Ending B

The first thing I did after getting to the con was … get my picture taken. I didn’t even manage to make it past the lobby before being stopped for the first time. I have a relatively popular cosplay, so this happens frequently. My favorite part of conventions is walking around and seeing the many cosplayers. I spend most of my day at a con taking pictures and getting my picture taken. I love cosplaying.

Not me, but this Gurren Lagann group was hanging out by the entrance.

Having successfully navigated through the lobby, I went back to my original goal: checking up on our artist friend, Kim. The Artists’ Alley was positioned in front of the Exhibitor’s Hall this year. So everyone coming in from the main entrance had to pass by the starving artist’s to get further on in to the industry dealers. I’m sure this had a positive effect on sales for the artists over last year’s arrangement. Kim had her usual array of awesome goods (prints, stickers, and T-shirts) with a little added variety. She added some larger stickers and some new characters (Portal turret, Goomba, et al) which you can check out on her site: www.mhho.com.

Kim, Kim’s table, and Kim’s art!

Next up on the agenda was the Exhibitors’ Hall (aka Dealers’ Room). Without fail, the larger the con is, the better the dealers’ room is. You could probably fit 6 – 8 of Ohayocon’s (mid-size con) Dealers’ Room into the Acen room. Acen (large con) has more walking space than Otakon, but Otakon (huge con) seems to have a larger variety of dealers. Otakon also takes the time to label each aisle so finding dealers and meeting up with party members is much easier. I did a quick walkthrough of this room and bought a giant D20!

I love group cosplays, and I love the group behind "...and Sewing Is Half The Battle"

While walking around I bumped into the "...and Sewing is Half the Battle" group who recognized my Syaoran cosplay from Ohayocon (one advantage to not changing my cosplay too often). Turns out they ran an Acen cosplay panel that morning which I’m sure was awesome. Moral of this story? Don’t just scan the names of panels, read the descriptions! I went and checked out their website and it turns out they weren’t listed on the schedule. Congratulations to them for winning the Yume Regional Prize, and good luck to them in New York City at the Yume Finals! Hopefully I’ll be able to see them again at another con.

Woah, WOE! Long live Ragnarok Online!

Next up was my first photo shoot of the con … Ragnarok Online! This is a special game for most of us at Ending B so I love seeing all the fans who continue to cosplay as characters from this game. This was a fun cosplay with a good number of people attending. Unfortunately I arrived half way through and missed out on a bit of the fun.

Jessie from Toy Story 2

Most of the remainder of the day was spent wandering around aimlessly. So I’ll sign off here with one last picture. Stay tuned for Saturday’s recap soon.

Ozzie, Marle, and Ayla from Chrono Trigger