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rallamajoopAfter last year's somewhat lackluster Manifest experience we decided to give Smash a try this time around, which turned out to be as good a call as we could have asked for. Smash is a lot smaller than Manifest – probably not even as big as Waicon – but it may well have been the best organised anime convention we've ever been too. Queues were short and moved quickly, the staff were helpful and friendly and never seemed run off their feet, there were two excellent food stalls right outside, and there was even a live video feed of the cosplay comp for entrants to watch backstage while waiting for their turns. Things ran a bit late on the second day and they could have used more seating for the cosplay competition (a lot of people were left sitting on the floor, standing at the back or watching from the balcony), and the host for the event was, not to put too fine a point on it, not John, but none of that took too much away from the experience. The people were more friendly and enthusiastic than at any other con I can ever think of, and they stopped us to ask for photographs/complimented our costumes/oohed and ahhed over Lisa's art/recognised us from the Internet a lot over the two days, which all terribly good for one's ego. Lisa only managed to book a table for the Sunday, which turned out to be the quieter of the two days, but a respectable profit was still made and for once we had a day free to actually see what was going on around the con. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable con experience.
The other big highlight of attending a con over East was the chance to catch up with some of our friends who've been part of the giant Eastern States Exodus that's overtaken Perth in the last few years – plus a couple of Eastern States natives who I'd met briefly at previous Wai-cons but hadn't had much chance to talk to until now. If any of you should be reading this, hi again to Sam,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chisathechi, cielrose, k_chan009, Will, Kenny, Catty, Tsubaki and anyone else I've missed - really hope you can all make it over for Wai-con next year!
This was our first time flying Virgin Blue, which worked out reasonably cheaper than Qantas even after you factor in extra charges for food and/or seat-back video. The plane even got us there half an hour earlier than expected, which was great apart from the part where that meant I missed out on the climatic final battle of Wolverine (an otherwise perfect in-flight viewing option since I'd already seen it 1) enjoyed it enough to see again, 2) remembered it well enough to understand through dodgy aeroplane audio and 3) hadn't been so blown away by it that it deserved much better than an in-flight viewing), so that was a bit of a bugger. At least the star of the movie had had most of its main scenes by then.
The hotel we were staying at this year was not so much bad as sort of odd. The rooms were pretty nice, if a bit short on powerpoints in useful locations (read: there was one, and it was stuck behind the table). However, contrary to what was written on the signs, the staff member working at the front office disappeared on Friday evening and didn't reappear until Sunday, despite the fact that both Sam andchisathechi were due in on Saturday morning. Room keys for them eventually turned up by means of being left sitting on the counter, practically in view from the street. This all basically worked out in the end, but I'm not sure whether I'd stay there a second time.
Anyhow, on to the con: Saturday was the day we had no stall to worry about, and we spent it in our now ridiculously well-traveled The World Ends With You costumes. These were mostly unchanged from Japan, except that Lisa now had her Sho wings with her (probably the sole reason for half the photos we got stopped for), and I'd finally gotten hold of an orange phone (more accurately, a cheap black one and a can of metallic orange spray-paint). Plans also included a skit which was our first foray into having to pre-record our voices, but all went well up on stage on the day.
(Photos shamelessly cribbed from the Smash forums and friends, we didn't get get to take many of our own.)
chisathechi has a bunch of other pics of us we took outside afterwards posted as well up here, and Lisa's got a handful up here, mostly taken while we were waiting for our Takoyaki.
Links for the day would not be finished without a mention ofk_chan009 and cielrose (and the rest of the team!)'s Utena skit - which should be particularly recommended to anyone who 1) liked Utena, 2) liked Moulin Rouge or 3) didn't like High School Musical.
And I had to link to this vid of Will showing off some of the 'special features' of Sol's Overture outfit. It was a real crying shame we didn't manage to synchronise our Guilty Gear cosplays on the same day.
While I'm singing the praises of Smash – and Sydney fandom in general – I was also impressed by the standard of costumes up on stage that day, and particularly the standards of of the other skits. I have to give special mention to one cosplayer who was not only the best Sailor Moon I've ever seen, he was in fact the best male Sailor Moon cosplayer I've seen - and I can't think of anyone up on stage in the 'but why did you bother?' category (being typically the kind who goes up to proudly tell us all how they'd pulled their entire costume out of their wardrobe on a whim this morning). The skits were all well performed and/or genuinely funny too, including multiple dance numbers, the obligatory RickRoll and pretty much everything you can get away with saying about the plot of Ai no Kusabi on stage without being thrown out of the venue, amongst other things. ;)
So you can imagine our surprise when we found out we'd been awarded runner up in the skit category. Actually, we'd been so sure we had no chance that we were outside taking photos during the awards ceremony. ^^;k_chan009 had to phone us up to let us know we'd won.
Then on Saturday night the guy with the costume with the massively awesome wings we'd been admiring at Manifest the previous year cooked really delicious crapes for everyone. :3
Sunday we had to be at the con by nine to pick up our traders passes, but despite what was in retrospect a less than brilliant plan to walk the distance to the con in my high-heeled boots, we made it easily. Cosplay that day was Ky for me and a new Robin costume for Lisa.
Someone actually got a shot of both of us that day! =D
I'm going to take a paragraph to blab on about the costume for a bit here, because not since that first Yuffie have I ever gone through making a costume with this many different bits to it. There's the pants, the undershirt (which had to be made in a way that seriously restricts your shoulder movement), the coat (made in two pieces – the skirt and top coat are completely separate), the tabard (do *not* get me started on sewing pleather edging around all those corners), the boots, the belt plate, the gloves (which were bought and modded rather than having to be made from scratch, thank god), the wrist guards, the cross-pendant and the wig – and I haven't even start work on the Fuuraiken yet. There were six gold buttons to be made and eleven different belts - depending how you count the ones around the waist, but we'll go with eleven - each of which had to be measured carefully before the hole was punched, had to have a buckle sewn on, an end finished off neatly, and at least one belt-loop made – and anything without belts on it had edging with too many corners or some other decoration that would have to be custom made. I owe huge amounts of gratitude totwinkl33 and velithya – both of whom have made Holy Order costumes in the past and were willing to let me quiz them on how everything had been made and borrow bits to base my patterns off. Also to pinneagig for doing the metal weathering on the belt plate and generally putting up with the house being kind of a massive cosplay zone for the two months (though as a cosplayer herself she's very sympathetic about that).
Despite all the time and effort it took, everything went pretty smoothly. Excluding a few moments of frustration over the umpteenth belt to be finished, it was even kind of fun, probably mostly a sign that I've been in the right mood to have a big project to focus on lately. It absolutely paid off on the day too – the finished product got me enthusiastic compliments from at least three seriously awesome cosplayers whom I'd hardly known (if at all) before that weekend. The standard in the cosplay comp was as good as the first day too – there were a number of really good solo entrants to compete with, so I was hugely flattered that the judges awarded me runner up best cosplay. At least I'd stuck around for the awards ceremony this time.
I feel like I should have more to say about Sunday, but it's a bit of a blur - running a stall and competing in the cosplay comp doesn't leave your day with a lot of change left over. Between running the stall and everything else I didn't actually get many photos taken that day, but it's early days for that costume - we'll get a proper photoshoot done back in Perth some time.
That was about it for the con, but our flight back wasn't until late Monday afternoon, giving us most of the day to do a bit of general touristy stuff. We spent it wandering around the Sydney CBD, starting out at the Sydney Kinokuniya and meandering down through China Town and whatever we found in between. The two main highlights were both places stumbled onto completely by accident – starting with a little store called 'Shibuya' just on the edge of China Town which appropriately sold Goth-Loli and assorted other Japanese fashion. It was closed the first time we went past, with a sign on the door saying it opened at 12, but when we went back there just after midday it was still closed, with not so much as a light on inside to suggest it was opening. Hoping that it someone was just running a little late today, we went off to find some lunch instead.
The place we got lunch is tricky to describe. It's a particular variety of restaurant (Lisa calls them 'Family Restaurants', which just doesn't sound all that specific out of context) that was as enthusiastically franchised in Japan as fast food chicken is everywhere else in the world, but the food is not only way better, the menu ranges from from the usual Japanese fare to steak or spaghetti or whatever else they've picked to appropriate from far corners of the world – almost reminds me of a slightly down-market version of Sizzler with a much more varied menu. It's the kind of food you try once or twice and then spend the rest of the trip bemoaning the mystery of why the rest of the civilised world hasn't caught on to doing the same thing, so finding one in Sydney completely by accident may have prompted quite a lot of happy squee from the too of us. May it spawn and spread across the Nullabor post-haste!
And after that we went back to the Shibuya shop again, to find it open at last, and as a result my Joshua-related goth-loli outfit needs are now taken care of. :3 As Lisa said, it's like we went to Sydney, and came back via Japan.
The flight back was pleasantly uneventful. So that was our trip.
Still a heck of a lot of things I've been meaning to get written up and/or posted sitting on the queue, but now there's no huge, urgent cosplay projects looming over me, that should be a little easier to get around to.
The other big highlight of attending a con over East was the chance to catch up with some of our friends who've been part of the giant Eastern States Exodus that's overtaken Perth in the last few years – plus a couple of Eastern States natives who I'd met briefly at previous Wai-cons but hadn't had much chance to talk to until now. If any of you should be reading this, hi again to Sam,
chisathechi, cielrose, k_chan009, Will, Kenny, Catty, Tsubaki and anyone else I've missed - really hope you can all make it over for Wai-con next year!This was our first time flying Virgin Blue, which worked out reasonably cheaper than Qantas even after you factor in extra charges for food and/or seat-back video. The plane even got us there half an hour earlier than expected, which was great apart from the part where that meant I missed out on the climatic final battle of Wolverine (an otherwise perfect in-flight viewing option since I'd already seen it 1) enjoyed it enough to see again, 2) remembered it well enough to understand through dodgy aeroplane audio and 3) hadn't been so blown away by it that it deserved much better than an in-flight viewing), so that was a bit of a bugger. At least the star of the movie had had most of its main scenes by then.
The hotel we were staying at this year was not so much bad as sort of odd. The rooms were pretty nice, if a bit short on powerpoints in useful locations (read: there was one, and it was stuck behind the table). However, contrary to what was written on the signs, the staff member working at the front office disappeared on Friday evening and didn't reappear until Sunday, despite the fact that both Sam and
chisathechi were due in on Saturday morning. Room keys for them eventually turned up by means of being left sitting on the counter, practically in view from the street. This all basically worked out in the end, but I'm not sure whether I'd stay there a second time. Anyhow, on to the con: Saturday was the day we had no stall to worry about, and we spent it in our now ridiculously well-traveled The World Ends With You costumes. These were mostly unchanged from Japan, except that Lisa now had her Sho wings with her (probably the sole reason for half the photos we got stopped for), and I'd finally gotten hold of an orange phone (more accurately, a cheap black one and a can of metallic orange spray-paint). Plans also included a skit which was our first foray into having to pre-record our voices, but all went well up on stage on the day.
(Photos shamelessly cribbed from the Smash forums and friends, we didn't get get to take many of our own.)
chisathechi has a bunch of other pics of us we took outside afterwards posted as well up here, and Lisa's got a handful up here, mostly taken while we were waiting for our Takoyaki. Links for the day would not be finished without a mention of
k_chan009 and cielrose (and the rest of the team!)'s Utena skit - which should be particularly recommended to anyone who 1) liked Utena, 2) liked Moulin Rouge or 3) didn't like High School Musical. And I had to link to this vid of Will showing off some of the 'special features' of Sol's Overture outfit. It was a real crying shame we didn't manage to synchronise our Guilty Gear cosplays on the same day.
While I'm singing the praises of Smash – and Sydney fandom in general – I was also impressed by the standard of costumes up on stage that day, and particularly the standards of of the other skits. I have to give special mention to one cosplayer who was not only the best Sailor Moon I've ever seen, he was in fact the best male Sailor Moon cosplayer I've seen - and I can't think of anyone up on stage in the 'but why did you bother?' category (being typically the kind who goes up to proudly tell us all how they'd pulled their entire costume out of their wardrobe on a whim this morning). The skits were all well performed and/or genuinely funny too, including multiple dance numbers, the obligatory RickRoll and pretty much everything you can get away with saying about the plot of Ai no Kusabi on stage without being thrown out of the venue, amongst other things. ;)
So you can imagine our surprise when we found out we'd been awarded runner up in the skit category. Actually, we'd been so sure we had no chance that we were outside taking photos during the awards ceremony. ^^;
k_chan009 had to phone us up to let us know we'd won.Then on Saturday night the guy with the costume with the massively awesome wings we'd been admiring at Manifest the previous year cooked really delicious crapes for everyone. :3
Sunday we had to be at the con by nine to pick up our traders passes, but despite what was in retrospect a less than brilliant plan to walk the distance to the con in my high-heeled boots, we made it easily. Cosplay that day was Ky for me and a new Robin costume for Lisa.
Someone actually got a shot of both of us that day! =D
I'm going to take a paragraph to blab on about the costume for a bit here, because not since that first Yuffie have I ever gone through making a costume with this many different bits to it. There's the pants, the undershirt (which had to be made in a way that seriously restricts your shoulder movement), the coat (made in two pieces – the skirt and top coat are completely separate), the tabard (do *not* get me started on sewing pleather edging around all those corners), the boots, the belt plate, the gloves (which were bought and modded rather than having to be made from scratch, thank god), the wrist guards, the cross-pendant and the wig – and I haven't even start work on the Fuuraiken yet. There were six gold buttons to be made and eleven different belts - depending how you count the ones around the waist, but we'll go with eleven - each of which had to be measured carefully before the hole was punched, had to have a buckle sewn on, an end finished off neatly, and at least one belt-loop made – and anything without belts on it had edging with too many corners or some other decoration that would have to be custom made. I owe huge amounts of gratitude to
twinkl33 and velithya – both of whom have made Holy Order costumes in the past and were willing to let me quiz them on how everything had been made and borrow bits to base my patterns off. Also to pinneagig for doing the metal weathering on the belt plate and generally putting up with the house being kind of a massive cosplay zone for the two months (though as a cosplayer herself she's very sympathetic about that).
Despite all the time and effort it took, everything went pretty smoothly. Excluding a few moments of frustration over the umpteenth belt to be finished, it was even kind of fun, probably mostly a sign that I've been in the right mood to have a big project to focus on lately. It absolutely paid off on the day too – the finished product got me enthusiastic compliments from at least three seriously awesome cosplayers whom I'd hardly known (if at all) before that weekend. The standard in the cosplay comp was as good as the first day too – there were a number of really good solo entrants to compete with, so I was hugely flattered that the judges awarded me runner up best cosplay. At least I'd stuck around for the awards ceremony this time.
I feel like I should have more to say about Sunday, but it's a bit of a blur - running a stall and competing in the cosplay comp doesn't leave your day with a lot of change left over. Between running the stall and everything else I didn't actually get many photos taken that day, but it's early days for that costume - we'll get a proper photoshoot done back in Perth some time.
That was about it for the con, but our flight back wasn't until late Monday afternoon, giving us most of the day to do a bit of general touristy stuff. We spent it wandering around the Sydney CBD, starting out at the Sydney Kinokuniya and meandering down through China Town and whatever we found in between. The two main highlights were both places stumbled onto completely by accident – starting with a little store called 'Shibuya' just on the edge of China Town which appropriately sold Goth-Loli and assorted other Japanese fashion. It was closed the first time we went past, with a sign on the door saying it opened at 12, but when we went back there just after midday it was still closed, with not so much as a light on inside to suggest it was opening. Hoping that it someone was just running a little late today, we went off to find some lunch instead.
The place we got lunch is tricky to describe. It's a particular variety of restaurant (Lisa calls them 'Family Restaurants', which just doesn't sound all that specific out of context) that was as enthusiastically franchised in Japan as fast food chicken is everywhere else in the world, but the food is not only way better, the menu ranges from from the usual Japanese fare to steak or spaghetti or whatever else they've picked to appropriate from far corners of the world – almost reminds me of a slightly down-market version of Sizzler with a much more varied menu. It's the kind of food you try once or twice and then spend the rest of the trip bemoaning the mystery of why the rest of the civilised world hasn't caught on to doing the same thing, so finding one in Sydney completely by accident may have prompted quite a lot of happy squee from the too of us. May it spawn and spread across the Nullabor post-haste!
And after that we went back to the Shibuya shop again, to find it open at last, and as a result my Joshua-related goth-loli outfit needs are now taken care of. :3 As Lisa said, it's like we went to Sydney, and came back via Japan.
The flight back was pleasantly uneventful. So that was our trip.
Still a heck of a lot of things I've been meaning to get written up and/or posted sitting on the queue, but now there's no huge, urgent cosplay projects looming over me, that should be a little easier to get around to.