Katsucon Con Report

Katsucon got me thinking about a lot of things. For one, the Friday of a con is kinda slow and I'm beginning to wonder if we wouldn't be better off with Saturday/Sunday cons like Zenkaikon in PA. I know a lot of people who have work and/or school on Fridays that they can't afford to miss.

Appa, however, had an Artist badge so he was set for the weekend

Friday was a very slow day for sales for us, but there were some great cosplays!

I am a HUGE fan of friends all cosplaying together. Also Romana is my favorite companion.

Many times, when Jenn and I are stuck at a table for too long we pretty much go cosplay and clothing shopping like the people walking by are modeling for our very own real-life catalog. This included having to see amazing Dragon Age costumes that we wanted so badly to cosplay with. We're in the middle of planning Isabella and RogueFemaleHawke costumes. When these people

came along it was hard not to just rush back home and start working on them immediately.

Katsucon had photo backdrops this year and I felt like I was the only person using them (and we were seated right next to them, so if anyone used them I'd see). There is a running joke in our house about the anime cliche where a late student runs to school with toast in his/her mouth, so when someone showed up in that cosplay I got a great shot of him in front of the high school backdrop!

And on the day of the cherry blossom festival no less...

Jenn also had a spaz attack before we even got to our table because she saw people cosplaying from the old Atari game Adventure.

Jenn: Do you not know what this is?! That's a DRAGON, Casey!

 
 Katsucon is also the most beautiful convention I have ever been to. The main area was lit up and had all sorts of fountains, rivers, plants and other amazing photo backgrounds. Those lucky enough to have hotel rooms not facing the street got ones overlooking the convention. I'd kill for one of those rooms next year. The space was especially good for Disney cosplay.

          

Jenn brought her Darkrai costume and let me shoot a few pictures of her (until the battery died -_-) so I could practice directing people in photoshoots. How nice of her, I know. Not many people would let their friends take a bunch of glamorous pictures of them. I am truly blessed.

I shot it like this because Darkrai is a ghost and I wanted it to look like you were trying to sneak past her but she discovered you.

We finally went to the hotel around 11, ordered pizza and Jenn read me Fark headlines like a bedtime story. We also worked on a Feralligator commission. Cause yeah, when I think of cute amigurumi plushies I think of a Pokemon whose name is a mix of feral and alligator, haha. But sometimes it's the ones who got no business being cute that turn out the best.

Saturday brought in better sales and more great cosplays. Because the camera died we had to use Jenn's iPhone. A GREAT Zoro kept walking by while Jenn was buying a drink or going to the bathroom. He was nice enough to keep checking in so we could get a picture.

We explained that we like photographing our chibis with other cosplayers, and the guy was so chill about the whole thing that he let us balance one on his head.

Saturday was also a great FMA cosplay day. We got our second Roy Mustang commission and after having him requested twice we're going to add him to our stock.

Yup, that seems about right size-wise...

Hughes can't even help showing pictures of his family to people made out of yarn

We are also very big fans of gijinka cosplay, and love to see how people respond to the challenge of creating 100% human (no animal parts) versions of different creatures.

    

I would have never thought to do Tonberry's eyes with giant sunglasses!

We also had about 25 people ask to buy Appa (which confuses me because Appa isn't crochet so we obviously didn't make him, but I can also understand how beloved he is as a character). We directed everyone to eBay and Amazon, in the hopes that people will buy up tons of Appas and we can have some grand flying bison army some time in the future.

Did I say army? I meant one giant flying bison group hug...

In case you haven't noticed yet, we love every era of video games and anime. From Atari to the Record of Lodoss War we've been catching what we could for years. When we started out this business we just made what we liked, and for the most part it worked. Some dolls, however, have been with us for years because no one buys them. We hold on to the hope that some day they'll find a forever home, and some, like Mion from Higurashi, sold this weekend!

Others, like this Selphie, only get visits from their pals. Some day, you spunky girl.

We debuted a whole bunch of dolls at this con too! Our new 10th and 11th Doctors and Yoko.

One of these Yokos is much rounder than the other...

We forgot to photograph a bunch of stuff, too. We have an Ezio and Kratos design now as well, so expect pictures of them soon. Actually, Kratos, Ezio and a Tonberry went to a guy dressed as Luffy. What a crew, huh? Who does Luffy need dead THAT badly?

We also didn't get any pictures of the two Michael Jackson cosplayers who began randomly dancing in the middle of the Artist's Alley. It was amazing and completely unplanned. The best part was one was black and the other was white, but they were in the same exact outfit. Then one of the artists pulled up "Thriller" on his laptop and blasted it over his speakers. And it all happened right next to our table.

Sunday was pretty uneventful cosplay-wise, but that was because people were apparently too busy buying everything! We had some commissions that day, including Perry the Platypus (again, watch out for him soon!) and Al Elric. We never thought to make Al because we thought people would want him to be shiny, but this customer said it was fine to just do regular grey yarn. He actually came out great and we plan to make him now as well!

Lookit his faaaaaaaaace

The whole con was a great time. Really the only issue we had was this run-in where Team Rocket tried to steal our Pokemon.