No pictures, no comic, just a report

Gone for a few days and what do you get?

A truck load of e-mails, a truck load of DevArt messages, several new LJ-friends (hi all! :)), LJ entries and message boards to catch up with, finding out someone's been heavily linking to your site without prior notice, finding out many of your favorite sites have undergone a makeover...
Dude, I even have to get used to my pen tablet again. XD Feels very weird after days of just holding pencils and regular pens.

Wednesday, early morning. That night before I had stayed up late again, not a very good idea but I'm procrastinating like that. Fortunately enough I could catch a ride with my parents who'd drop me off in Hilversum at pegla and skunktaur's place. Which was really handy with the heaps of luggage I was carrying around. My mum had the brilliant notion to take along some extra sleeping gear, of which in the end only the pillow proved to be useful.
After we had assembled and hung around a bit we left and were on our way. Made a short stop in Arnhem along the way, which seemed to have undergone a strange layout change enabling people to easily get into town but not out.

The trip was long and rainy, but filled with laughter and conversations. Granted I'm never that much a fan of long trips, but it was quite all right. And thus we got to the Biggesee. Tip number one: don't ask locals for directions, as those sneaky old hags will send you in the entirely wrong direction whilst you are actually but two minutes from your destination. So after a detour in Olpe (which I only then recognized, as I had been there before a few years back) we got to the consite, which looked pretty damn good.
We got our stuff to the room, spent the day exploring the vicinity and in the evening we got dinner in Olpe. For the rest I fiddled a bit with my sketchbook and my conbadge. The conbadge would later that weekend prove to have a life of its own, as it constantly got lost up to the point that it seemingly got announced over the speakers as being found somewhere.

Thursday came, the day it would all really start. blue_panther arrived early and not soon thereafter I got the brilliant idea of asking unclekage whom our mysterious sixth roommate was going to be. He told me this person, Crocuta, had just arrived a few minutes earlier so off the rest of us went in search and we found him in front of the room. Very nice bloke, artist and photographer from Finland. Seems a bit shy though, despite his appearance. But it was a very nice experience having him as a sixth roommate.
Finally met akeyla in real life, she's a really great gal and a neat person to have a conversation with. Not to mention a really talented artist. Later on I stumbled across nefariouscory, who looked quite lovely, and her mother. It was the first time that I had seen Cory with her new hair colour and I must say it looks smashing. Which reminds me of bander and all the others at the convention who had coloured hair. I always envy people who get to do that. :) Same goes for my sister at the moment who surprised me with her now red hair when I came back home. But back to the convention report.
I met many more, loads of artists this time. Even some old friends whom I hadn't seen for ages. To all those I'm sorry if I can't remember your name, aside from the fact that I don't even know whether or not you have LJ's or not. But just keep in mind that you are remembered. :)
The remainder of the day was spent sketching... and sketching... and, well yeah. Filling up people's sketchbooks. I have to be honest though it wasn't merely because I enjoyed it. It also was a welcome distraction as, for personal reasons, I was feeling a bit uncomfortable. It showed a bit in my art and apparently later on during the con also in my physical appearance. But as mentioned in the previous placeholder-entry a relief was found the following day.

I shall stop mentioning sketching now. It's safe to assume that any gaps of time in my con report were either filled with sleeping or sketching. This was the first con where I honestly had a constant stream of people requesting me to draw something in their sketchbooks. So that was... quite cool. :)

Friday came, and so did one of those moments that I just had to get out of there. And so I did, retreating to the nearby woods where I found that wonderful spot I described earlier. Having such places in walking distance really proved to be a blessing.
Back at the consite it didn't take long for clsa to arrive onto the scene as well. Exchanged stuff, gave her some DVD's and got a sketchbook from her. I still owe her for that, because it really proved to come in handy as the very next day I finally filled my former sketchbook. *hugs* Thank you!

What also was refreshing to see was jonesybunny writing his stories at the artist table. It is something that made me wonder though. You always see people drawing at the artists-table, but what about the other forms of (anthropomorphic) art, such as writing? Despite focus upon that via publications and an occasional SIG you don't often see such artists do their jig at a con. Weird and a shame.
One thing I did notice though at the artist table was the mentioning of other artists, such as bander, B.P., _graywolf_ and Selderaya. As I understand German it's quite easy to follow the conversations held by the others and many a time it came up how the other artists admired the aforementioned folks for their skills and effort.
Uncle Kage's storyhour was fun as well.

Saturday was mostly a blur. Up early again for breakfast and a shower. The bathrooms by the way were quite good this time, as were the rooms. Went up the to the woods again, beautiful weather this time despite earlier rain showers. Basically just hung around, watched the art auction, went to some SIGs, got drunk at the end of the night as B.P. had brought some dangerous mixes along. XD

On Sunday we mostly were just waiting. Pegla had to attend a meeting at the site so we waited for him. As people left the convention I didn't get to say goodbye to all the people I wanted to, which is a shame. Saw a lot of Germany on the way back, unintentionally though. ;) Got hyper on sugar laden drinks which tasted just too darn good. Had to take the train back home with Jones as both the van and the drivers had enough for the time being. But it was cool though.

I'll get scans up of whatever I have later.

Tomorrow it's off to the hospital. (yay!) Slotervaart... 8.30 AM. (not so yay) I had better finish my liquorice now as I probably won't be able to eat any for a few days. ;__;
And oh yeah, the deadline of the Big Chip Compo #6 is tomorrow as well. Don't think I'll make it this time. x__x