I think the only problem I have with AE is that since I often end up there Thursday night (it's a long car trip, and lots happening on Friday so best to get in the night before) that I forget that Friday isn't Saturday.
I had a list of events I had wanted to make it out to on Friday. Though it seems I do this every year. I figure out beforehand all the panels I want to see and then somehow (so easy to get distracted by things like food and sleep) I don't make it to even half of them.
So lets start with the panels I was able to make on Friday!
Analyzing Cosplay/Cosplay and Patterns
This was an hour long panel that happened in about 40 minutes. Which wasn't so bad since that gave lots of time for questions to be asked at the end.I found it to be very informative. Touching on things such as croquis and really looking at the outfit and what is needed if you're going to be trying to find the pattern that has the things you need.
There was some talk on the local fabric stores, how to select a pattern, how to read and find patterns, and there was a little talking about pattern drafting. Although the emphasis was to start with patterns and learn some sewing so you understand how things go together before trying to draft patterns.
I can vouch from personal experience that this is certainly a better way to go. Pattern drafting is hard, especially when you haven't done it before. It's also very time consuming so if it's something you want to try your hand at I would suggest doing something simple the first time out, and giving yourself a lot of time.
I was able to chat with the panelist afterwards for a few moments and found out she took costuming at Capilano University for a couple of years and then went to Japan. The book she referenced for drafting was familiar to me as I also use it where I currently go to school. So check out: Metric Pattern Cutting for Women's Wear for sure if pattern drafting is something you want to learn.
Also for anyone interested I got the panelists deviantart info and she has some cool things there too!
Crafting: A How to Panel
This was a fun panel that was run by two girls from LoadingReadyRun, Tally and Kathleen.
Kathleen came in first and started to tell us her horror stories of crafting. Apparently pointy sticks are not to be given to her. I don't really know if she is as bad at crafting as she claims to be but regardless she was funny (putting yarn around her neck when we were learning finger knitting for example).
Tally came in quickly with a bag of stuff and had a lot of great things to show us. We got to see some headband cat ears she made. These ears (not these ones originally as the originals were auctioned off for charity) were made for Desert Bus last year.
The best part though was when the crafting started. Interactive panels are some of the best ones and this one was certainly one of my favourites throughout this weekend.
We were first taught how to fingerknit with yarn. So everyone ended up with a chain like thing in the end. Mine ended up looking like this:
Next we learned how to make a Mustache on a stick. I like how mine came out:
If you're interested in crafting I would certainly recommend checking out Tally's blog. It has some great tutorials that I think anyone could learn from.
All Star Amateur Live Dub
This was an interesting panel. How it worked was clips of anime and some other things (Darkwing Duck and Harry Potter movies), were played without sound while members from Team FourStar, LoadingReadyRun, and Synaptic Chaos Theatre dubbed the voices without any previous preparation.
It was a funny panel, especially if a lot of stuff happened. They seemed to have two types of clips. One with several voices they dubbed "Free For All" and then the other clips where they named the characters before they played the clip and so the panelists got to choose who they would voice.
I liked the clips that were done that had a lot of different voices going on in it, and I preferred watching stuff that I hadn't seen before be dubbed. That is just a preference thing but I found when I didn't know any background info on the series it seemed more interesting and entertaining than the things I had prior knowledge too.
Overall I enjoyed the panel but there were some things about it that I think could be improved on. I think there was a little too much down time in between clips. I know there were things happening like points being awarded and new panelists being brought up (they did the clips in groups of three people).
I didn't really understand the points thing. It was funny in the beginning having people being awarded things like strawberries and other random items... and maybe I was just tired since it was late but since the points didn't really seem to mean anything in the end I don't really understand why that was being done.
I wonder if it could have been sped up by having all those who were participating at one table so that they didn't need to keep coming up and leaving. I'm not sure how well this would have worked considering there seemed to be a lot of people participating but I think it would have had some good benefits.
For one when lots of characters are about in say one of the "Free For All" clips, all the panelists could have joined in. (Again this would probably work better if the panelists were restricted to say maybe just eight people).
Also for those ones that have specific characters being dubbed the other panelists could perhaps jump in for sound effects.. or some of the background characters. I suppose this could end up just causing confusion instead, however, I think it would be worth a try.
Dealers Room
Maybe it was just because I went later in the day but I did not see any lineup for the dealers room this year. Although I also didn't really see much I wanted to buy in the dealers room this year either.
I would say the emphasis was on manga and plushies this year. There were also a couple of booths that were very EGL based, and a couple with its focus on gaming (tabletop, card, and video). Two booths had a variety of things straight from Japan too.
Probably what I found most interesting was that there was at least one booth that also had a table up in the Artist Villa. A pretty good tactic I think as not everyone goes to both portions of the convention.
Final Friday Thoughts
I only ended up seeing the three panels when I had wanted to see about seven so I guess I almost made it to half for this day.
I know I missed out on a few panels that sounded absolutely interesting and from what I've heard were really entertaining too but it is so very hard to make everything in the end. Especially when there is just so much sporadic fun to be had around the UBC campus.
No comments:
Post a Comment