ways, poor girl!!

WHO IS MOMMA'S FAVORITE NADDER? YOU ARE!!! YOU ARE!!!

With the bodies of both my babies formed, it was time to start putting their skin on. I covered their heads in duct tape to make patterns. I couldn't do this on CinderClaw's body because the tape would have harmed the quilt batting and I didn't do it on Skyspear's body because ???? I don't remember, to be honest. I think it might have had something to do with her claws.

I had also bought a plastic viking helmet I wanted to use for Book!Hiccup. My Book!Hiccup is based off of Nico Marlet's AMAZING early Hiccup sketches, so I was completely basing my helmet off of his design. The white is just craft foam glued on.

I used scrap fabric to make a pattern of CinderClaw's legs. I glued Cinder's wings into the holes I had drilled into the wing armature. I had written notes all over both dragons' heads so I knew what I was cutting/where things would go once I cut the pattern off their heads.

I made Skyspear wings out of thing aluminum tubes. They are very light, but they break really easily. I would not use them again. The tape is there so if they break the wing will not fall completely apart. I did not use netting like I had with CinderClaw because it ended up not having a use and just got in the way.

When this was taken, I had made large… uh… rivets out of Sculpy that I then glued to my helmet (bottom left).

This was taken on the 4th of July, so I had about two weeks to finish everything on the dragons and costumes. Gah! I don't remember being that freaked out at the time, but looking back I'm freaking out a bit? How was I not freaking out then?! I was working on my helmet again. I fully repainted the horns white. It took many coats because I wanted to try to cover the big "MADE IN CHINA" embossed on the sides.

I used a hammered bronze spray paint on the helmet.

Then some black, copper, and teal to age the helmet a bit. I painted the tips of the horns brown.

I assembled it and clear coated it a million times. I think I'd like to repaint the horns at some point.

CinderClaw finally has all the patterning fabric on him. I gave him some eyelids, because it would be weird without them.

Skyspear also got eyelids and has all the patterning on!

This is CinderClaw's body pattern. I'm not very good at making patterns. I wanted to use a very short-pile minky so they would be super soft, but I couldn't find one I liked and settled for the beige sueded fabric you see here.

Skyspear's pattern is all cut out and pinned on! BOO! SHE'S A GHOST!

All of a sudden… PANTS!! The pants for both Hiccups were simply pants we bought from Target and I threaded a leather cord along holes I cut on the side. These rubbed our legs REALLY BADLY. I covered the inside of my pants with surgical tape the second day I wore them and they felt fine, yay.

Shortly after I took this picture, Dyson pooped on Nur's pants. Hahahaha, yuck.

Book!Hiccup's vest (still going off of the Nico Marlet version) has a bit of a gradient to it, and I spent a while one afternoon painting and wildly brushing my vest and boots so they could have that sort of gradient. The brushing was so the fur would still be soft and not clump together! This is the before shot.

Annnnd this is the after shot. Sorry the lighting is ten kinds of terrible. I wasn't able to get a strong gradient, but the colors on the ends are different enough from the middle that I'm happy with it.

NOW MORE DRAGONS!!!

Pinning everything tightly on Skyspear and gluing bits here and there (mostly around claws and spikes), some with hot glue, some with super glue.

Now her skin is all on properly! She kept losing a claws though, poor girl. "Where is one of Skyspear's claws today and why do they keep falling off" was a frequently played game with her.

Pinning everything on CinderClaw!

He's all sewn up!! Yaaay!! Good boy, Cinder!! This was taken at like… 1am after many MANY hours of sewing him. I don't even know why he took so long! CinderClaw is a handpuppet, and that little flap on his belly right before his front legs is where you can put your hand in. There's velcro to hold it closed most of the time.

Both of my cuties, getting close to being finished! It's a little hard to see here, but I used puff paint along Skyspear's tail to give her the tiny baby-versions of the spikes Nadders have on their tails. There's a little puff paint on her nose ridge as well, because there are some big scales there.

Went to my parents' place with my babies one morning. Taped up Skyspear's eyes, spikes, horn, and claws.

Did the same for CinderClaw.

It was airbrushing time.

After a while of "WHAT AM I DOING WHY DIDN'T I PRACTICE USING THIS FIRST??" I got a base coat on both dragons.

Then a second coat on Skyspear.

And a second coat on CinderClaw.

I guess Skyspear doesn't like being on the ground? I had masked zig-zag patterns on her tail with painter's tape, which I then took off to see.

They're finally are colored properly!

Went back to my parents' place a few days later to make their mouths. I made patterns with paper, then cut out the real things in worbla.

There are CinderClaw's teeth.

The shaped mouth interiors (shaped using a heat gun) with minky tongues.

More airbrushing!

Skyspear's teeth were made out of Sculpy, then hotglued to her mouth.

It's gonna be a little bit of a squeeze getting it in there correctly!

Top and bottom were glued in and she's got her mouth all done!

Awww, such a cute silly girl! CinderClaw asks, "Where are my teeth??"

One more shot of Skyspear's mouth of big teeth! I added a little pearlescent paint in the mixture of her body color, so she has a slight sheen to her skin. (Side note, don't have a picture of it, but I painted over the puff paint spikes on her tail so they stand out from the blue and purple of her skin.)

…Cinder still wants his teeth.

ALRIGHT BIG BOY! HERE YOU GO!!! ♥ I put some minky in his nostrils before putting his teeth in so they wouldn't be blank dark holes.

So… that's how I made my two dragons.

Already posted these in the SDCC post, but...

Photo taken by Chelsea Lauren/WireImage/Getty Images, reposted without permission.
This is how everything looks together!

I want to note that I had planned to make Skyspear a marionette, but it just didn't work out well, so she was just held during the convention. I bought a basket which I slightly modified to be my dragon basket (from the books) and I was able to not only store snacks and water bottles in it, but Skyspear in there when Nur went back to drop stuff at the car. So useful!

And CinderClaw, Skyspear, and the Toothless plush I made a couple years ago are all friends!

I know it keeps all of you up at night wondering what my dragons are like, SO:

-CinderClaw is sort of between dragon teenage and adult ages. He doesn't like big crowds or new people. He enjoys quiet time and has a quick temper. (Physical Notes: Because of the armature in him, he's extremely posable!! His head tends to droop because it's a bit heavy, but all the other joints hold their position VERY well and he's really easy to carry. I like to wrap his tail around my arm as I hold him in my hands!)
-Skyspear is a baby and EVERYTHING IS EXCITING AND WHO IS THIS? WHO IS THAT? I LOVE EVERYONE! She's really like a hyperactive puppy. (Physical Notes: Like I said earlier, it's hard for her to sit because of her back claws, so she has to be propped up. Her tail swings a lot and her feet move pretty freely and I think she's SO CUTE because she always looks super happy.)
-And my Toothless is the best Toothless. But he is very quiet. He likes cuddling. He's my con buddy, I take him to almost every convention I go to. (I couldn't talk about the other two and NOT say something about my Toothless!!)

APPROXIMATE MONEY/TIME SPENT ON THESE:
-Both Hiccup costumes: ~$110, 8-10 hours
-Both Dragons: ~$100, 60-70 hours (not including planning time)

I did buy an airbrush and airbrush paints for the dragons, but I've used it for other projects and will continue to use it for other projects and did not include it in the project total.

Making the dragons was REALLY hard, but holy shit I learned a lot and both of them make me SO HAPPY whenever I see them. I already want to make more!! I'm hoping to make at least plush of the other three main dragon species (Nightmare, Zippleback, and Gronckle) before the second movie comes out and I fall in love with all the new dragons they're sure to introduce! I hope this post helps anyone who was thinking of making something like these two!

Prop Making 2013 - Jack Frost's Staff and Maou's Pauldrons and Horns

2013-11-12T03:07:13Z

Every big cosplay project I work on I'm trying to take pictures of so people can see how I did things and learn from my successes and avoid my mistakes. This post includes how I made my Jack Frost staff, my Maou pauldrons, and my first set of Maou horns.

Warnings: Regular rambling. 25 images. Worksafe!

First! I could not have done this without my dad. He's amazing and was the one that did the heavy lifting on this.

I only started taking pictures after the basic form was made, but my staff was originally a closet rod. I collected a bunch of images of the staff and made sure it was the scale to my body as it was to Jack's in the movie. I used a protractor on the images to try to figure out the angles of the hook, but it took A LOT of playing with to get angles that I liked. We tried everything out on scrap wood, and when we found angles that worked, we cut the closet rod.

I really wanted the staff to light up when I touched it. There was a lot of discussion on how to do this… what sort of lights to use, how to turn on the lights, where to put the batteries, etc. In the end we decided on using high brightness EL wire. However, we needed 8 AA batteries to power it and there was no way we could think of to hide all those on the staff without compromising the structure AND be able to change them if they died. I decided to make a pouch that hung on my back under my shirt with wires leading up my arm to a connector on my hand. When the connector hit a certain spot on the staff, it would light up. Unfortunately it meant that I had a lot of juice running up my arms and I would get a nasty shock if any skin accidentally touched the connector. I had two packs of the batteries so I could touch both hands to the staff on both parts to light the whole thing up.

Here's the staff in it's completely built (not decorated or lit) form. You can see it splits into two parts under the hook so it can be transported easier. The sharpie marks show where I want the lights and the red string is measuring the length of the marks so I could tell how much EL wire I needed for each section.

I used my dremel to carve out the areas for the EL wire. I could have just wrapped the EL wire around the outside, but I wanted the light to look like it was coming from inside the wood/bark.

The full thing is dremeled out now. I'm TERRIBLE with the dremel, you can see how sloppy it is at parts. But everything will be covered up, so it's OKAY.

I spray painted the grooves a dark brown, glued the EL wire in, then wrapped it with a brown tule to try to help hide the EL wire. Nur kindly soldered all the wires, connections, switches, and the like for this project.♥

Now the hook lights up! I used two colors… I think they might have been listed as blue and white? You can see the battery pack I needed to use for this on the left. The smaller black box on the right is a inverter. It also has a switch on it which was very useful in preventing myself from constantly getting shocks.

Annnnnd now the bottom is lit!

I used painter's tape to mask the EL wire so I wouldn't accidentally cover them in the next steps.

But now, a short break from the staff...

During the time I spent at working on the staff at my parents' place, I used any breaks I had (waiting for paint/glue to dry etc) to work on pieces for my Sadao Maou costume. These are the pauldrons I made for him. I forgot to take pictures earlier, whoops. I did a lot of prep work on these, drawing out all the different versions on paper (anime version, manga version, novel version) and trying to figure out the patterns for each. Anime version was the easiest, so I went with it and slowly refined by paper patterns until I had something I liked. These are made of worbla (a thermoplastic). It was my first time using it and it really shows, but it's so much fun! I traced my paper patterns onto the worbla, cut them out, and used a heat gun to shape them. After forming the pauldrons, I primed them and then painted them with a hammered copper spray paint.

I detailed them with a layer of black and then a bit of bright copper to make it look worn in certain areas. As a final touch I added a little teal to simulate patina.

You can really see how wonky they look from the bottom! It's not very obvious, but I have small loops on the undersides of these so I could attach chains. It's not in this picture, but I added a strip of velcro on these so they can attach to my cape and I don't have to worry about them falling off (they also help prevent the cape from slipping off!)

Side view. The angle of the pieces isn't… really… constant…

Alright! Back to staff times!

After taping over the EL wire, I covered the entire staff in plaster wrap. A few years ago I bought a big roll of plaster tape (upper left side). I cut it into strips of different widths and wrapped and wrapped and wrapped until I had a thickness and a look I generally liked.

I primed the whole thing with a red primer and then went to town with four or five different shades of brown spray paints. It mostly just looks like one color though, curses!! As the paint dried, I started the very laborious process of finding out where the painter's tape was and carefully pulling it off. Since the plaster was put on top, it made it difficult to A) get all the tape out and B) get it out without breaking sections of plaster.

As things were drying, I made my Maou horns. These are based off of how they look in the anime. They're made of worbla.

After much too long, I had all the tape off! It exposed a lot of white, and that was definitely not good.

I mixed up some acrylics and painted the white sections with a base color that was fairly close to the overall color of the staff.

Maou horns again. I wanted the horns to be hidden, so I put them on a headband that would go under my wig. There was no way I'd be able to get those big horns through the wig, so I made them connect to the headband with bottle caps. I can twist them on and off as needed pretty easily. The parts on the headband are just sections of plastic bottles hacksawed off at the desired angle. Easy, cheap, and works well.

Painted the horns. Had a lot of problems trying to match them to the anime and ended up putting lots of layers on trying to get the right color (which I never achieved, booo).

The last paint job needed some touch-ups and I spent a morning helping those areas blend into the surrounding area. I also added a layer of glow-in-the-dark paint in the "bark crevices," so the staff glows a bit even without the massive battery packs. The staff was then matte clear coated.

The final horns on the headband and all clear coated.

Bonus! LOOK! STYLING A WIG POORLY!

What I am doing

oh my god

This is close, right?

Yeah. Close enough.

FINAL PRODUCTS:

Maou! (and Emi!) The horns turned out much too big and the angles were all wrong, so I decided to redo them for the next time I wanted to wear Maou. That's for the next prop post though!

I'm really REALLY happy with how this came out. Sure, there are problems with it, but it looks alright and it LIGHTS UP WHEN I TOUCH IT(in certain spots)! As you can probably tell, first frame is no touching, then touching the bottom section, touching the top, then touching both.

APPROXIMATE TIME/MONEY SPENT ON THESE:
-Maou Pauldrons: ~$20 (this includes the chain I bought for it), ~5 hours
-Maou Horns: ~$10, ~2 hours
-Jack Frost Staff: ~$120 (vast majority of that was EL wire-related bits), 20-30 hours

Thanks for reading!! Next will be a long post about making dragon puppets. Well, they're sorta puppets.

The Emperor's Army - San Francisco 2013

2013-11-11T02:11:33Z

Yeeeeeesh, it's been forever. I've had all these things I've wanted to post about, but I wanted to post a bunch of photos with them and I've been super lazy lately and didn't want to sort/resize/etc them. And I kept telling myself that I shouldn't post until I posted about older things, but I'd never post older things, and it's been this terrible cycle of never posting. Gah.

Life has been good. Busy, but good. Went to Japan Expo USA at the end of August, had a great time (will probably post later on it, hahaha). Been playing lots of Tales of Xillia and doodling something for every day I play it. I've been posting them to my twitter, but I'll post them all here too once I finish the game (I'm pretty close to the end now). Nur proposed and I accepted, so we'll get married at some point. Nur and I went to Hawaii at the end of October to attend the wedding of Melissa, my bestest Poké Pal. I had a blast, and there will definitely be lots of pictures from that later. Halloween was lots of fun, had a great time stalking around my parents' place, then hanging out with Minna no Anime people over the weekend in SLO for the MnA party.

Now let's get these posts about things a million years ago going!

Warnings: Some of the swears, rambling, possible misinformation. 30 images, work safe.

In the spring, the San Francisco Asian Art Museum had an exhibit on Qin Shihuang's legacy; his grand tomb complex. Of course, the big focus was his terra cotta army. I went with Nur and my dad. I tried to convince my mom to come, but she said she saw the warriors when the exhibit was in LA a few decades back and didn't need to see it again. Never mind that this was a different exhibit with different warriors. Well, I'm a history junkie and she's not as much. But!!! Missing this exhibit! Oh, it breaks my heart. And we really lucked out because there was some sort of street fair going on and it was only $5 per person to see the exhibits instead of the usual ~$20. Sweet!!

They had a lot of items that were buried with the warriors, like these chariot parts. Sorry that some of these are sorta fuzzy, I took all these with my iPad and the room was darkened to protect the warriors.

One of the warriors! I think there were 8 in total. This guy is a general.

The general again. The guy right behind him is an officer, and the one right after him is a calvaryman. (I think!)

An officer. Or maybe another general? Hmmmmmmm.

I HAVE NO CLUE. This guy's style of outfit isn't on the handy cheat sheet of rank clothing styles. Let's say he's an astronaut, because… why not?

OH I GOT THIS ONE. It's a horse. Probably from a chariot. It's actually a bit small in person. If I recall correctly, it's head is lower than mine.

Calvaryman!!

Another um… astronaut.

Same horsie as before.

Stone armor. Probably not for actual use, more just symbolic.

Stone helmet. Also probably just symbolic.

An officer. He looks pretty young to me! That last… astronaut… looked pretty young too.

THIS GUY. HE'S AN OFFICER. BUT THIS GUUUUYYYYY I LOVE HIM. His face was painted a greenish, and that might mean that they thought he had magic/spiritual powers. But I've also read some other suggestions… that his face was painted green, which symbolizes youthfulness, to show he's particularly brave/skilled/etc, because the army should always be lively. I've also heard that the painter was colorblind and mixed up the green with the usual pink, or that he was a sniper, so it's camouflage. I like him having magical powers best. He's just… so different than the other. I took so many pictures of him because UNGH this guy. All the warriors are insanely impressive, but this guyyyyyyy. ♥

Same officer as the one from two pictures ago. He's probably a bit upset that I was gushing over his bro so much and not him. Sorry! You're awesome too!!

Some harness buckles. Because simple buckles are for losers.

I think these were bells from the chariots.

Some sort of vase.

Detail of vase.

Tile-end mold with a tiger and a deer.

Incense holders…?

Kettle? It's like a cat riding a fat dragon!

I think this is a roof tile. A FLIPPING GORGEOUS ROOF TILE NNNNGHHHHH

Sooooo… I knew the first emperor's tomb was ENORMOUS, but I didn't know it was SUPER MASSIVELY ENORMOUS. There are the pits for the warriors and what-not, then in a totally different far off section, there are other pits, for musicians, artists(?), and beautiful birds like this crane.

If cranes aren't your thing, here's a duck.

I love the green-faced warrior, but this might have been my favorite object of the exhibit. This guy just does not give a single fuck. Look at him, riding that donkey (horse?), going, "fuck y'all, I'm coming through and ya best be getting out of my goddamn way." He's not going to deal with anyone's shit. Gaaaaah, I love him.

Reproduction of a chariot.

This (and the objects in the remaining images) are from the regular collections. I don't remember where this is from, but I think that's sanskrit around it's collar. Sorry the reflection is so strong, I wasn't able to get a clear shot of this pretty creature.

I just… that creature on the right. I don't… It's amazing.

My favorite object of the regular collection. Every time I've visited in the last five or six years, I've tried to sketch him.

This trip's sketch… didn't turn out so hot.

Next post… will probably be about prop making? Yeah, I think it'll be about props.

San Diego Comic Con 2013

2013-08-26T23:01:27Z

FIRST THINGS FIRST. Still looking for Bro Calendar participants!! Guys, I'm getting desperate now!! I'll now take pre-drawn images, as long as they fit the theme and size requirements, and haven't been in a previous Bro Calendar! You can also do multiple entries! You'll get an additional copy of the calendar (or any in-print manga volume of your choice) for each additional calendar!

Okay, now, other things. This is only over a month after the convention, hahahahaha…

Warnings: Swearing everywhere, rambling, fangirling. 7 Photos.

WEDNESDAY:

- Woke up at 5:30am
+ Got to read some Otomen as I waited for Nur to finish getting ready
+ On the road by 6:30am
+ Wow, this ride is going by fast
+ Early lunch near Six Flags holy shit how did we get here so fast?
- Traffic in LA. Always traffic.
++++ Is that an aircraft carrier out there off the coast? Is that a caravan of helicopters flying with suspended boxes from it to the shore? IS THIS SO AMAZING TO WATCH????
++ Marines doing training all around the freeway in cool-looking armored vehicles.
--- Battery is almost out on my 3DS
++ Get to our hotel by like 2:30-3:00ish?
++++ See Thy and Mark for the first time… since like… last Comic-Con?
+ Laze about hotel room
- I really should work or something
- Iron costumes
-- This iron is broken or something
--- Fuck you iron, do your goddamn job
-- Things aren't ironed well
+ Go get dinner at Rubio's
++ See Pacific Rim
++++ HOLY CRAP THIS MOVIE IS SO GREAT
++++ SERIOUSLY GO SEE IT
++++ It's like a badass live action anime omg there are some many anime tropes and MECHS AND KAIJUU AHHHHH
++ Fangirl to Mark and Thy about the movie when we get back
--- Sleep poorly

THURSDAY:
- Wake up early
- Slowly get into Book!Hiccup costume
- Make up suuuuucks
+ But drawing freckles is super fun
+ Get Nur in his Movie!Hiccup costume
- Dammit, I told you three times, your shirt is on the bed
+ Get to parking lot just after 8am
++ Drawing freckles on Nur
+++ Damn Nur, you're adorable
-- Looooong walk from parking lot to the convention center
- Soooo many people
+ Oh, people like our costumes and our dragons
++ Walk through pro badge pick up

Photo taken by Chelsea Lauren/WireImage/Getty Images, reposted without permission.

+ Before I even get my badge on, a lady asks for our picture (posted above), it ends up on ABC News' site (somehow my mom saw it there?)
-- Hustle over to Room 6A's line and ugh it's humid
-- Sweaty
- Dragon basket isn't very comfortable
+ Chatting with nice people in line
++ They let us into the room way early
+ Play on 3DS, aw yiss streetpass
++ Chat for a tiny bit with a lady sitting three seats away who works in the lighting department at Dreamworks
++ Panel we were in because we wanted to be in the panel after is actually pretty neat, it's about music in superhero films
+ Hey, that handsome guy looks like the husband of that one Disneyland trip reporter I read
+ Oh, it is him. And his wife is here too, sitting just a bit behind us
- Except her trip reports annoy me because she seems so picky and whiny in them.
-- Why do I even read them? Maybe the for the pictures? Let's say it's for the pictures.
+++ Dreamworks panel!
+ Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie actually looks sorta cute!
++++++ HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 CLIPS
+++++++++ HICCUP!!! DAMN BOY YOU SO HOT
++++ Get pictures taken by excited Dreamworks employees outside of the panel, they say they can't wait to show our costumes to their colleagues back at the studio (gaaaah, blushing everywhere)
--- There was a really good Ruffnut and Astrid at the panel, but I didn't see them
+ Everyone in the Dreamworks panel got a ticket for the fulfillment room for a How to Train Your Dragon 2 poster
++++ Poster is SUPER sexy (I knew about it, but thought it was just going to be for sale, not a giveaway), on nice paper and hand numbered out of 2000. Daaaamn, Dreamworks, thanks.
++ We also get small plush Belts (the sloth from Croods) and button sets
- Try to pick up a book for Nik, they were already sold out for the day
+ Exhibit hall is impressive as always
-- But way too crowded
+ Nur goes back to car to drop off posters for their own safety
+ Go way early to the room the VIZ panel will be in
+ Adorable kids talk with me about CinderClaw
+ A Nickelodeon panel is next? Oh, cool.
++ THE ADVENTURES OF PETE AND PETE? AHHH THE MEMORIES
-- Some of these newer shows look pretty crappy and these clips are not funny
--- I think my feet are getting blisters
+ Sister asks if we went to donut shop she told us about on Wednesday
- No we didn't
++ Move to the front for the next panel, sat next to a nice girl and chatted for a while with her
+++ Panel is about visual effects? Awesome!
++ VIZ panel, showing support for the company that signs my paychecks
+++ There's going to be a digital manga sale in August, HUZZAH
+ Go to Kodansha panel
+ Dallas is getting better at these panels
-- Get hipster upset again about the sudden popularity of Attack on Titan (Where were you guys last year, UGH /terrible manga hipster)
+++ They licensed the My Little Monster manga! Eeee!
+ Go to Chipotle for dinner
+ See little kids watching my dragons as they walk by, make CinderClaw watch them right back
-- So tired
- Gotta get work done in hotel room
- Ughhhh I'm so over this I should be on vacation
--- Sleep terribly again

FRIDAY:
+ Easiest costume today, just wearing my Toothless hoodie
++ Nur dresses up Cubby, the King of Bread and Donuts, in his Lickitung costume
+ Find donut shop

++++ COMIC CON DONUTS!!
++ These donuts are good but they are too filling
- Wandering around Exhibit Hall with no real purpose?
+ Oh, yeah, let's take pictures with all the game props!
++ Giving away Strider scarves? DON'T MIND IF I DO.
+ Get in line for Ender's Game experience thing?
- When does this thing open?
+ Catching all the bugs in Animal Crossing
+ Line is moving!
?? Is that kid dressed as that dick king/prince guy from Game of Thrones (I don't know GoT, but he looks like that dick I see in macro images and stuff)
?? OH WHOOPS I GUESS HE'S DRESSED AS A JEDI?
- How did I get those mixed up?
+ Get a badge with my name and photo on it for the experience
- Hahahaha, yuck, I look stoned or something on it
- Where is Nur? I think I lost him
+ Get into experience thing
+ Oh, this is pretty cool.
+++++ Found Nur and Cubby! And CUBBY GOT A BADGE TOO

++ Pictures of Cubby on an Ender's Game set tee hee
+ Went to Shifty Look Arcade maybe?
- It's cool, but not as cool as last year
++ In a room for the Thief Panel early, this panel about sci-fi comics is pretty damn awesome
+++ HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THE THIEF GAMES BEFORE? I'M ALL ABOUT COOL THIEVERY!
+++ Panel for Cyborg 009 and the Legacy of Shotaro Ishinomori
+++ I love you, Ishinomori
- Stop it panel, I don't want to buy your American 009 comic
-- I said STOP IT! STOP MAKING IT LOOK SO GOOD.
----- WHERE IS JET'S BEAK-NOSE?
+++ Oh my god the design of the cover of this book is like my design wetdream
-- Alright, fine. I'll buy your goddamn good-looking book
+ Buy book, one of the panelists is there and happy I'm buying it. IT'S BECAUSE OF YOUR STUPID GOOD PANEL DAMMIT
+ Wander around Exhibit Hall, waiting for Nur to finish his panels
+ OH HEY IT'S A KIBOU-HOPE STATUE FROM YU-GI-OH! ZEXAL(I don't know it's real name, but that's what it sounds like whenever he summons it)
++ OH HEY THEY'RE MAKING CUSTOM YGO CARDS, you get your photo on them~!
- Nur gets out of panel while I'm in line for cards
++ Chatting with the card maker while my card prints out, he's a cool guy
++ MY CARD IS AWESOME, and Yuusei is on it.
- I would have made one with Juudai, but my hoodie doesn't match his style of deck
--- Shiiiiiiit so late for meeting up with Nur
+ Meet him at the Sega Lounge (?)
-Sega lounge sorta sucks
+ Go to Nintendo Game Lounge

+++ KING OF RED LIONS YOU CAN POSE WITH
+ Pose will SO MANY SIGNS in the lounge
- Sorry I'm annoying
-- Wow, I'm so freaking lazy, let's go back to the hotel
++ TACO BELL FOR DINNER
- Fuck, I don't want to work
-- Nur's body wash smells like terrible cologne , but after a couple days of using it, I'm almost used to it
+ Sleep well until…

SATURDAY:
--- FUCK YOU NEIGHBORS, IT'S LIKE TWO AM
--- I'M GONNA SET YOUR CAR ON FIRE, SERIOUSLY FUCK YOU
?? Thy and Mark leave at like 4am to get in line for Hall H. Good luck, get good seats! You are so much stronger than me
+ Dress as Book!Hiccup, it takes a lot less time to get ready this time. Sporting both dragons today. I CAN DO THIS.
+ Nur goes to some panel, I line up for Urban Fantasy: Myth and Magic in the City
++ Wow, the people in this line are super awesome
+ There's an awful lot of Gravity Falls cosplayers here.
+++ This panel is super informative
- The only panelist I'm familiar with is Jim Butcher
+++ I want to read all their books, they sound so cool
- Leave panel after, what's the panel after this anyway?
--- Aw shit, it was the Gravity Falls panel, why didn't I stay? That explains all the cosplayers…
+ Meet up with Nur, go to next panel room
++ Nur describes the next panel as a circle jerk and it totally is, but it's still interesting
+++ Shonen Jump podcast!
+ HAHAHAH URIAN DOESN'T RECOGNIZE ME AND GIVES ME A PRIZE FOR CLAPPING A LOT
- Does Alexis recognize me? He keeps looking at me strangely
+++ WORLD TRIGGER IS THE BEST EVERYONE SHOULD READ IT
+ Going to the SJ Fan Meetup
++ Is that a ASSCREED PIRATE SHIP? HOLY CRAP.
- Goddamn crowds!
++ Oh, the crowd is because Mark Sheppard just walked in front of me? Whoa. Comic Con.
+ LIIIIINES at the meet up
--- Why are there no World Trigger drinks? DISAPPOINTMENT.
-- This line for shirts is really long, I guess we won't make it to the Person of Interest panel
+ Ah! Alexis did recognize me! And John! And now Andy! I'm pretty impressed, I'm in full costume and all…
+ Nice chats with editors and people in line
--- HOLY FUCK WHAT WAS THAT EXPLOSION?
+ Oh, just the AssCreed ship's cannons.
- C-CANNONS?
-- Area is all smokey now
++ Dude, that ship used it's CANNONS
- Say goodbye to everyone, Alexis tells me to save him three seats in order to make up for not saving him one last year
+ Let's go find the full-size Deadly Nadder!
-- NADDER? WHERE ARE YOU?
- Let's go ask as the How to Train Your Dragon game booth that is sponsoring this or something
- This booth is hard to find, oh, there it is… Hmmm, that guy looks familiar…
+ Oh my god
++ OH MY GOD
+++OH MY GOD
++++ IT'S DEAN DEBLOIS (director of HtTYD 2, co-director of HtTYD 1)
++++ HE KNOWS I'M BOOK HICCUP
+++++ HE WANTS A PICTURE WITH ME
+++ AHHHH
++++++ AHHHHHHH
+++++++++ AAAAAHHHHHHH

------ Wow, I am embarrassing
++ He shows me pictures of some AWESOME HtTYD he's seen during the con
--- Still the most embarrassing
+ Get info on the Nadder
- But still can't find it
+ Get in line for something random in the area the dragon is supposed to be in because why not
+ Some one asks for a picture, then asks if we saw the other dragon BECAUSE NOW IT'S OUT AND JUST ONE STREET OVER
- RUSH RUSH RUSH
+ N-NADDER!!
-- Huge crowd
+++++ After a few minutes, the Nadder sees my little baby Nadder, SkySpear, let's out a SHRIEK, and comes over, leans down and starts nuzzling her
+++++ THE CUTENESS OH MY GODDDD

+++++++ COME LIVE WITH ME, BIG NADDER
++ Eventually get photo with Nadder and her Hiccup handler
- Phew, so tired. Text Nat to see if she wants dinner earlier
-- No response, but we had planned for like 7, and it's like 5:30
+ Play Animal Crossing, read manga
- So hungry, text again a bit after 7. No response
-- Text again a little while later, decide to tell her where we're going so maybe she can meet up with us?
+ TIME FOR FOOD
--- Nat texts back, she was in a panel, it got out late, they can't make it to dinner
+ Hopefully we'll get together next time!
+ Take picture of the seats I saved for Alexis at dinner
- Feet hurt so badly, bandages are now too tight on my feet
+ Get back to hotel, take off bandages, shower, relax
++ Thy and Mark come back, tell us about their day in Hall H
+++ It sounds AWESOME
- Fine, I'll get a bit of work done, but just a bit.
+ Pack up some of the car so we don't have to pack much tomorrow
+ Actually sleep okay… until…

SUNDAY:
-- I'M GONNA FEED YOUR ENTRAILS TO THE CROWS IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP.
---- IT'S FIVE AM YOU FUCKING INCONSIDERATE PRICKS
- Get up at whatever o'clock
+ Yay, the car is mostly packed
-- Say goodbye to Mark and Thy
+ Drive across San Diego to get breakfast at a Starbucks
++ Take another picture of more seats I saved for Alexis
+ DUDE IT'S TEN. IT'S TIME…
+++ …FOUR OUR ONCE A YEAR BOOK-OFF TRIP!!
+ So many pretty books!!
++ I only fill one basket, and it's not even filled to bursting
?? Does this mean I'm better at controlling myself or that there just weren't as many interesting-looking titles as previous years?
-- Leave at 11:40, 40min after Nur's goal time, sorry Nur
+++ Decide to take a different route home, it's a little longer than usual, but we COMPLETELY bypass the LA area and get to see areas of California we've never seen
?? Is there a big Korean community out here? A lot of these signs are in Korean
+ Join up with Highway 5 at the end of the Grapevine, stop for Starbucks right after (thank-you, treat receipts!)
-- Wow, the line here is really long
+ Drive rest of the way is really smooth, goes fast with the help of lots of episodes of This American Life and Animal Crossing playing.
+ Get home safely, call my mom, let her know
+++ Relaaaaaaxxxxxxx

It was a pretty freaking awesome trip. ♥

Annnd to finish things off, here's CinderClaw and Skyspear with my Toothless plush! BECAUSE THEY ARE FRIENDS.

Various recent happenings

2013-08-04T04:46:53Z

It has been FAR too long since I made a proper LJ post. I meant for this post to be about Comic Con, but that's only half-written and I don't have the energy to finish it tonight.

But yeah, went to Comic Con a couple weeks back and had a great time, but I'll ramble for pages and pages about that in another post. The weekend before that, my brother, dad, Nur, and I went to an A's game vs the Red Sox. Great game, the A's won, had great seats, everything was great. Except that we left like an hour later than I wanted and missed out on the giveaway for the game; a Reddick jersey replica. Reddick is my favorite A's player, I wanted that, boooo. My dad told me I could leave early to get one, but I wanted to go as a family, so… bah. Oh well, I can make my own or something.

The day after the game was my dad's birthday and it just happened that my uncle and aunt from SoCal were staying at my parents' place that night on their way to Seattle! We had a nice dinner with lots of pleasant conversation.

Last week Nur kindly took me to a local jewelry shop… to get my A's hat signed by Eric Sogard! Because for some reason he was signing there? He's really cute and seems nice and now my hat has a nifty signature on it! The next day we went to the J-Pop Summit in J-Town and participated in the Real Escape Game which we TOTALLY WON (along with like 600 other people BUT STILL, we've never won/escaped before). Saw awesome people there too, and it was generally just awesome.

Uhhh what else has been going on… oh! The always lovely Jump crew was kind enough to let me join them on last week's (7/29's) Shonen Jump podcast! I give terrible opinions and advice! I'll also be on the next episode (8/5's), because I happened to be in the office that day, but I'm still terrible in it, so yeah. But I did get to talk a bit about two books I worked on that are coming out on 8/6 (Nura 16 and Tegami Bachi 14) and say a few words about Ayatsuri Sakon. The awesome editor for Blue Exorcist is on the 8/5 podcast too, with some great Blue Exorcist discussion. The podcasts talk about the current Jump issue, so beware of spoilers!!!

I went to visit Viz on Friday and ended up coming home with a box of books because I'm a manga ~~lover~~hoarder. It was like 30lbs and I had to drag it from about Pier 39 to the Embarcadero BART station which is… pretty far if you're trying to lug around a box of manga. Nur came to my rescue and ended up carrying it the last four or five blocks to the BART station and then from our stop to his car. T^T~♥ Like I told him in my plea-text for help, my eyes are much bigger than my muscles. Then we came home to three big boxes from RightStuf, a bajillion books from like… four different HUGE orders from the last three or four months. It was manga madness in our apartment, got something like 125 new volumes in total yesterday. Where the hell will I put all these? At least right now I feel pretty satisfied with all my manga… stuff. Like there's nothing nagging in the back of my head, reminding me to pick up this or that. I should have pretty much everything I follow preordered for the next few months and hopefully I should be able to avoid any major orders or manga splurging.

Oh, I also got the Tsuritamas BluRays in from Sentai yesterday. Love dem fishing boys. SPEAKING OF WHICH! Anyone want to cosplay Haru from Tsuritama at Japan Expo USA? We have a Yuki, a Natsuki, and an Akira (with Tapioca!!), but no Haru yet. =(

I'm also trying to finish up John Doe from Dream Eater Merry for Japan Expo USA, but I'm sorta thinking I'll just take it slow and wear it for Minna no Anime's Halloween Party? Ehhhh… I haven't decided.

Went to another A's game today, another lovely game, but I slept terribly the night before and the sun during the game sapped my energy. And I also got sunburned, lol.

It's been sorta busy lately, but in a fun way. Good times.

THIS PART IS IMPORTANT!
The Bro Calendar 2014 is still looking for participants! Please sign up! Tell your friends!

General SDCC Plans

2013-07-17T04:43:13Z

Sorry about the radio silence! Things have been VERY busy. Been prepping for Comic Con. Hopefully I'll have a bit more down time when I return from the convention (probably not because I'll be putting together two costumes for Japan Expo at the end of August hahahaha).

But yeah, heading down to Comic Con. Here are the panels I'm interested in. There are a lot and I'm not entirely sure of my schedule, but the things I'm definitely planning on at least TRYING to go do are in bold.

Comic Con 2013 Schedule Interests:

THURSDAY

11:45am - Room 6A - Dreamworks Animation Filmmaker Focus
2:00pm - Room 28DE - Cartoon Hangover (Bravest Warriors, Bee and Puppycat, and Friends)
4:00pm - Room 7AB - VIZ Media Panel
5:30pm - Room 24ABC - Funimation Panel
5:30pm - Room 4 - Kodansha Comics
5:30pm - Room 26AB - Making a Living in Manga : New Trends Worth Watching
6:30pm - Room 26AB - Lost in Translation

FRIDAY
11:00am - Indigo Ballroom, Hilton San Diego Bayfront - Adventure Time
1:00pm - Room 23ABC - Thief: What's Yours Is Mine
1:00pm - Room 32AB - VIZ Anime Featuring Neon Alley
2:00pm - Room 6BCF - AssCreed IV Live Demo and Q&A
2:00pm - Room 9 - Cyborg 009 and the Legacy of Shotaro Ishinomori
3:00pm - Room 32AB - The Character of Music
5:30pm - Room 26AB - UDON 2013
6:30pm - Room 28DE - The Yen Press Crew
7:30pm - Room 28DE - Beyond the Valley of Tezuka: Manga Legends You Don't Know But Should Know

SATURDAY
10:00am - Room 29A - Behind the Creatures
10:00am - Room 7AB - Urban Fantasy: Myth and Magic in the City
10:30am - Room 24ABC - Film and TV Production Designers of the Art Directors Guild
11:00am - Room 7AM - Gravity Falls
12:00pm - Room 30CDE - CBLDF Presents: Defending Manga
12:30pm - Room 5AB - WSJ Podcast: Live Recording!
3:30pm - Room 8 - Adventure Time Comic Book Panel
3:30pm - Room 26AB - Fantagraphics/Drawn & Quarterly Preview
4:00pm - Room 6BCF - Person of Interest Special Video Presentation and Q&A
5:00pm - Room 23ABC - BrickJournal: LEGO as an Art Form
7:00pm - Room 23ABC - Best and Worst Manga of 2013
2-5pm - Behind Convention Center - Shonen Jump Meetup
10-12pm, 2-7pm - Near Hard Rock Café - Wild Nadder running around!

SUNDAY
12:00pm - Room 32AB - Build Your Own Monster with Oni Press and Friends!
1:00pm - Room 25ABC - The Art of CAPCOM
1:45pm - Room 6DE - Cartoon Network: Ben 10 Omniverse
2:00pm - Room 7AB - 25 Years of the Disney Afternoon: The Continuing Legacy
2:00pm - Room 24ABC - Witches and Fey, Monsters and Mortals

This whole con will be How to Train Your Dragon cosplay con for me. On Thursday, Nur will be in Movie!Hiccup and I'll be in Book!Hiccup, Friday I'll be in my Toothless hoodie, and Saturday I'll be in Book!Hiccup again. Sunday we'll probably skip the convention and go to Book-Off instead. Not entirely sure yet. As Hiccups, we'll have dragons with us… a Terrible Terror and a baby Nadder. So please say hi if you see us! And if you're attending and have evenings free, maybe we could get a group together for dinner or something? I dunno.

Bro Calendar 2014

2013-06-10T23:05:22Z

Hello friends, it's that time again! It's time for signups for the fourth Bro Calendar! If you've participated before, the big things are all the same. You can see the 2013 calendar here.

The Bro Calendar is a 12-month calendar that features that special, awesome relationship between two (or more!) people that may or may not be related. Think Jet and Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Or Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Those sorts of relationships. This calendar is to celebrate characters being bros.

Technical Details:
-Image should be at least 8.5"x11" (landscape, NOT portrait!) and the resolution should be AT LEAST 300ppi.
-Due date is Friday, October 4th.
-Color is preferred, but shaded greyscale is acceptable too.
-PG-13 max, please!

Any groups of FICTIONAL characters are allowed! It doesn't matter if they are from an anime series, manga, video game, American comic, TV show, etc, etc. They're all okay. And gender DOES NOT MATTER. Sure, it's a "bro" calendar, but female characters are DEFINITELY allowed. You are free to draw characters used in previous Bro Calendars, but please do not draw characters that are already being used for the 2014 calendar.

I cannot pay you, but for your effort and troubles, you will be sent a copy of the calendar. You DO NOT have to live in the United States to participate, I will happily send you a calendar whatever country you live in. And your images are your own, please feel free to use it for prints at Artist Alleys or the like!

There are thirteen spots open (12 months + cover), but I will accept up to 15 participants. If you are the 14th or 15th participant to sign up, you'll be a fill-in in case someone who signed up earlier is not able to turn in their image in time. And if everyone in the first 13 slots turns in their images, your image will be used in the 2015 calendar (unless you don't want it to) and you will still get a copy of the 2014 calendar (along with a copy of the 2015 calendar, of course).

Usually I get these calendars printed at Lulu, but their prices were a bit higher last year, so I'm looking into other printers in order to keep production costs down. If you'd like a copy of the calendar and do not wish to participate, you will be able to purchase a calendar either through the site we get them printed from or directly from me. I believe with shipping costs, each calendar will cost approximately $15-$17 for non-participants. I do not make money off of this project, any money gained from these sales will go directly to recuperating printing costs. In the off chance that I make enough to cover costs, the profits will go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

If you would like to participate, please comment on this entry with the following:
-Characters you want to draw and series they are from
-Month you'd like to claim (NOT NECESSARY)
-How you'd like me to contact you (usually I will try to reach everyone through LJ PMs, but if you'd prefer email or a Twitter DM, let me know!)

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment here, send me a LJ PM, or email me at dragynstorm (at) gmail (dot) com. I will be trying to remain in contact with all participants, giving updates and reminders on due dates.

Thank-you for your interest and time!

Participants:
astrokittie - Big Boss and Kaz Miller (MGSV)
slr2moons - Joan and Sherlock (Elementary) - SEPTEMBER
nayung - Maou, Ashiya & Lucifer (The Devil is a Part-Timer!)
bishieobsessed - Sakamaki Bros (Diabolik Lovers)
ensuing - Hiccup and Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon) - JUNE
kiwimangoodness - Nicolas, Worick, Alex (Gangsta) OR Levi, Erwin, Hange (Shingeki no Kyojin)
JosephSK - Men of Night's Watch (Game of Thrones) - NOVEMBER
dev_chieftain - Zelda and Impa (Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword) - MAY or DECEMBER
shiroro - Mashiro and Akito (Bakuman)
tsurara_mai - Weiß Kreuz boys (Weiß Kreuz)
tsurara_mai - __________ (Gurren Lagann)

FANIME! 2013!!

2013-06-06T16:49:51Z

Oh wow, so I guess I hadn't posted anything about Fanime yet? Let's remedy that.

I'm going to do this like kiwimangoodness does, because I like that way.

Warnings: A few photos? And some words. Yup. That's it.

Thursday
+ Went to bed at a really good time
--- Couldn't get to sleep
- Cat is not helpful with sleeping

Friday
--- Woke up at like 5
--- Nur had to take me to San Jose early for a meeting
--- Got there too early
++ Scott showed me around
- Evan, go to bed
+ Meeting was super simple and easy?
+ Got trusted with important job?
+ Saw jen_kat and Nik for the first time in a long time
+++++ jen_kat is too nice
++ Got to oogle guests because I worked green room
+ Ate leftovers from breakfast
- Evan, why are you not in bed?
- Sat around most of the day
- Left green room and met up with Nur for dinner at like 8:30-9
+ Dinner was nice
- Came back and changed into Jack Frost, which took strangely forever
-+ Photoshoot at 10pm
++ Full moon for Jack Frost pictures, eeeeee
--- Kept forgetting to take my shoes off
-+?? Came back, showered, and watched some prison show with Nik and Nur

MANNY WHY DO YOU NEVER TALK TO ME

There is like seven yards of fabric in that cloak. It swishes around pretty well, but it's also really heavy.

I thought this was a polar bear and therefore appropriate. It's actually a "California Bear." ??? Okay.

So much to fix before SDCC. Hopefully. I have to finish my How to Train Your Dragon stuff first, gah.

Saturday
-- Woke up at 5 again
- Whoa, where is sygmus?
+ Oh, here he is
-- Early meeting again
+ Morning duties are easy
+ Ate breakfast leftovers again
- Not much to do in the green room
+ Pen doodles with my green room partner Sal
+++ Talked to Giles (one of the GoH) about trains, shrines, and Tokyo in general
+++ Talked to Darrel (another of the GoH) about KIIIING, KIIIING, KIIIIING GAINAHHHHHH
--- Sad times because Gainer is out of print and I am missing two discs
+ Darrel says he'll let me know if he sees any in the Dealer's Room
+++ They're both amazing and really kind
- Laid around the green room
+ Talked to other GR staff about K- and J-dramas
+ Left green room early
+ Got in Maou costume
+++ Magically met up with pacificpikachu
+++ People kept shouting encouragement and love for Maou-sama
+++ Magically saw Daniella and Jill
++ Threw money at kiwimangoodness to draw terrible things for me
+++ Found an Emi
+++ Traded insults for too long with Emi
- Emi choked me (by my request)
- Then kicked me (by my request)
- Then stepped on me (by my request)
+++ Still encouraged by passerbys
++ Emi might come to Japan Expo USA!!!
- Nur left to go to the room
+++ Met up with Juli, Jesse, and Joshua
+++ Re-met up with Nur and sygmus
+ Dinnerrrrrrrr
+++++++ The epic saga of Droopy-tan
- Not feeling too hot and need shower, went back to room

EMIIIIIII

Emi why are you so mean? I'm just a working man trying to make an honest living for himself and his ~~housewife~~ demon general! …and then maybe conquer the world…

Sunday
---- Slept terrible
- Went to morning meeting
+ Left because I don't work until later
-- Packed up Jack costume and Maou's extra pieces
- Waited for Nur to wake up
-- Waited for Nur to wake up
--- Dammit, just wake up
+ Nur woke up!
+ Got into Jacuzzi costume
+ Everything is packed!
- Crap, how does Jacuzzi's tattoo go again?
+ Put big things in Nur's car
+ Got breakfast
- Split off
+ Went to get into line for autographs
+++ Mike, Phyllis, and pacificpikachu are all nearby
+++ BEST LINE
+++ Got my Baccano! Japanese BluRay signed by Sato-san and Omori-san (the producer and director)
+++ DOUBLE LINE TIME, had time to get in line again and get a sign board signed as well
+++ Saw shiroro and friend
+ Got into line for Darrel's signing
+ Met nice girl, chatted with her
+++ Darrel recognizes me even in costume
+++ Signs my Gainer disc and fulfills my stupid request by writing "SARAAAAAAAAAA" and "OVERHEAT" on it. =D
+ Go to Omori/Sato panel
- Terrible line control for panel
--- Increasingly terrible line control for panel
++ Good panels
- Had to leave Omori-san's panel early for a work-related task
++ Person I had talk to about work-related task was super cool about it
+++ Found by Mouse
+ Got lunch with Nur
+++ Lunch was delicious
- Back to green room for work
+++ Chatted with Evan
-- No, Sousei no Aquarion is AWESOME, OBVIOUSLY.
+ Watched Sharks game
+ Chatting all the time
+++ Darrel reports back to me about his Gainer findings in the Dealer's Room!!
+ Watching everyone play cards
- Move into other green room
++ Chatting chatting chatting
+ ROOKiEZ is PUNK'D comes in
- Too lazy to even attempt to interact with them
--- Worst green room staff member
- ROOKiEZ leaves
- Sooo tired
+ Watch some Cards Against Humanity
+ Nap while everyone else plays
-- Have really weird Cards Against Humanity dreams?
- Tell other GR staff, they use this against me
---- NOOOOO not velvety muppet sex NOOOO WHY WOULD YOU TRY TO MAKE ME DREAM ABOUT THAT?
- Almost everyone leaves
- ROOKiEZ watch alert party
- So tired
-+? Terrible fascination watching fire fighters and EMT come to the convention center and bring someone out
+++ Hells bells, you guys know the password for the internet?
+ Check all the websites
+++ OMG LET'S PLAY WITH BUBBLES!
+ Sal goes on spy/search mission
- TIRED
+ THE EAGLES ARE ROOSTING
+++ BED TIME
--- …at 4:30am

Monday
++ Don't have to go to morning meeting
- Take final things to car
+ Leisurely waltz over to work
- Scott and I try to get receipts figured out, why are some missing???
+ Never mind, everything is okay.
+ Eat breakfast leftovers
- Are they reheating the same sausage every day?
+ Well it still tastes good
+ Listen in on Nik's discussion with Sato-san about Kickstarter
+++ Get photo with Sato-san and Omori-san
+ Text all the Minna people
+ ALL. THE. MINNA PEOPLE.
- Until I got tired of texting, sorry
+ Later suckers, I'm outta here
+ Change into Maou
++++++++++++ PIZZA WITH ALMOST EVERYONE OMG SO MANY PEOPLE
++++++++++++ PIZZA
++++++++++++ I LOVE YOU GUYS
---- Say goodbyes
++ Photos at McDonalds, teehee
++ Kinokuniya trip
--- How did I spend $200 at Kinokuniya
+ Realize I'm happiest curled around a huge pile of manga
+ Starbucks time when we get home, coupled with reading some of my new books
+ Dinner at the parents' place
++ SLEEP

WELCOME TO MgRONALD's. Would you like fries with that?

It was a good convention. I got to see almost everyone and had lots of fun. I'm hoping to work less next year, but we'll see.

Uh… probably more cosplay photo junk later? I might just throw it on Cosplay.com or Cure instead. I have a big awesome Tsuritama photoshoot from last weekend I want to put up at some point, and that might take priority. (Oh gosh, we were in San Francisco and we played in the waves and practiced our casting and ate cookies and Eeeee! It was so great!)

Cosplay: Inga (Un-Go), Hakuoro (Utawarerumono), and Utsuho (Itsuwaribito)

2013-05-24T01:37:11Z

Fanime starts tomorrow and while packing my costumes, I realized I never posted anything on LJ from my last photoshoot from last November, lol. So I finally picked out the ones I liked.

But before that! Fanime! I'll be there the whole time! I'm working during the con and I don't know my hours, so I don't know how much hang out time I'll have, but hopefully I'll be free in the evenings! We'll see! If you want to hang out, send me a text! If you don't have my number, let me know and I'll DM it to you. Let's have fuuuun. =D

Warnings: 31 pictures, lots of stupid stuff, OOC woooooo yeah

My parents kindly let me do these shoots in their house and backyard. They have a beautiful backyard, so it was really a nice place to take pictures.

Last year I cosplayed Inga from Un-Go for the Minna no Anime Halloween party. It's a fun costume, and I love the panda hat. It' minky, so it's super soft. =3 The wig's not too great, I should probably redo it, and the shoes are tight and the bells on the shoes fall off all the time. But it's still a fun costume and when the bells are actually on the shoes I jingle with every step, hahahahaha.

RWAR!

It was a terrible crime, resulting in the instant death of a detective's assistant.

Ha ha, just kidding, you can never kill Inga!

Then I decided to go outside.

Loki wasn't too pleased with my appearance.

But then I told him the benefits of being a detective and he was okay with me.

Honestly I took this picture because I like my one glove and you obviously can't see it with the panda paws on. =3

Let's explore the arbor!!

I now rule the entire backyard!

Gadget was even more against my costume than Loki.

Then I magical girl transformed into Hakuoro. Please ignore the terrible mask and the too-short wig. I made this for the 2011 Minna no Anime Halloween party.

It's the capitol's grounds~

Ughhhh that massskkkk. I'm pretty happy with the rest of the costume though.

I talked to my dad about making Hakuoro's steel fan, but after some discussion and research, we couldn't find a way or actually making it work. I think it works through ~*animation magic*~ in the show.

And now it's Utusho time!! I'm pretty disappointed with the main design (All the white paint) because it's quite messy, but the stuff on the headband and the obi turned out pretty cleanly. I made this for last year's San Diego Comic Con, but I only wore it one day because the leg bands and sandals rub really badly and hurt after a little while.

See Pochi? This one is a bomb. That one is just poison. (HAHAHA SO OBVIOUS WHEN I'VE PLAYED WITH ALL THE SETTINGS IN PHOTOSHOP!) Pochi is made of a very soft fleece. I made the pattern myself and it's a really easy pattern, so if anyone wants a little tanuki friend, I can scan it for you. (It's far from perfect, I had to fix tons of little things as I was sewing him, just FYI.)

Loki may not have liked Inga all that much, but he was all purrs for Utsuho!

I love this cute big boy!

But then Loki left. =(

Let's go exploring~!

Alright, that'd enough of that.

No, no, this one is just salt. THAT one is the poison, Pochi.

Like I mentioned earlier, these were taken in November. But there are still tomatoes there. What the…??

Pochi decided to go get some figs.

He ate too many and had to be carried because he was soooo full!

It's the old swing set! I mean… UH. AN OLD FORT UTSUHO IS ON. YEAH.

There are monkeybars on this ~~swing set~~ OLD FORT.

Exploring the backyard is tiring.

Oh! A maple! Let's uh...

Hide in its enormous branches! Okay… that doesn't work so well.

So then we tried to look like badasses and failed utterly. But at least Pochi is pretty cute.

THE END!

Once Again, It's Con Season.

2013-05-06T23:34:08Z

Mentioned it last post, but things have been pretty busy what with work being busy and conventions right around the corner. But things are going alright! It's stressful, but fulfilling at the same time!

So Fanime is less than three weeks away. This may not be my final costume list, but most are pretty firm:
->Colonial Jack Frost (Rise of the Guardians) - The outfit is almost done, but I won't be able to do any of the frost embroidery on anything until after Fanime. It should be done for Comic Con. I hope. I still have a lot to do on the staff and in all likelyhood it'll end up a huge mess, but it lights up by my touch! So at least it'll have that going for it. And also I might electrocute myself with it. WHOOPS. I'm working on measures to prevent that. Ugh, and I have the wig to do too. Lots and lots of work to do with the wig. @_@
->Jacuzzi (Baccano!) - He's been done for ages, but I'm redoing the lining of his vest, so I gotta make sure to get that done before I forget. Again.
->Sadou Maou (Hataraku Maousama)- Super super excited about this costume, actually. I still need to make the MgRonald patches, make his horns, seal the pauldrons, make his cape, and style his wig, but he's getting close to being done. I probably won't have the MgRonald embroidery on his shirt or hat for Fanime because I'm not going to rush it myself and because the local embroidery place hasn't gotten back to me, grrrrr. But oh gosh, I think this costume is going to be a lot of fun.
->Inga (Un-Go) - He's done, but I might touch up his wig. Not sure if I'll bring him or not.
->Yuki Sanada (Tsuritama) - He's done, but I don't know if I'll bring him either, pretty much because I'd have to bring his fishing pole, and I don't know how the prop load will be yet. And I want to make a Hemingway apron, but I don't think I'll have time to get it done before Fanime.

I had a bunch of people over in March for a movie viewing party. We watched Wreck-It Ralph, Rise of the Guardians, and ParaNorman. I had a lot of fun, I hope everyone else did too.

I made a sign to help people find our apartment. I hung it on the lamp next to our front door. It's based off of the tapestries from Rise of the Guardians, but I rushed it so it's not very close and the paint had weird wrinkling issues at parts, hahaha!

We had desserts based on each movie. A big chocolate cake for Wreck-It Ralph because UHHH IT WORKS SOMEHOW OKAY? It says "I'm gonna wreck it!" on it. I actually had the party because I wanted to get this cake from Costco but it's way too big for just Nur and I. For Rise of the Guardians we had mint chocolate chip ice cream that I jammed a Jack ornament in, lol. ParaNorman's dessert was a chocolate and peanut butter pudding dirt cake. The "dirt" is Nutter Butters and Oreos smashed up, yummm~. Then Nat made a freaking DELICIOUS fruit tart. Oh gosh, it was so goooood.

Another shot of Norman's dessert. There are seven little gravestones for the seven accusers~ =3

Then we moved Norman to the Wreck-It Ralph cake and he got a bit dirty.

At the end of March I went to Tucson with my cousins to visit my grandma. Grandma has dementia and she hasn't been doing as well as we'd hoped lately, so my oldest cousin thought maybe we could all get together to see her and also hang out as cousins. There were six of us cousins; three cousins, my two siblings, and myself. Plus one cousin's (really awesome) boyfriend. It was great to have fun cousin times, but grandma… Yeah, she's not all there anymore. She had no idea who we were and would not respond to "Grandma." (We had to call her "Milly" to get her to react.) Pretty depressing. It's no surprise that she doesn't recognize us (we all knew there was a very slim chance she would), but it still hurts. The trip overall was nice, it was good to see everyone and get away from my apartment for a few days. My brother and I travelled together, and that was nice. One of flights home was delayed though and I ended up getting home at midnight on a Sunday. I was tired, but I felt really bad for Nur, who picked me up from the train station and who had to wake up early for work the next day. =(

We missed Easter because of the trip, so we celebrated it the next week. We're not a religious family and Easter moves around, so it wasn't a big deal. I wore my (ugly) Bunnymund hoodie set. As we hunted for the eggs we had decorated the previous day. It was fun. =)

Some of the eggs. Every year we have to at least have an egg decorated for each member of the family, so the blue "G" one is for me. My name is on the other side. The G is the Rise of the Guardian "G" and there are frost-fern patterns on the side. It's hard to see the design on it, but the egg to the left is for my kitty Dyson. It's a picture of Dyson's usual scowl.

Cheater egg designs. Another Adam Jensen egg like last year and one for Cubby, the king of bread and donuts.

The other side of the eggs.

And here's those pauldrons I'm working on for my Maou outfit:

The angle of the bottom layers isn't quite right, but it'll work. I'm pretty happy with them. It was my first time using worbla. What an interesting material! I asked for advice on which version of his pauldrons to do (there are three: novel version, anime version, and manga version) and everyone said to do the round manga version ones, but I couldn't figure out how to make them as smooth as they needed to be, so I ended up going with the easiest ones I could make. U_U;; I don't want anyone to think I ignored their opinions, I just… couldn't figure out how to make the round ones.

And there's a tree in our little backyard that now has little berries on it and a young squirrel was hanging out on it last Friday, so I took a couple pictures. It let me get really close!

Bancho Effect: A Half-Assed Comic or Something

2013-05-04T00:54:39Z

Sorry I haven't been commenting much on entries lately! Cosplay and work have taken over my free time. But I've keeping up with my friendlist! …Just not commenting.

But yeah. I drew something half-assed. I've been playing around with the terrible, TERRIBLE idea of a TERRIBLE Mass Effect High School AU thing. And High School AUs are almost always TERRIBLE, so yeah. I wanted to make something dumb but amusing, so Bancho Effect was a-go. I started this idea like two years ago and every six months or so I get really into it again and doodle a bunch of horrible things and never really do anything because my art sucks and stuff. But I figured if I kept waiting until I was a good artist to draw the stories I wanted to play with, I would never get around to drawing them. SO DOODLE COMIC, GOOOOO!

Warnings: 4 images, terrible art, characters off-model everywhere, terrible handwriting, probably not amusing. Also sorta spoilers for the beginning of Mass Effect 2?

AND THUS STARTS ~~MASS~~ BANCHO EFFECT 2.

…I REEEEEALLLLLY don't know how to draw cars, can you tell?

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dewitt

2013-04-20T05:12:33Z

Just a quick thing:

Nur's been playing Bioshock Infinite and I happened to see that Booker's birthday is today (4/19)! So here's something to celebrate. (Warnings: some blood and maybe a spoiler for an available move)

I was just going to doodle something out real fast, but then I wanted to color it, then I wanted to make it say "Happy Birthday Booker" and each bit added more and more time. But the basic sketch never went further than being just a barely fleshed-out doodle, so… whoops. I had a lot of fun anyway, but I just wish I had actually spent the time trying to draw him properly.