Late post-con journal + Holiday.

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This Sith Lord's Lightsaber was wicked cool, this hasn't been edited in any way (I wouldn't know how), just look at how the camera (my old iphone) captured it!! 

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This is my friend Jordan, I know him irl, he's a really fun guy, and here he's cosplaying as Haruhi Suzumiya, he cosplayed as Gumi last year I think? XD 

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These two were a couple of Psycho's from the Borderlands series, they were really cool!


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Here is a Chell cosplayer with an adorable plush Potato GLaDOS!

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 This was after I'd left and was waiting for the rest of my group outside, I'd taken my helmet and gloves off but when I saw these amazing Barris Offee and Luminara Unduli cosplayers I scrambled to put the helmet back on (hence why it's wonky here... XD) to get a quick chat and a photo with them!
These were probably my cosplayer photo-highlight, no disrespect to the previous cosplayers at all, they were all fantastic, but being the massive Star Wars lover that I am I just adore their costumes and makeup so much!

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Aaaaand finally here's my photo with Stuart Ashen, aka Ashens on Youtube, just like last year he was signing merchandise and posing for photos with fans, he's always a pleasure to meet, very polite, and very funny.
If you haven't already you can visit his Youtube channel here www.youtube.com/user/ashens !


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There were a fair few more folks who took photo's with me, I was actually really surprised, people loved the costume, and I was more than happy to have photos with them, these photos here are just the ones I took on my phone (well, had a friend take, same thing. XD), it was really nice having that interaction, especially when parents asked if their little kids could have their picture taken with me, it's a very humbling feeling making a little kid smile, one kid (probably about five or six years old) asked to have their photo taken with me after I'd left the main hall, I'd taken my helmet off, so I let him wear it for his photo, it was a great feeling seeing how excited he was! Heheheh, I think I can relate to Quinn more than I thought! XD

As I stated earlier, I didn't really get the merchandise I was looking for, one of my main goals was to get a one of those really good Force FX Lightsabers, though I saw a few there I didn't see the one I wanted, which is Luke Skywalker's green bladed Lightsaber, from Return of the Jedi, I love that saber's design, green probably being my favourite Lightsaber colour (as well as Quinn's blade), and I really love the thin neck design, I was almost tempted to get Kit Fisto's Lightsaber cuz' it's green, but decided against it as he's not my favorite Jedi, and his saber's a little plain... (nothing against him as a character though. XD) 
I saw a lot of folks with their own custom Lightsabers (I think the Sith cosplayer's was custom built, I should've asked ), and they looked awesome, so I'm actually thinking of commissioning my own (which would almost certainly be Quinn's Lightsaber, maybe also Orchid's and Kiri's in the future, as they're no doubt very expensive. XD), so I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations for folks who make them? I know there are a fair few folks who make custom Lightsabers for cosplayers and such.

I didn't leave comic con empty handed mind you, what little money I did spend however I spent at "Artist Village" (basically Artist Alley), nowadays I find I'm much more excited to visit this part of the event, as it's really nice to interact directly with artists and writers, especially the independant folks, it's great to see their passion for their work, and their gratitude when you support them by purchasing their prints, comics, books, and other little crafts and such! Whilst I generally go to cons with the main goal of "I'm gonna go buy lots of epic crap!" my main highlights are always the interactions I have with folks there, and Artist Alley/Village/Whatever is always a great place for that!

So without further ado here's this year's comic con haul, pretty much all from Artist Village, complete with links to these folk's website/stores, as I really want to support my fellow artists! ^_^
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First off I visited Naniiebim, who ya'll may remember from last year's comic con merchandise haul!  




Naniiebim is a wonderful artist who's work I've adored since I first encountered her table at last year's comic con, I made it a priority to visit her table again this year, as her art style is awesome, and she's a really lovely person too, very enthusiastic and fun to chat with regardless of however briefly. I love her art style and her interesting characters, last year I picked up her comic Mephistos (the five volumes currently out), as well as her mini comic Shika Shika, and enjoyed them both, this year I picked up a couple of her Sketchbooks  Naniiebim: Zero (the A4 size print came inside this book) and Carbon, and she even let me pick an A3 print for free, which was lovely as her prints were awesome! (A fair few artists were doing deals like this, spend a certain amount or buy a bundle and get a free print, which was nice! ^_^) 
If you're interested in checking out her work you can visit her website at www.naniiebimhbd.co.uk/ and her store at www.etsy.com/shop/naniiebim !
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Next up I was drawn to the table of an artist under the name of YFStudio!



His table had lots of beautiful prints, the ones that particularly caught my eye were those relating to his characters Sue and Harmony from his story Another Side, I really love the designs for these characters, I must say, and I decided to pick up all three of his books, and he let me pick out a print since I purchased the bundle, and honestly it was a hard choice, all the prints were lovely, I regret not purchasing a whole bunch! (at that time I thought our group was gonna head into town, but alas, we did not... ;_; ) I'll likely purchase some from his store, particularly prints with Sue and Harm, not gonna lie, I kinda' love those two together, and I'm eager for more. ^_^
If you're interested in checking out his work you can visit his website at yakageforce.com/ and his store at yfstudiostore.storenvy.com/ !
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The last artist's table I was able to visit (I would have visited a lot more, but my back pains were getting to me) was that of a fantastic artist called Lewis Campbell! 



Like all the artists there his table was full of eye-catching art, amazing prints where the ink danced upon the paper, and what caught my eye particularly was this fantastic Boba Fett print, I mean, just look at it, it's so freaking cool! I honestly could not leave without it, I had to have it, walking away was an impossibility! XD Lewis himself was also a really engaging artist to talk to, we talked about Star Wars, particularly the trailer for Episode VII, and he said that my costume was his favourite that he'd seen at the event so far, which was great to hear! XD 
If you're interested in his work you can visit his website and store at lostmonkey.co.uk/ !
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Again, I'd highly recommend checking all these artists out, I'm definitely gonna be following their stuff!
All the stuff pictured above can be purchased from the artist's respective websites and/or stores! ^_^
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Anyway, that's the con round up, I'd say that it was a good very con, despite not achieving everything I set out to do, and having hurt my back... The interactions with other people, overwhelmingly positive response to my costume through folks asking for photographs, and meeting and engaging with independent artists and content creators more than offset that, and I'm very much looking forward to next year. ^_^ Though next year I'm definitely gonna bring a fold up chair, I think the hour or two wait standing in the queue prior to opening was definitely a contributing factor to my back pains...  
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So what's next? Well, August means Holiday! Well, kind of... My family have gone on holiday for a couple of weeks, they've gone to the Canaries, they're likely flying right now! I decided against going, it's not like I couldn't have gone, I just didn't want to, and not because I don't want to spend time with them (not at all, I'd love to spend more time with them!), but I just don't do well on those types of holidays, it's the sun, the heat and humidity, it's too much for me, so I said I'd mind the cat whilst they're away. I'm gonna be home alone for two weeks, and honestly I'm fine with it, it's nice to get a break from the stresses of family life, this is MY holiday, and it's great because our house is completely detached from those neighboring us, by a good distance too, so when it's unholy o'clock in the morning I don't have to worry about waking anyone up with noise or whatever, I can play my rock & metal to my heart's content!  

I am hoping to be a lot more productive in the coming week, since I can immerse myself in my music or whatever and just work work work (heh, some holiday! XD), so hopefully I'll be able to get a good working schedule going. ^_^

Speaking of art/work, I'm gonna upload page five of First Farewell later today! 

I'm also redesigning Nene Queen (her names rhyme), she's an old OC from like three years ago, my first lesbian OC (shortly followed by Rena, her love interest), I'm gonna be rewriting her story mostly from scratch, her original story never went beyond concepts, and looking back at it was full of half-baked ideas from an amateur writer, I feel I've grown a hell of a lot over the past year, and I'm eager to give my old characters a new lease on life, Nene and Rena in particular since they were my first idea's for a yuri story, it'll likely be a lot more grounded in reality than the original absurd ideas were, hell the ideas I have now are unrecognizable from their previous incarnation, but eh, more about that at a later date, as I'm still just getting started again. Also don't worry, my Star Wars OC AU is still my main focus, and will remain so for the foreseeable future, I enjoy it too much to let it go on the back-burner!

I'll also try to wade through the myriad of messages I have! (2,399 in feedback... Fffffff-- XD )

Anyway, this has been another exceptionally long journal, and if you read through the entire thing then... Wow, you're a trooper! If you skipped to the end then... Eh, I can't blame you, this has taken over two hours to type, I'm a slow typist...  

But yeah, Peace out!