I stayed up all night on Thursday night trying to do up a 6-7 page ARGH! be the way of PIRATES sample/preview for SMASH! Needless to say I failed utterly and all I actually managed was a 3-page sample and a slapdash cover. My home printer was being a jerk though, printing blacks as, like, 50% grey! So we ended up throwing everything onto a CD and hoping against hope itself that we could find somewhere to print samples when we got to Sydney. 8D;;
Got our Jetstar flight to Sydney without too much trouble. I kind of like the flight to Sydney - compared to Thailand and England it is hella short. Then caught the train from Sydney airport to Central station for $10 each (that's STUDENT prices) which was pretty overpriced for only three stations worth of train ride? :/ We discovered that it's about $40 by taxi though so it was actually a good option despite the 1km walk through the rain with our luggage to get to the hotel... :P
We stayed at Y Hotel - $100 a night for a double room and only a couple kms walk from Chinatown/Broadway/those places which was pretty decent. Right next to a ghetto though and the rooms are super teensy weensy (like the size of a bedroom in a normal house fits EVERYTHING including bathroom at this place!) so that's something to keep in mind if you're travelling to Sydney with a budget...
Once we reached the hotel we went to pick up the buttons we ordered from a dude nearby (ended up accidently walking through a ghetto to get there, yay). They didn't print very well. :( I was pretty disappointed. Paid the guy, took them back, inspected them further - yeah, disappointing. The art should have looked a lot better. :/ So, learn from my experience, kids, don't get buttons from here. The website is very professional and I suspect he'd be able to handle simple designs very well but it was a mistake with the art I had. :( I think we're going to BUY our own button machine and do our own buttons from now on, as I don't trust someone else with them now... When that happens I'll offer to rent the machine to people in Brisbane and/or offer a badge making service at a small price.
Disappointing buttons. :( Mostly the Riku/Sora ones are just too dark/dull.
Later we wandered the area looking for food and, if we were very lucky, somewhere with a printer. We were VERY lucky. Found a fantastic little place that was like a cross between a convenience store, a bubble tea bar (you heard me), a bakery, and an internet cafe. They had a printer that could print at 1200dpi. CRAZIER.
I could sleep on Friday night at ALL. I was so nervous about the convention and going up on stage for Manga Idol. D:
The venue being set up. It's so...empty.
Saturday morning - hurried to SMASH! Skipped the free breakfast at the hotel because we got moving pretty late... (We met Chuc, who was our table neighbour, for the first time. He's working on a really awesome looking story about a French soldier in WW1 - it looks super hot. Also classy. I'll definitely be buying a copy when I can. :D) It took us over an hour to set up the table. D: People were already coming in before we finished, whoops. I had to bugger off and leave Joey to fend for himself at that point as I needed to get down to the main stage for Manga Idol preparation (omggg).
Joey at our table as the congoers flood in. Yay! There really needs to be some kind of warning siren when people are first allowed through the front door...
Met the other Manga Idol contestants! They were awesome people/artists and I was really pleased to meet them, though I was so worried about going on stage that might not have come across... :P Syku, H Li, K6, it was really awesome to meet you all and hopefully we'll run across each other again some day. :)
Moving on - I somehow MIRACULOUSLY won Manga Idol and scored a Wacom A5 Wide Intuos3 (worth I think $450?). Hot damn! All the entries should be up on the Wacom site eventually so I'll post when they are. :) I-I was so shocked. If anyone took a video of the thing I'll post that too so you can all see how much of an idiot I looked. The tablet's packaging took a bit of battering on the trip home and almost got crushed beneath the wheels of a train in Brisbane but it's home safe and sound now and I don't know what to do with it! On the one hand I'm tempted to keep it (after all, it IS my prize!) but on the other hand that $400 from Ebaying it would cover the costs of the whole trip... Our table didn't sell all that well (expected) and we had a lot of extra costs, being out of towners, so the money would be a big help. :/ Hnnnnnn.
Spent the rest of the day manning the table - trying to sell badges (sold, uh, 34 Totoros somehow and 7 each of Sora and Riku. A few Sogekings! NO ONE liked Ifrit or Shiva! I partly blame the printing issues for low sales but I think our display and designs could have been better too. Live and learn!), fetching food and drinks. Joey and I took turns wandering around the place throughout the day - SMASH! had a really fantastic setup with a lot of events happening on centre stage keeping things fresh and letting people walk around and look at stuff while STILL listening to/watching the stuff on stage. I was super impressed with it. In addition, the food court had asian drinks (tad expensive but my god they were THERE) and a takoyaki stall and cake store! Among other actually decent food. So so so impressed! Supanova, take notes (although I know you won't T_T).
The biggest draw to our table was the art I had on display from Pokemonathon. Glad I brought it along, it was sort of a last minute thing I threw in. But yeah, consistently got the most compliments and comments on the Pokemon art. I guess everyone else feels the same way about Pokemon as I do... I shouldn't be surprised, since it's such a big part of all our childhoods. We got a lot of requests for Pokemon badges so rest assured, people, next year I will be all over that! Also came up with an idea of a little Pokemon artbook for next year with all my pokemonathon art in it - I think a big appeal of the originals is flipping through the book and seeing all the different takes whether or not they are favourites.
The table front! It looks okay, right?
The sample comic also got quite a few reads, some comments, a few laughs. One guy apparently was very keen on the art, a fusion of American and Japanese styles that needed to happen as he saw it. :P Thanks, guy, that was encouraging! I wasn't at the table to speak with him at the time but Joey relayed the exchange to me. Again, when I was away from the table, someone came up and DEMANDED that the comic be done by Animania. Unfortunately even if it is done by then we won't be going to any more Sydney cons this year! Sorry! Anyway, the overall response was good and really encouraging. There was some kids who kept circling back to our table to reread the three page sample there, so cute. :DDD I'm going to work hard to get the comic site and the sample pages + more up by the end of August. Thankyou to everyone who stopped by and read the sample or commented or even just cracked a half-smile, it made everything we've been working towards seem much more REAL and I'm super motivated now! :)
Got a small amount of interest in commissions but didn't sell any at the con. I might find myself getting some emails about commissions in the next few weeks though. We'll see. Joey was worried that my prices were too high when people weren't all that interested but I refuse to work for any less than $5-10 an hour. I'm not desperate for money and I refuse to push the prices that budding artists are expected to work for any lower than they already are. My prices ARE low, I will not draw for free, geez. /rant sorry. :P
Left the con about 7pm when the crowd had finally died out. Got home and collapsed. Hoo boy.
Saturday Joey and I wandered around Broadway, Market City, China Town, and part of the inner city. It was awesome. :D We went to this great fully automated internet place called Everywhere Internet where we caught up with stuff and we played some Warcraft 3 with some hilarious bratty kids. Internet was really cheap there too at $2 an hour! Man, we need a place like that in Brissy! Eventually we had dinner at Chat Thai (across from Capitol Theatre) - really authentic Thai food. It was great to go there again though I don't know if Joey fully appreciates authentic Thai food... :P While I'm on food recs - Crocodile Thai (round the corner and down the street from Chat) is also pretty fine!
After dinner we had ice cream at a place nearby called Passionflower. Really fancy desserts, done up all pretty (with a price to match, mind...). Then we went upstairs to what looked like an arcade but turned out to be this enooooormous collection of those Japanese Photo Booth. Jeebus, you only need one or two photo booths in an arcade, right? Not TWENTY. Dayum. Fortunately the other side of the floor was filled with skill testers which are SORT of like arcade games... :P We tried so many times to get a Chopper Chup toy and then to get a regular Chopper toy and then Chopper Chup again... It was freakin' impossible. At one stage Joey's determination to have a Chopper of his own wavered and he won me a bear at a different machine first try which just goes to show how horrible and impossible the Chopper toys were! We also tried to get me an adorable plushy flavoured milk carton toy. Soooo cute! I wish I'd taken photos to show of all these high quality japanese skill tester machine toys, man!
At least I can show off my bear. :D He hangs on the door to my office from now on. :)
He has really short soft fur! High quality toy, man. Now wonder UFO machines do so well in Japan, there is actually decent stuff in them!
Spent Sunday night packing up bags and whatnot. We made a real mess of the room - stuff just sort of strewn about the place in our haste.
Monday we somehow managed to miss free breakfast yet again because we are losers who woke up just as the kitchen was closing. CURSES. Hightailed it out of there with just enough time for Joey to check out a local gaming store and buy 5000 Magic: The Gathering cards. FOR $50! That's an insane price. 1 cent each! Joey doesn't care about the tournament worthiness of his MTG cards and just likes to play with friends so it was a real bargain. :D Then we rushed to the airport only for the plane to be delayed an hour. Nurrrrr...
So now I'm home again, jiggety jig, and everything's come back safely with me. :) Amazing! We had a really good time. I'd love to do SMASH! again next year but I don't know if I can afford it. I had help from Mum this year in the form of a 21st birthday present and the winning Manga Idol will help out heaps if I sell the prize. Not exactly the kind of circumstances that will come up again any time soon...
The loot. I was trying to keep my spending down but a few things still snuck in... There's a couple other things, will update later. :D
THE END!
Notes for next con:
- Nicer display (A3 upwards PRINTS to put up on the wall and more prominent/colourful signage)
- Put the Pokemonathon art in a nice, flexible, DURABLE folder (the originals were getting manhandled, man!)
- Have a float ready BEFORE the con... :P
- Keep track of sales and float in a register book or something!
- make own goddam badges
- Postcards and bookmarks - a good idea!
If you actually read all that, you are nuts. Grats!
In summary:
SMASH!: FUN!
SYDNEY: DIRTY BUT FUN!
ART: WELL RECIEVED (more pokemon)!
COMIC: ALSO WELL RECIEVED (finish it)!
BUTTONS/PRINTS: DON'T TRUST OTHER PEOPLE!
SKILL TESTER TOYS: ARE BITCHES!
:D :D :D :D :D
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