After a week or so of recovery from the craziness that was Anime Expo 2010, I’m now back in business! I’ve officially opened up print sales and commissions over at my deviantART page (here’s my dA journal entry with more detailed info). If you didn’t get to attend Anime Expo and visit me at Artist Alley, here’s your chance to score some of the prints that I had on sale during the event. If you don’t have a dA account, here’s all of the info that you need to know right after the jump!

Here’s the info straight from my deviantART journal entry:

{PRINTS ON SALE}

The following pieces featured on my dA account are available in print form (grouped by sizes and prices):

4″x6″ – $3 per print
*Totoro Trio
*Happy Little Poison Cloud
*Love Hina Animal Plush
*Confused Link is Confused
*Tonberry and Knife

5″x7″ – $4 per print
*Little Conan
*Little Conan – Strike Beard
*Bart Simpson as Edward Elric

6″x6″ – $5 per print
*Persona 4 – Kitsune

8″x10″ – $7 per print
*Smoked Cheese for Dinner
*Lisa as Eternal Sailormoon
*Team Eevee

11″x17″ – $11 per print
*Moogle March

If you are interested in any other pieces that are not listed, send me a note/direct message for any print requests.

**SPECIAL DEALS**

*Friends of Conan Special: If you buy both Little Conan and Little Conan – Strike Beard prints, I’ll sell them together for only $7 (save $1).

*Simpsons Crossover Special: If you buy both Bart Simpson as Edward Elric and Lisa as Eternal Sailormoon prints, I’ll sell them together for only $9 (save $2).

{COMMISSIONS}

Chibi Fullbody: $8 – 5″x7″
Headshots: $10 – 8″x10″
Half body: $12 – 8″x10″
Full body: $14 – 8″x10″
All prices are for black and white artwork (line art).
*Color: add $3
*Each additional character: add $5/head

Open Slots:
1. Chibi Commission
2.
3.
commissions are in a first come, first serve basis

{DIGITAL/HARD COPY}
Prints and commissions are available in both digital and hard copy format:

*EMAIL: Pricing will be based on what you have purchased and will be sent to you as a high-quality, 300 DPI PDF file through email.
*MAIL/HARD COPY: Prints will be printed on high quality paper and mailed. Commissions will be mailed off as soon as they are completed. Additional fees will be added for printing and/or shipping.

{PAYMENTS}

*Paypal (preferred and safest mode)
*Cash/check sent through mail (please take extra care so that the contents are concealed!)
***Please Note: I will not start on a commission or send off a print until I receive full payment for each item.

If you are interested on purchasing a print or having a commission done, contact me either through here or on deviantART and I will work with you one-on-one on what you need.

And as always, I’ll be creating new works from time to time so the prints list will change as well as any other info so be on the look out for that…

Day 3:

For any convention, Saturdays are always the busy days and Saturday at Anime Expo was no exception. We had a few events lined up for Saturday that would feature otaku blogger and Tokyo Stormtrooper Danny Choo (blog/YouTube profile). What made the day even more awesome was that Lester wore his Blackhole Stormtrooper armor during the whole day as well! He wore it during our first time to Anime Expo last year and decided to bring it back this year.

We spent a few hours over at Artist Alley with Lester standing like a statue next to our table and having attendees take pictures and interact. Everyone didn’t think that it was real at first and then are surprised when the armor moved (or in Lester’s case, danced). It seemed like everyone was having such a fun time with Lester and taking photos with him. There were also a number of some good cosplay, too…

After working at the table for a bit, we all headed out to the Indecent Otaku Comedy Hour by the Nokia Plaza where Danny Choo would be a guest host. And as always, everyone was looking at the strange man in armor walking from the LACC to the Nokia Plaza. At some point, a few people were screaming ‘DARTH VADER!!!’

The Nokia Plaza is a new addition to Anime Expo. It’s an outdoor stage area where some of the events took place including AX Idol and some of the rave/techno events. It’s right near the JW Marriott and other restaurants in the area.

The show was pretty good minus that half hour they used for soundcheck while the audience was waiting and the throwing of boxes with pointy corners at rabid fans. The original idea was to have a raffle for the prizes that were on the stage, but the hosts got lazy reading off numbers and just started throwing them into the crowd. Not the best idea in the world, but it works. Danny appeared wearing his white Stormtrooper armor and dancing on stage. The show also featured a cosplay contest in where Lester entered and actually won Crowd Favorite! Here’s a small part that I managed to get on video: Cosplay Contest

After the cosplay contest, Mylene and I ran to the back to the back of the stage where we found both Lester and Danny Choo talking about their armor and just in total geek mode. It really was an awesome moment not to mention the sweet swag that Lester scored from the contest! It also made a good time for photo ops:

So after about that exciting and awesome hour, we headed back to Artist Alley to wrap things up for the day. Not only was Saturday very eventful, it was also out busiest day for business! Lester went to go change out of armor and I headed back to the hotel to clean up for Danny Choo’s Meet and Greet event at the ESPNZone which is right next to Nokia Plaza. We all got our second photo with Danny as well as got his autograph and giving him gifts (both Mylene and I gave him drawings of his sites’ mascots). After that, we just hung out at the hotel with friends well into the night. Some went clubbing at Club Nokia but I didn’t join them since the music that they were playing isn’t what I usually listen to. Besides, I had to get ready for the 4th and final day at Anime Expo!

Day 4:

Some of us got up bright and early after having packed up and cleaned up the night before since we had to be out of the hotel room by the afternoon. We went to Danny Choo’s morning panel at 9 AM to talk about various stuff including the upcoming series Black Rock Shooter and his show that airs in Japan. Danny also took photos of the crowd after the panel and he has them on his site. Try to find me! I annotated myself to make things easier.. and to also enter a drawing for a new figure.

After the panel, it was time to head to the AA table one last time and to also do any last minute shopping! We slashed our original prices for our prints to see how much we can get rid of before the end of the convention (which ended at 3PM on Sunday). We pulled out all the stops and had a good selling day (with a little added help from our friends). I did most of my shopping around Artist Alley but I did manage to score a small Hetalia figure from the Dealer’s Hall. Once 3PM came, it was all over! I’ve never felt so relieved in my life. We broke down our display and we were officially done with Anime Expo 2010!

I want to thank everyone who made this year’s Anime Expo the greatest one yet. I also want to thank everyone who stopped by our Artist Alley table throughout the four days; I’ve managed to find a few of you on deviantART and have yet to still find the rest of you. We’re thinking about what convention to do next so I’ll be sure to keep you all up to date on that. I’ll be holding a special sale for my prints/commissions which I’ll be announcing soon once I get the details down. To check out more of my photos from Anime Expo 2010, visit the AX set over at my Flickr page.

Thank you all for reading and I’ll see you all later!

Day 0:

Left San Diego with my group at around 11 AM en route to Los Angeles. Somehow ended up with both Starbucks drinks and burgers from In-N-Out (which was very tasty and yet such a strange combination). The ride was filled with crazy music and some weird stories told by my friends. Note to self: driving on the LA freeways is unbelievably difficult; don’t know how some people can do it on a normal basis.

We arrived at the Los Angeles Convention Center at around 2:30 PM. Half of us went to check-in at the JW Marriott while the other half went into the line for Registration Badge Pick-Up. The line was already long and winding when we got there and it just kept growing (Registration didn’t open until 3 PM). Everyone was there: the regular anime fans, the cosplayers and those who don’t normally emerge from their basements unless it’s for events like AX. It took about two and a half hours before we reached Registration and then more walking and waiting for Artist Alley check-in and to pick up concert tickets. After all of that was done, we headed back to the hotel, finished unpacking then headed out to have dinner for my friend Jennice’s birthday at Shinsengumi.

Day 1:

First actual day of the convention! Woke up early to make it to Opening Ceremonies at 9 AM. I only got a few hours of sleep the night before so it was still really early for me. Managed to catch a glimpse of the this year’s Guests of Honor and a sneak peek of everything coming up for the next four days. After Opening Ceremonies, I went back to the hotel and got my stuff for the first day of Artist Alley! Met up with both Mylene (sharing the table with her again!) and Lester (our ever faithful helper) with the gear for our AA table. After a few minutes of setting up, we were finally in business! Our third artist for the table, Michelle, also showed up (we’re all in the same table to cut costs). I was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to start on Thursday since she had class until the afternoon, but thankfully she was able to come and help us set up.

Artist Alley was only from Noon-6 on Thursday so it was a slow business day. After we closed up shop for the day, our group headed back to the hotel to get ready for the Yoshiki Foundation Charity Party event. On our way back to the room, we managed to spot out a few of AX’s Guests of Honor, including prolific and always hilarious anime director Shinichi ‘Nabeshin’ Watanabe and voice actor Masakazu Morita known for his roles as Ichigo from Bleach and Tidus from Final Fantasy X among many others. Got cleaned up and freshened up before heading out with Mylene and Lester to the Yoshiki Foundation Kick-Off Party at Club Nokia which is just a small stroll from JW Marriott.

The line into Club Nokia was already really, REALLY long by the time we got there. We all had printed out our invites for the event as well about a number of others. We were afraid that the line would never move and that we wouldn’t get in since we were so far in the line. Thankfully, the line started to move (after the lights outside Club Nokia suddenly turned off for some reason and then turned back on) and we found ourselves inside after about 45 minutes after the even was supposed to start at 8 PM. We got a few drinks and walked around the club before the event started.

The Yoshiki Foundation was founded by Yoshiki, drummer and pianist of X-Japan, one of the most successful bands in the world and one of the breakthrough bands of the Japanese visual kei style/genre. The Foundation’s main purpose is to help out children in times of need. He was there that night to present monetary donations to three organizations in the LA area: The Grammy Foundation, Meals on Wheels and the Make-a-Wish Foundation. The show also had a fashion show and a trailer for an upcoming series called Black Rock Shooter. We were also treated to an acoustic performance of the song ‘I.V.’ with a few members of X-Japan including Yoshiki on piano, lead singer Toshi and Sugizo on violin. And that wasn’t even the best part! Everyone in the crowd got to be a part of a music video shoot for their new song ‘Born to Be Free’. Before shooting began, THE ENTIRE BAND came out including guitarist Pata and bassist Heath. We didn’t even think that they would be there since there was no announcement so it was quite the surprise! All three of us were sending out Tweets throughout the event and Lester made the remark that it sounded like we were all shouting during our Tweets (which is very much true). They had to do four takes so we all went through the song four times as well. We were all tired, sweaty and our voices were sore by the end of the 4th shot but it was all worth it.

The photos I have here of the event were from my phone (only two came out really good) and I forgot to bring my FlipVideo camcorder so here are some videos taken from that night by others in attendance: I.V. acoustic performance and Born to Be Free music video shoot.

The show ended at around midnight. Tired and completely rocked out, it was time to head back to the room and get ready for Friday. I still can’t believe all of that happened on the first day of Anime Expo!

Day 2:

Artist Alley started a little bit earlier at 10 AM on Friday. Not much happened that day, actually. There was nothing going on that I was interested in so I was able to devote most of my time working at the AA table. I did manage to walk around the Exhibit Hall and Artist Alley when I got the chance and take a few photos.

More to come in Part 2, so please stay tuned!

]]> http://crazysunshine.rhythmemotion.net/?feed=rss2&p=929 0 http://crazysunshine.rhythmemotion.net/?p=918 http://crazysunshine.rhythmemotion.net/?p=918#comments Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:52:05 +0000 Venus http://crazysunshine.rhythmemotion.net/?p=918

Who’s ready for Anime Expo 2010?! ‘Cause I’m not…. ;________;

Mylene and I will be doing our 2nd Artist Alley gig over at AX next week! We’ll be sitting in the, uh… boondocks of AA over at TABLE E18. Come on over and visit us (and buy lots and lots of prints!)! We *might* have cookies… :3

Oh, and why Conan O’Brien you ask? ‘Cause I can, dangit… >:3. That and I posted this same advert over at the I’m With Coco Facebook page. I also asked Mylene to draw a chibi Conan for me and it’s just SO CUTE. I’ll have some new prints available this time to add onto the ones I sold at Anime Conji which you can check out at my deviantART page. Here’s a little sneak peek on one of my larger prints:

Here’s to the next few sleepless nights as I get the rest of my prints finished… :3

Hope to see you all there!

As you may know (or not), Mylene and I will be doing Artist Alley over at this year’s Anime Expo in Los Angeles. We had a great time doing AA for Anime Conji and we’re ready for the big leagues!

Well, sort of ready. Here’s the deal:

A little while ago, Mylene wrote on her blog saying that she’s opening up commissions to raise money for AX (to cover transportation, hotel, food, printing costs, etc.). Here’s the link to the actual blog post: [link]. I didn’t think that I would have the same problem myself. “No worries,” I thought. “I’m sure I have enough money saved in my bank account…”

That was, until… I looked at my recent bank statement.

This is where you come in, O wonderful reader! I’m now available to do commissions. To see my complete portfolio and the kind of work that I do, check out my deviantART profile). And here are a few examples:

As of right now, I’m offering chibi portraits in both digital and traditional format. Both versions will be 5″x7″ in size and will vary in costs:

*If you want a DIGITAL drawing (done in Painter X/Adobe Photoshop), it’ll be $10 and will be sent to you through email as a high-resolution PDF file. If you want a hard copy of your digital drawing,  I’ll work with you on mailing a copy to you (additional fees for printing and shipping will apply).

*If you want a TRADITIONAL drawing (done in pen and marker), the base price will start at $10 and will be mailed to you. Shipping fees will be added and will vary based on your location.

EDIT: For those outside the U.S., choosing the Digital route would be best for you as shipping internationally is both expensive and takes a long time to ship. However, if you REALLY want a hard copy of a drawing, we’ll try to work something out.

In addition, the following artworks on my dA account are available for purchase in print form. These will be printed and shipped off to you. The pricing for these prints are different from the chibi commissions so message me if you’re interested in any of these:

*Persona 4 – Kitsune
*Bart Simpson as Edward Elric
*Moogle March
*Smoked Cheese for Dinner
*Little Conan
*Little Conan – Strike Beard
*Lisa as Eternal Sailormoon

NEWLY ADDED:
*Chibi Bley is Sleeping

For payment, I’ll only be accepting payment through PayPal (for safety/security reasons). I will not be able to start on a commission or send out a print unless I have confirmation that your payment has been sent. I’ll be accepting both original and fanart characters for commissions.

If you would like to commission me to do a drawing or would like to purchase a print, leave a comment here or message me on deviantART and I’ll communicate with you personally. I’ll have three slots open and it’ll be a first come first serve basis.

Thank you all very much. Your help is very much appreciated…

It’s that time again: time for another non-anime post (okay, maybe 95% of it) that’s about one of my comedy heroes (and overall awesome guy) Conan O’Brien!  For those not interested, please close this blog NOW. Don’t say I didn’t warn you… >:D

Oh, and for those who haven’t seen the show yet and will be going something during the tour… *SPOILERS ARE AMONG US!*

Before I get into it, I must say that the title for this post must be the longest one yet… Used to do these when I was blogging during my LiveJournal years. Perhaps I should start doing that again?

This will be a so-called ‘working blog’ and I’ll be continuing to post up video and pictures as I find and edit them. The photos that you’ll see here are from a combination of stuff taken from my phone, my Canon DSLR, my sister’s digital camera and my FlipVideo. I have about a total of 22 videos that were recorded during the night. Yes, we were more than prepared. And yes, unless stated otherwise, the videos and images all came from those four wonderful machines.

Anyway, as you know.. I’m a big fan of Conan O’Brien. If you read my blog about The Tonight Show fiasco from January, you’ll understand. Since the fallout, Conan and his team have put together a show and are touring the country bringing their awesomeness to their fans! They started out earlier in April and made their stop in San Diego on Thursday, April 29th. Tickets sold out like crazy (ticket sales opened up at 7 AM.. in which I willingly woke up for) but I persevered and got two tickets for my sister and I (in the Orchestra section, no less!). But waiting for a month and a half between buying the tickets and the actual show was painful… but it was all worth it in the end.

As for the ridiculously long tour name, there’s an actual legitimate reason for it. When Conan left The Tonight Show back in January, he signed a severance deal with NBC that came with $40 million as well as some restrictions. One of them states that Conan would be unable to perform on television, radio, or the Internet for certain period of time. So the best way to go around that? Do a nationwide tour! Guess those NBC suits didn’t think about that (well, they’re not very bright to begin with…)

I tried to limit myself with the tour spoilers online, but I realized that it wouldn’t be the same until I saw it live with my own eyes. After seeing some of the videos others had posted, I couldn’t wait to see it live and with Conan there. So finally comes the day of the show and armed with my FlipVideo camera (best invention EVER, by the way), the old Canon DSLR (wasn’t really put into much use… can’t do much in a theater with the basic equipment), a poster that I had made last-minute with a new version of Little Conan/Conan-chan (last-minute = half-assed.. ^__^;;) and cell phone for the Twitter Storm, I was ready to go into battle.

The tour was held at the San Diego Civic Theater in Downtown which is a very nice place to hold an event. It was my first time there and I think that the tour guys made a good choice in choosing the venue.

Finally, we walked into the theatre and received our hashtag Twitter code to use for the show. For each show, they provide a hashtag to for Twitter users so that those who were unable to attend can follow the tweets sent by those at the show. Each show has their own unique hashtag usually referring to something unique to the city that the tour is performing in that night. Appropriately, the Tweet code for the San Diego show was #palemale…. possibly referring to Conan’s freakishly white skin tone against the sun in San Diego… XD.

The show was schedule to start at 8 PM, but I guess stuff was still getting ready. We had a warm-up comedian named Reggie Watts. I heard around Facebook that he was pretty random and funny. And they were right… not to mention that was really funny! I’ve never heard of him before and it seemed like most of the audience didn’t know who he was, either. But everyone was laughing along during Reggie’s act. If you want to learn more about him, check out his Wiki profile as well as own site at http://www.reggiewatts.com/.

So after Reggie’s set, there’s a 15-minute intermission. Everyone dashes out to the restrooms/make a phone call/get more beer and such. Then, the lights finally dim and the Legally Prohibited Band comes out to warm up the crowd! It’s such a HUGE difference between watching them perform on television and seeing them live. Such an amazing experience… DD. As they finish up, the theatre goes dark and a video starts to play; the setting is three months ago.. right after Conan leaves his post on The Tonight Show (if the player doesn’t show up, here’s the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qAjvhNlkvo)

The band starts up and finally… Conan appears! As I mentioned earlier, it’s just so different (and a million times more awesome) when you see someone live and in person than on the TV. He does a little monologue in where he mentions his new job at the Horton Plaza Banana Republic and his beard appearance (which I find to be quite sexy… XD).

There’s plenty of music, dancing set to strobe lights and many skits and sketches brought from his two television shows. As with most of the previous shows on the tour, we had a special guest: none other than Jason Mraz! I was actually kind of hoping for Will Ferrell dressed as Ron Bungundy from Anchorman (since the movie’s set in San Diego), but Jason’s cool, too…

It was such a wonderful night that I didn’t want to end. But all good things must come to an end and we all left thinking that it was more that ‘sort of worth it’ as Conan mentioned earlier in the show. It was nothing short of amazing and it’ll be a night I won’t soon forget… Thank you very much Conan and the rest of the Legally Prohibited gang! Oh, and I forgot to mention that Conan got a new gig (in case you hadn’t heard…). He’ll have a new late night show on TBS in November right after the World Series. Guess I’ll just have to wait til then…

Oh, right! Remember the poster that I mentioned earlier? After the show, we went to the side of the theatre to try and track down some of the performers (including, obviously, Conan). People really loved the poster (even if I thought it was half-assed… ) and so do the Legally Prohibited Band! 6 out of the 7 members signed my poster (minus LaBamba the trumpet player who was busy hamming it up for the fan’s camera’s) and also Aaron Bleyaert, the guy who’s in charge of the blog over at Team Coco, the official site for the Legally Prohibited Tour (and who has also worked with Conan for a number of years and is an awesome guy). Sadly, we didn’t see Conan come outside with the band (apparently he went through some unknown exit that’s hidden or something….) but it was all good! It was great meeting other fans and laughing and cheering together for our favorite red-head in show business…

I’ll be posting more pictures and videos within the next week… so be sure to check those out over at my Flickr page and YouTube page over the next few days.

That’s all for now…. TEAM COCO!

With our friend Jennice and each of our Moogle prints.

(The photos that I’ll have here are from various sources, mainly Mylene, Lester, Jennice and others since I didn’t have my camera at hand… actually, I can’t even find it anywhere, but that’s an entirely different story..)

I must say, Anime Conji was such an awesome experience and a perfect place to start out in doing Artist Alley.  Along with Mylene, we tackled our first Artist Alley and survived (for the most part, at least). It was a lot of hard work and neither of us got much sleep during that weekend (combine that with working on late commissions and having to wake up early to get to the hotel). Despite all that, it was an experience that I will soon not forget and I hope that I’ll do more events in the future.

Me at our table on the first day. And begging for commissions… XD

The Artist Alley was in a smaller room than I had originally thought (it was also combined with the Dealer’s Hall). It looked a lot bigger on the floor plan.. like a lot bigger. We only had half-tables this time since it was the first year so Mylene and I had to share what would usually be a full table (about six feet in length). Not to mention that our table was right near this oddly-place slanted wall. I have no idea why it was there, but it made moving around a little bit difficult.  We’re hoping for next year to have full tables as well as having Artist Alley in its own room separate from the vendors.  I also bought these wire cubes for our table display from Target.  The traditional way would be to have PVC pipes but it looked expensive not to mention a pain to put together.  Those wire cubes were actually a pain themselves to put together, but they did look nice when they were assembled.

Mylene’s side of the table complete with Moogle and Totoro prints. I just love Totoro’s expression here.. XD

My side of the table complete with Lisa Sailormoon and Conan-chan prints.. :3 (Don’t worry, I slashed those prices down..)

We met so many great people and anime fanatics as well as potential clients in the future with one of them being the Japan Society of San Diego and Tijuana. The representatives visited our table and complimented on our work saying that it wasn’t ‘serious and dramatic’ like the other artists that were there in AA also.  It was so amazing and I hope that we get the chance to work with them in the future. Yay for correspondence! We also befriend some of the artists who were also there; such an amazing and awesome group of people! They sure made the convention a little bit more fun.

Our table neighbors: Tori (left) and Deanna (right). Hope we didn’t scare them too much with our randomness.. XD

With the guys across the way from us – Floyd, Nancy and Jennifer. They did mini-cosplay each day during the convention. I want their bunny ears.. :3

Other highlights from the convention:

*Food from the Tabe van! I have always wanted to try them out and never got the chance to… on Saturday, some of the con guys did a Tabe food run for the artists in Artists Alley (since we were unable to leave the tables without someone else to cover for us) so they were nice enough to get food for us. Their spicy pork tacos were AMAZING. I then tried their spin on carne asada fries in where they use Korean BBQ meat… it was SO good! I’m drooling just thinking about it.. :3

*Doing commissions! I had never done commissions at such a fast speed before so of course I was a little scared to do them. I even messed up on my first one and told the client to come back the next day so that I can fix it (thankfully, she was very understanding and such a great person).  As the convention went along, I got used to do them and I think my drawing ability increased as a result.  I’m now prepping to take online commissions within the next few weeks.

*Meeting the guys from SDAnimanga. Mylene had met with them before and was telling me about them. They’re such an amazing and crazy bunch of people! I guess I officially became a member during the convention?? XD I haven’t been in an Anime Club since high school and it did feel a bit weird being in a club that was outside of school, but they’re just so laid back and awesome. I can’t wait to do more events with them in the future. Some of the guys from the club also took pictures throughout the event: check them out here!

*Free food! Mylene and I were unable to leave our table to get food, so our friends (some who were also staffing during the event) were so nice to get us food while we were working. Thanks guys so much!! We really appreciate it… :3

**I’ll have more pictures up as soon as I can track them down..

Anime Conji really was such a great experience… can’t wait to do it next year! Now it’s time to focus and prep for Anime Expo up in Los Angeles later this summer! Hope to see you guys there!

Before getting into it, I’ve decided to change things up around the blog. Actually, it’s more like I keep having problems with images (not centering, too big, too small, etc.) and thought that it was the blog layout. So I’ll be switching between blog layouts for a bit to see which one works on best. I apologize in advance for anything that’s out of place or anything like that.  As always, I’ll be keeping a sharp eye on comments people leave on here.  Even if you leave a legitimate comment, if your site is something along the lines of ‘LOSE WEIGHT NOW’ or ‘Vacation in Florida!’, I’m not going to add it.

I’m going to try to make an effort to blog more often. Also, I’ll be working on updating the portfolio pages so be on the lookout for that!

Speaking of artwork, this weekend I’ll be attending San Diego’s first ever anime convention, Anime Conji! This will also be my first convention as an artist in the Artist Alley.  It’s good practice for Anime Expo this summer as I’ll know how Artist Alley works and meeting the people who visit.  I’ll be sharing a table along with Mylene so if you’re attending, come stop by and check out our work! Here’s one of the prints I’ll be selling called, ‘Strike Beard (I Love You)’ featuring everyone’s favorite late-nite host, Conan O’Brien sporting a rather dashing beard he grew during the Writer’s Strike back in 2008.

Another print I’ll be selling is a series I started five years ago with Lisa Simpson wearing the different Sailormoon outfits from the series.  The one version that was finished (and my favorite) is Lisa as Eternal Sailormoon.

I’ll also be reactivating my deviantART account (even though it runs at a snail’s pace) since most artists that I’ve met are still using it.  If you want to check it out now, my username is ThePockyGirl. (Add me!!)

That’s all for now.. see you guys soon!

It took me a while to figure out what I should do the next blog on; I then remembered that I had a few things that I can finally mention here.  We’re closing in onto the beginning of March (Already?! OMGWTFBBQ)  and I have a things lined up for the next few months.  But first, some of the things you may have missed.

I’ve been meaning to recap the games that I’ve played in the last few months or so.  There’s only two that I remember and I think I might have replayed a few other games (like Persona 4 and FFXII).  One of the two new ones I played was Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days on the Nintendo DS.  The game focuses around Roxas, the mysterious character who was introduced in Kingdom Hearts II.  It takes places during the time in which Sora, Donald and Goofy finish the story in Kingdom Hearts and are in Castle Oblivion during KH: Chain of Memories.  For those who didn’t play CoM (like myself, since I didn’t have a Game Boy Advance when the game was first released), 358/2 Days shows everything that happened during that game’s storyline: how some of the members of Organization XIII were dispatched (and defeated by Sora) and everything that happened after Sora is put to sleep.  In the game, you play as Roxas and go through his first 358 days as Number XIII in the Organization.  We see a few familiar faces from KH II including Axel as well as a new character named Xion.  She is very mysterious at first but we get to know her as she becomes friends with both Roxas and Axel and her significance in the game.  The game is good and all, but for me it was hard to take the game seriously since there are a few scenes with both Roxas and Axel talking to each other in private.  There’s only scene in particular in where Roxas asks Axel if he knew about love and the meaning of it (very weird, I know).  I’ve talked about it with friends and we came to the conclusion that there has to be crazed Roxas/Axel fans who write that stuff into the story… ;x

The game that I’m currently playing right now is one that I mentioned a few months ago only now it’s with the North American release – Ace Attorney: Investigations.  I played the game in Japanese (which is REALLY hard with my limited knowledge of kanji… ended up having to use a walkthrough) and knew that I had to get the game in English.  In this installment of the Ace Attorney series, you play as everyone’s favorite magenta-clad prosecutor Miles Edgeworth as you break out of the courtroom and go to the scene of the crime and investigate your hearts out, all the while seeing Edgeworth run and scream, “EUREKA!!” at the top of his lungs.  A number of recurring characters are here including Detective Dick Gumshoe as well as some new faces.  Also in some scenes if you look really closely, you’ll spot some old favorites just hanging out (perhaps maybe a defense attorney of the spiky-haired variety?)..

I also played my first game of the New Super Mario Bros. Wii about a month ago.  I know for me, Super Mario is very dear to my heart and I remember the days of playing the old school Mario games on the Nintendo and the Super Nintendo.  So I was more than excited when I started playing; I just love everything about this game: awesome graphics, gameplay and the return of past Super Mario characters and baddies from past games.  One of my favorite games is Super Mario World and I remember spotting that caterpillar baddie (the one that’s nice until you step on its head) and then seeing its, um… larger cousin?   I have yet to play this game with other players which I’m sure will be both very interesting and very, VERY violent.  The only thing that bugs me is when you have to rescue Toad on certain levels which means having to find him in one of the blocks and carry him to the end of the level.  Stupid Toad… making my life difficult as usual…

One more thing before signing off: I’ll be partaking in my first Artist Alley event! If you’ll be in San Diego in early April, come on over to Anime Conji, San Diego’s very own anime convention!  It’s their first year and they’re working very hard to put together an awesome show.  For more information and to register, check out their site over at http://www.animeconji.org/index.html .  I’ll have more information on my Artist Alley appearance as it comes in..

That’s all for now… as always, I’ll always looking forward to your anime/manga/video game recommendations as well as anything else related to those topics.  See you all later!

This is a little different from my usual blogs about anime and video games, but I just felt that I needed to express my feelings and thoughts about the whole Tonight Show fiasco. Don’t worry, I’ll try to keep it as short as possible.  And yes, the above image shows that I’m on TEAM CONAN, but I’ll start off this entry by giving a quick recap of the whole story.

As most of you, NBC’s The Tonight Show has been a very important part in American late-night television since the 1950s with Johnny Carson currently holding the longest streak of hosting the show for 30 years.  When he retired in 1992, Jay Leno took over and would host until 2009 when Conan O’Brien, after hosting Late Night with Conan O’Brien (which followed Tonight) for 16 years would take over.  Still wanting him to stick around, NBC thought of the idea of having Leno host his own show on primetime called The Jay Leno Show with a similar layout to Tonight but with a few changes here and there including an earlier airtime of 10PM.  So, Leno left Tonight in May of 2009 and O’Brien made his debut as host on June 1st, 2009.

O'Brien at his desk on The Tonight Show set.

However, O’Brien’s stay wouldn’t last long.  The ratings that O’Brien was puling in was only half of what Leno brought in; surprisingly (or maybe not, depending on your point of view), Leno’s primetime show was turning out to be a huge flop, which in turn caused NBC-affiliated late-night newscasts to lose viewers since Leno wasn’t bringing them in with his show that aired before the newscasts.  To save grace, the executives at NBC thought up of a plan: bring Leno’s primetime show back to the 11:35 PM slot (the time Tonight usually airs in) and bump up Tonight a half-hour later to 12:05 AM.  O’Brien was against the idea, saying that the move will, “seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show…” The only other option for O’Brien besides changing time slots?  Resigning from NBC.

After a week or so of talks and negotiations, O’Brien and NBC reached a severance deal which would grant O’Brien $44 million dollars ($32M going to him and the rest is split among his Tonight Show staff) and end O’Brien’s short run with his last show airing on January 22nd, 2010.  In addition to the deal, Conan is not allowed to do interviews for the next three months and would have to wait until after September 1st to have a show on another network.  As a result of all of this, Jay will return to his job as Tonight Show host starting March 1st after NBC runs the 2010 Winter Olympics during the last two weeks in February.

Conan on guitar with friends performing Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Free Bird' on his last Tonight Show airing.

To start off, let me preface by first saying that I both watch Leno and O’Brien. Well, to put it more accurately, I used to watch Leno. I’d usually choose Leno over David Letterman for my late-night fix but to be honest, neither caught my attention like Conan O’Brien did whose show I started to watch back in junior year of high school and I’ve been a fan for the last 7-8 years or so. There was just something about him that I really liked and I wanted more of him.  When it was announced that Conan would take over The Tonight Show, I was ecstatic and eagerly awaited for his arrival. I was even more happy that he would be moving from New York City to Los Angeles which is just two hours away from my hometown so being able to see him was an added bonus. Now, sadly, it looks like I won’t be going to see him any time soon until he is able to have his own show after September and even then I won’t know if he’ll remain in LA or if he’ll move back to New York.

When news of Conan leaving Tonight broke out, I was devastated. What’s more was that I was angry at NBC executives and even angry at Jay Leno who said back in 2004 that he would retire and give the show to Conan (which, after a January 28th ’09 interview with Oprah Winfrey, we’re now learning was a complete white lie). NBC hadn’t given enough time to Conan for him to gain his audience and footing in hosting Tonight. When Conan started out on Late Night, he was on a week-by-week contract basis; in other words, he was at risk of getting canceled each week if he wasn’t attracting viewers. It took him three years before he found his audience and he would successfully host Late Night for the next 13 years.  Conan was more than ready to take over Tonight and Jay was at the point where he was ready to retire and return to doing stand-up comedy regularly.  Or so we thought, it seems.

So after everything that’s happened, what do we have left?  We have: a network that was once at the top and is now in the very bottom due to their poor decision-making skills (among a number of other problems), a man who could have retired with his reputation still intact (and not be hated by a good part of America) and another who had finally attained his dream job after years of hard work only for it to be taken away in an instant.  “Where do we go from here?” is the question on everyone’s mind.

With most issues I try to stay impartial, but I just can’t help but feel anger towards both NBC and Leno.  And you have to feel for Conan; when it was time to take over for Tonight, he and his crew from Late Night made the cross-country move to put on the show.  And now that the show’s no more, they all remain in Los Angeles away from home and trying to figure out what to do next.  It’s easy to be bitter and negative during this time especially when hearing about additional back story to this including other late-night hosts taking jabs at Jay Leno (ditto for Letterman, who was actually set to host when Carson retired in ’92 only to find out that the position would be given to Leno).

However in spite of all of this, a quote comes to my mind; it comes from Conan himself on his last show.  He made a statement towards the end of the last show to share his feelings about everything that’s happened.  He was happy that he was given the chance to host The Tonight Show, even though it was only for seven months.  He didn’t show any anger towards NBC even going as far as thanking them for giving him the opportunity to work with them for the last 20+ years which started with a writing gig at Saturday Night Live.  The last thing he said was mostly directed to the younger fans and it’ll continue to stay with me for a long time: “Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

So for the next few months, a huge number of fans and I will be waiting for Conan’s television return.  We will also not be watching The Tonight Show again now that Leno has resumed his hosting duties.  I used to watch him, but after everything that’s happened I just can’t stand to watch the guy.  I agree with everyone saying that Leno could have said, “No” to the time change and accept the fact that his primetime show was a failure and leave it at that.  It all really comes down to choices; Leno could have said, “No” when NBC told him that it was time for him to pass on the Tonight Show hosting duties.  Conan could have chosen to move time slots but decided to keep Tonight at the same time slot it had been in for more than 50 years and was willing to leave just to prevent that from happening. Had the NBC executives thought of this out better, none of this would have happened and everyone would still have a job.  And as I’ve read from many commentators, this whole ordeal was not necessary and could have been completely avoided.  For now, we’ll have to see what happens and we’ll keep up with supporting Conan O’Brien.

/tonight show soapbox

Okay… I think that should do it for now.  There is actually a lot more to this story, but it’s best for you to search them out yourselves as it would take me forever to try and dig for every detail.  I’ll go back to my usual, otaku self in the next blog.  Sorry for the sudden change of subjects… I just love Conan O’Brien and wish him nothing but the best in his life after NBC.  I guess you could say I’m a Conan O’Brien otaku?  Yea, going a little bit too far, but it fits, right?

I actually have big news involving me and an upcoming anime convention!  Stay tuned for details!