Halloween '08

Hey friends! This is primarily going to be a picture post (you're welcome). It's been almost two weeks since Halloween, and RGB has been doing a great deal of drinking recently (see previous post). Memories are mostly erased.

We had a Batman theme going on this year, since a good friend of ours had a Batman themed birthday party. As the saying goes: two birds, one stone. I went as The Scarecrow (Nolan version), while Red and Green went as the 60's versions of Robin and The Riddler, respectively. It was too late when I realized my costume would be way creepier than my fun-loving buddies'. Damn! We met at The Metro before heading off into Georgetown. No DD needed!

Behold, the power of the sidekick! Perfect for fighting the more common plagues of mankind. Also, how awesome is it that we're masked? No need to superimpose RGB heads!

Fun shot in an empty car.
Quite a few people joined us at the next stop.
They were scared to sit next to Red.
What's wrong with a dude in pantyhose?

Roaming the streets of Georgetown:

From our first bar:

Sorry for the blur, but they look awesome as thumbs!
Pay no attention to The Diddler.

Some shots of me at the second bar, and one I took at home:

Does my shot with The Penguin help uncreep this set?
Didn't think so :(
That last photo is a recreation of a scene on the special
features section of Batman Begins! *geeksnort*

A very lucky shot of us before the Metro ride home:


That's all, folks! Hope you enjoyed them.

so partied with some really great people.
found something on my computer.
a notepad file on my desktop.
thought I should share with the internet...

HOW TO FIND YOUR KEYS.TXT:

YOUR KEYS ARE HIDDEN IN THE POTTED PLANT IN THE FOYER.
THE ONE NEXT TO THAT THING... WHERE YOU HANG COATS AND SHIT.
THERE ARE BLANKETS INSIDE OF IT.
I AM INSIDE OF YOU.
YOUR KEYS ARE INSIDE ME.
NO, NO... THEY'RE IN THE POTTED PLANT. DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE, BITCH.

... thanks blue, you make me smile... in my pants


~Red

To clarify things, Red was trying to drive out to 7-11 to pick up some cigarettes, after consuming a decent amount of alcohol. We had a lot of fun hiding his stuff. We started with his wallet, but he ended up stealing mine, so I hid his keys and typed that up in case I forgot where I hid them (I had also been drinking, if you couldn't tell).
- Blue

Polysics!!!!

Last Thursday, Team RGB and Cup went to go see Polysics at Black Cat over in D.C. As soon as we enter, we see Chen, Eric, and another friend, Terro. Shame on the rest of you for not coming! You missed a damn good show!

The opening acts were great. Green and I really liked Black Gold, the first act. The drummer had a really cool look and energy. The lead singer/keyboardist occasionally performs as Panic at the Disco’s keyboardist, but Black Gold is his official band. Next up was Jaguar Love. They were a high-energy Indie/Rock band. Unfortunately, the crowd was not feeling them. I liked them, but it was a little apparent that they were not really into the show. Their guitarist kicked ass, and the lead singer had a pretty unique voice.

And finally, out came Polysics! They came out to set up their own instruments. I caught myself thinking “well… this is a little anticlimactic. They killed their dramatic entrance.” I was worried the show was going to be weak.

Holy shit was I worried over nothing.

They had an AMAZING show. I really wasn’t expecting it to be so fun, but the crowd was flipping out. Hiroyuki really knew how to get them pumped. Engrish’ll do that. Hiroyuki was crazy. The crowd was crazy. Fumi (bass) and Masashi (drums) were crazy. Kayo (synth) was a robot. I love her.

Unfortunately, the camera we brought died before we could take a lot of pictures.

Luckily, our new friend, Keang, sent us these:

Fumi rocking out and singing


Hiroyuki jumping around stage with a shot of Masashi in the back


As you can probably tell, we were right at the front of the stage. We partially have the mosh pit to thank for that. Who the hell would have expected a mosh pit at a Polysics show?! Someone even threw Green into the air and he crowd-surfed for a good bit.

Otsukare!

When the show ended, and the crowd left, I went to go buy a shirt and stickers for the band to sign. Hell yes I'm gonna get their signatures! Even came prepared with a sharpee. Check the previous post. What's with asians and their ability to draw cute shit? Can everyone do this?!

Keang had to leave the show early, so we don't have any pictures of RGB actually with Polysics... but we've got the signatures to prove it. Green got everyone to sign his tie, and Masashi even signed a broken drumstick that Hiroyuki gave to the crowd.

Polysics Teaser

I forgot my camera, and Red's camera died... so we're waiting on another friend's pictures. Until then, enjoy my signatures from the band members ;D

AnimeUSA '08: Sunday

Here's a picture of how Red and I slept last night.

...just kidding, just kidding.

It's the yaoi commission he was asked for, the previous night! Red woke up at 5am to do it! This is just the line-art, but the final was colored in Photoshop. It was amusing to watch him print it at Kinkos, while trying to avoid the eyes of other people there.

Sunday was a short day, as they are at most anime cons.

A few interesting people came by our table. Some even mentioned the Princess Bride reference in the Otakon special we have printed out. Impressive! We didn't think anyone would actually catch that.

Some of the nice Sunday cosplays we saw.
By the way, Red is a huge fan of Card Captor Sakura, so if you ladies ever want to visit our table and appeal to him, go for the sweet loli look ;x

They don't give artists (or webmasters and helpers) very much room behind the table at these conventions. We usually watched the table in pairs, and let whoever else was there go explore the con. Cup spent most of his time dueling in Yu-Gi-Oh. I went to a few panels. Red spent most of his time at the table (but he did come watch some awesome AMVs with me at one point).


We also spent the last few hours trying to make sure we didn't miss anything in the dealer's room. As usual, temptations are in abundance. Cup bought these pretty cool Batman blind boxes. Got doubles, though :/

I saw this cool Gurren Lagann shirt I was tempted to buy. It was gray, with a big picture of Yoko on it.
Red and Green are huge fans of models and toys. Here's a picture of one of the sets Red was tempted to buy.

I spent my time at the table reading Red's copy of "Love Mode". He claims he was using it for "reference" for the commission last night. Right... Well, it was actually pretty good! I mean, the story was totally there. And to be honest, half of the reason I was reading it was because of how graphic it was. Not because I enjoy seeing naked bishies, but for the shock factor. It was sort of like watching a boxing match... like when one guy gets hit REALLY hard, and you grimace and try to empathize with the pain. Except these guys were getting hit in other places. And... not with fists...

Anyway... moving on, I decided to pass some time by watching Macross Frontier at one of the video rooms, when I was diverted by a repetitive clanging noise. It was the Peelander Z show! I can't believe we almost didn't make it! When I went inside, I saw that half of the group wasn't even on the stage. Peelanders Yellow and Pink were in the audience. Yellow was wearing a bowling pin outfit while audience members were trying to throw hulahoops on him. What the fuck? Half of the crowd had metal tin bowls and drumsticks, and were banging along with the rhythm. Easily one of the craziest audience-participative shows I've ever been to.

Peelanders on stage!

Here's a little 30 second clip of them playing "Mad Tiger"



Some of the people up there aren't Peelanders, if you couldn't tell. Green threw his sticks into the audience – I was one damn foot away from grabbing them >:O
Then he crowdsurfed for a good bit. We really need to look into this guy as a replacement. He's even got the feminine mannerisms ;D

AnimeUSA '08: Saturday

We had a slow start on Saturday. After a late night working on the new PVC display (crafted by yours truly), and an early morning for prints, it's a shock that we managed to get our table up and running in the amount of time we did.

Me and Cup watch the table while Red draws out another sign. We were thinking of making a new sign for every con, and selling to interested buyers. What do you guys think?

Table haiku:

And so, we begin to sit
Sometimes we sell prints
Mostly, we nod off to sleep.

TALK TO THE ARTISTS IN THE ARTIST'S ALLEY! WE CAN BECOME VERY BORED IN OUR SLEEP-DEPRIVED STATE! Still, there's one major highlight to remaining stationary at a con

You get to see almost all the cosplayers!

3 friendship dollars to anyone that can name ALL of these cosplays! And much love to cosplayers who stay in character! *applauds for Ouran group* Must get tiring listening to Tamaki all day.

Red got mad at me for missing the Cthulu King (second row). Good thing the Red and Blue rangers from Dino Thunder were there to handle things.
...
Psyche, he was mad at me for missing them, too ;~;
HEROES HAVE TO PEE, TOO.

While I was away, though, Red drew this commission:

Looks just like the girl! Down to the very pins!

Kilika also came by with his hula girl, Jess! We love having visitors. He even drew an RGB-style Kilika to grace our posters. You can see it here, hanging form "The Debut" image on the right:

Oh shit, Red forgot to super-impose our hero heads for this one.

In the evening, there's a commotion on the floor above us, where most of the Con guests are located. Someone is jumping and blowing a whistle. You can tell they were jumping by the short, staccato bursts that the whistle was being blown with. Cup goes to check it out, and it turns out to be Peelander Z!!! Well, we just can't resist another color-themed group! Cup was gracious enough to watch the table while we mob some well-dressed rockers.

We also explain our tough situation, with Green at a wedding and all. Peelander Green said he was willing to fill in. We might even consider him as a full-time replacement. Playing the drums is just about as awesome as a never-ending watering can. I bet this guy doesn't get arrested, either.

They tell us to check out their show tomorrow. Before the day ends, Red has a very difficult commission requested of him at the last minute. A full-color yaoi one!

AnimeUSA '08: Friday

After lunch with friends and some last-minute Kabuki Ball preparation, Red, Cup and I begin the quick drive to Crystal City. Here's a tidbit of our conversation on the way there:

(joining mid-conversation)
Red:	Well it's all about appearance. Ben Franklin made sure that he was always carrying a different book every day, and seen going in and out of the library by his professors. It made everyone think he was smart.
Red:	...do you think that if you pretend to be something long enough, you take on that role?
Me:	I think it has a lot to do with what you're pretending to be. If you pretend to do manual labor for years, you're bound to become great at that job. But people can fake intelligence for a long time without actually getting smarter...
Red:	What? Ben Franklin became president!
Blue & Cup:	...what was that?
Red:	Are you guys kidding me? He's on the 100 dollar bill!
This is where Cup and I start laughing hysterically.
Red:	Wait, are you guys fucking with me?
Cup:	No, I'm trying to figure out if YOU'RE fucking with ME
Red:	Shit...are you serious? ... Oh God, can we not tell anyone about this?
Blue:	Yea, I won't tell anyone. But you can bet your ass this is going on the blog

After we arrive, we see something amazing. AnimeUSA is our first hotel-based con. Do you know what hotels have that convention centers do not?

A BAR!!!

So after a bit of social lubrication, we make our way down a few floors to the Artist Alley Operations room. The Head Op isn't there right now (what a cool name for a con job, by the way), so they tell us to kill an hour and a half. What perfect timing! Just across the hall is the ballroom, where rehearsal for the Kabuki Ball is just beginning!

The rehearsal was a lot of fun.
Here's a picture of us with our instructor. He teaches and competes professionally. That's his "competition" clothing.
We learned how to Waltz, Foxtrot and Rumba.
Dance lessons pretty much made up for the entry fee. $50 for an anime con and ballroom dance? Good deal.

So after rehearsal, we set up our table arrangements and then head out to a sports bar for dinner. Red proceeds to get happy on a few jack and cokes. Then we dress up and head off to the real ball.

The Kabuki Ball was surreal.

I've never seen so many properly dressed otaku gathered for one thing. Not only that, but dancing? You had me at hello, AnimeUSA.

(You also had me at hello, Cup)

There were also some very cool couple-cosplays at the ball! Aside from this Tenchi Muyo pair, there was this awesome Fate/Stay group. The Rin had a dress that played off of the sweater that she wears, and her Archer looked pretty spot-on. I can't seem to find the picture, though :3
Also a Wang Liu Mei and Hong Long pair from Gundam 00. The lighting wasn't very good for my shitty camera, though... so a few pictures didn't come out well ;~;


The ball was great. This alone made the trip to AnimeUSA worth it, and we didn't even have a table yet!

Rejection can be rough, though...

Oh well, it was a time for celebration! It was the Con President's (or maybe Pope's?) birthday! A cake was brought out, and as expected of otaku, immediate conspiracy theories about the "truthfulness" of the cake at hand. (The Cake is a Lie, for those of you can't think with portals)
Please take note of the shirtless man on his cake. God, I love otaku.

After the cake, we pretty much stayed and danced a couple more hours until they kicked us out for FreezePop!

We were too pumped to wait in line for the show or go home. So we ran around the con, caught some cosplayers, and went to the "Anime Dating Show" and "What Not to Say to a Female Otaku" panels.

We probably should have gone home earlier, considering the table preparation we needed to do for the next day :x