Can't Sleep, Con Will Kill Me: Crazy Banzai Update (And 1+ More Reason I Hate Printing)

Ahhhh, so close to the time to go! Just thought I'd post one more report on our con progress before I wrap up work projects and get us on the road.

All the pillows are ironed; Leeshee's last needle broke last night, but in spite of that most are sewed. (We might drag along the sewing machine to the con, if they don't get done in time.) Over half the bishies are stuffed; yay for Melissa! I spent most of my night last night getting the raffle item ironed and cut out. I printed more business cards, I just need to cut them now; will probably haul along the paper cutter too. Have a few more posters to print and need to see if he buttons ordered made it in time to my mailbox.

Other than that (and seeing if my laundry is dry) am basically ready to go! though I have my huge list of things to do on our way out of town, too. Tonight will be spent clothes shopping (yay Leeshee's work discounts and my huge freelance paycheck arriving!) and sewing up pillows in our hotel room; it will just be the two of us, so should be extremely peaceful. If the hotel doesn't have Cartoon Network, the History Channel, or at least a few good movie channels, I will cry.

Sad, half of our group is now no longer going. But Leeshee and Meliss and I will hopefully have a blast. And I definitely want to go to one nice sit-down restaurant while we are in town; either Squatters or Atlantic as I mentioned before, or maybe Sigried's if we are feeling cheap. And all are within a 2-3 block radius of the hotel; awesome location. =) Not sure what we will do for food the rest of the time; we'll probably pick up some snacks too on our way out (ooh, better add that to my list!)

Am so excited; hopefully it will be a small but great con. See you there!

::

I hate printing, I really do. Getting the files set up properly, and hoping and praying stuff doesn't go wrong, or if it does you can fix it fast, and not screaming out loud at how much that headache just cost, is tied for me on the pain scale with telling a client you cannot make their deadline. The feeling of getting the finished product in your hands almost always makes up for it, though; it's like childbirth in that way.

Ooh, I like the analogy that drums up: the creation of the idea is the consummation, the making of the idea is the gestation, the printing is the childbirth, and picking up the finished project is holding the newborn child in your arms. Have you seen Waitress? It is exactly like that, though unlike her some people actually enjoy the consummation/gestation parts. anyway, I'm totally digressing; sorry.

So I talked to a sign printing place that prints on fabric, and they CANNOT print the bishy at that size. Or rather, they could, but it would cost $300 in a 1x set up fee, and then $60 to print the bishy. GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! Obviously we cannot do that, especially for a simple raffle prize. I guess Dye Sublimation isn't cheap. I called a place that does sublimation wholesale, and with them it will be arounf $130. We were going to printit on cheap canvas at Kinkos, but THAT would be $90! So no go on all accounts.

Do not fret, my lovelies (though does anyone besides me read my blog?); we wil have a huge raffle prize. We decided to blow up the bishie and trace him onto felt, then iron all the pieces together. We are doing Inuyasha, since he has less colors and shapes to him than Roxas. He looks good, though one of his eyes is kinda wonky; we'll fix that before the con opens.

I'm so glad the raffle prize wirked out; I had this consuming need for SOME type of great raffle prize at our booth, and somehow we will have one. I stayed up late cutting out all of the pieces and ironing them, but is worth it.

Gearing Up for Anime Banzai

Well, at last we are gearing up for the con. Most exciting news I have to report:

I FOUND A PLACE THAT CAN PRINT ON FABRIC!!!!! IN UTAH!!!!!

(breathes again after screaming for joy)

Sorry about that; ignore the crazy designer girl. I'm still so excited because I didn't think I'd find one, honestly. I wanted to desperately, but didn't get my hopes up. But found one at last! (Actually I found them last month, but lost their name and number, of course; therefore had to go to enormous lengths to get the number again, phew! Involved trying (and failing) to get a hold of the phone record keepers at the university for over a week and other nonsense, but got it at last.) They are a sign company in Ogden; I e-mailed the file to them yesterday, which should give them plenty of time to print me off a bishy on white cotton. Which means we will have a mondo huge Roxas as a raffle prize! He is almost 35" tall, and will be adorable. The bishies look surprisingly good in a variety of sizes; I checked how he looked at such a large size and he will be awesome. I think it's going to be hard to give him up at the con when the time comes, if my friends don't steal him first. =) Or, maybe no one will buy raffle tickets and we'll have to take him home; that would horrify me actually, but who knows? So that's one thing we will have available at the con, hooray!

The rest of my night (I had to stay late at work again to catch up, meh) will be spent ironing the transfers for the pillows. We are doign two sizes this time; the regular full size, almost 11" tall, and smaller pillows about 1/3 that size. Plenty of posters as always; I'll need to make a new one for Kenshin, but can't imagine I'll need to print any other ones again. And were hoping to have buttons for sale, with a free one given for each purchase of a pillow or poster, but both of us have no money to order any, and time is running out. We'll see; I feel horrible but may have to wait for the next con for the buttons. We were also thinking of getting some t-shirts to sell; we'd have them in L/XL, and if the person wanted it smaller or customized, Leeshee would do that at the table. But just buying the shirts is expensive (maybe transfer our own?), and we haven't bought a mini travel sewing machine yet. Hopefully next year as well. Oh, and I need to print more business cards! Seriously, there's always something, huh?

(Not to be too much of a complainer, as I realize quite well how hard it is to get events like these successfully off the ground, but does it seem like there will be less things to do at Banzai this year? And they had an awesome art lineup last year, which seems to be lacking this time around. Again, just happy to be going, but wonder how they will manage, when since last year was so awesome there are sure to be even MORE people this time around. Oh crap, and I need to have Elicia get in contact with them, to see if they still want her as a costume judge. I was going to to a panel but was too late; perhaps was for the best, as now can prepare the panel better and have more time for other things. I WILL do it though one day, I swear. I hope they change the con to October agin next year; it was fun to have it around Halloween, the weather is perfect for heavier costumes, and school is not just starting that week. I'm just saying. =) Man, am I a complainer tonight! Bad Lizzie. Honestly, it's just great that there is one so close to us in our own state; I do appreciate that. And with the people going with me, it will be fun no matter WHAT.)

I keep trying to think if everything is ready to go in less than weeks. Hotel? Booked and waiting. (There might be a massive amount of people crashing in our room; as long as I get some bed space, since I booked it, I don't care.) Registration? Done long ago. Artist Alley? Registered, and hurrying to get merch finished in time. No costumes to help Leeshee with this time around, she is too busy with work and getting her costume grant done. Transportation? My car and someone else's. Food? Hopefully will have enough that we could do ONE nice meal, at Squatters or the Atlantic or somewhere equally awesome. (Is Atlantic still open? Am craving their caesar salad but don't know with all the constructon going on downtown if they are even still open.) Money for fun things? I have already bought Blanc et Noir and a death note, so unless there are awesome art books don't know what I'd need. Besides, I'm such a dork; all my play money this month has beeen spent on plants, plus am probably buying even more on Saturday. (headdesk) I know, shut up! But I'd really love daffodils and ornamental grasses and Gaura (yes, pronouced like Gaara, awesome name for a plant!) in my garden next year. So no fun things at the con, though hope to see the wonderful lady who runs Toshiko selling there, perhaps. I miss her store so much.

Um, I think that's all for now; I need to hurry home and iron before Leeshee kills me for staying in my office so late.

Anime Expo 2007: Part 2, Nyu's LJ Report

Leshee had pledged to do a special con report for this blog, but in the meantime, the report she did on her LJ can be found here. It includes lots of photos and summaries from her trip. So hopefully that will tide you over. =)

Anime Expo 2007: Liz's Take, Pre-Con Jitters, and AB Updates

I am proud to announce that, as far as AB goes, Anime Expo was a resounding success for us! Elicia's been giving me daily updates while she's been there, and it sounds like we've sold almost all of the pillows and not a few posters, and that people have loved them. (All except poor Touya, he has gotten no love, apparently; does NO ONE watch HikaGo?)

Wow! is all I have to say; for anyone who bought something and is reading this, you are awesome. =)

Elicia keeps saying she wishes I was there, so I could experience the joy of such a huge con and see all the people loving the bishies. ( I also suspect she would like me there because then she could abandon the table to me and go exploring, but that is just my guess, hah.) But she is much better at writing up con reports than I am, and has promised to FINALLY join up as a co-author of this blog (and rightly so), so expect a full con summary from her here sometime soon. We are planning on attending EXPO next year for sure, though, if it moves back to the LA convention center; I have a friend who lives by there, and said she would love to put us up for the 4+ days if we came out. Woo Hoo! So look for us again next year. Elicia would like to judge cosplay contests (since she is a professional she can't enter the contests herself, boo) and I think it would be fun to do panels relating to graphic design. Or we might just volunteer; anything to pay the registration fees and decrease our costs of going sounds good to us.

::

It was crazy right before the con, let me tell you, getting everything done. We were still not even sure we could get a table, being wait-listed, but a friend also going was sure we could share 1/2 a table with another of her friends, so we forged ahead with making the pillows anyway. Elicia was busy making costumes; Rabi and EvilRabi for herself, and had a Soi Fon commision too. Having never made hakuma before, of course she ran into probs, though being her she magically fixed them in time. And I had to print out more pillow transfers, get transfers ironed on, get pillows stuffed, and help Elicia make the exorcist insignia for her Rabi coat (soda cans and a glue gun, if you want to know.) Phew! Luckily we have the best friends in the whole world, who have been helping us stuff pillows as well and providing moral support. (Thanks you guys, you know who you are!) I got the bishies all printed out by Monday, Tuesday I made sushi (cooking for others decompresses me, I'm not sure why) to relax, watched Castle in the Sky (finally!), and finished ironing them all, Wednesday I finished stuffing pillows and helped Elicia get stuff done while she packed and wrapped up the costumes. I stayed up 'till 4, I think; that is love right there people. (I took a half day off the next day to recuperate; when I told my supervisor why she just laughed. Yay for wonderful coworkers!) Luckily for us all the pillows and posters squeezed into just one large suitcase, hooray for squishy pillows! It will be the lightest suitcase she has ever taken, I'm sure, being like 90% fluff and fabric.

The biggest hitch of this whole pre-con experience was getting the images onto the pillows. We use transfer paper for the pillows, but the brand we use redid their paper, and I couldn't run it through the laserjet we were using anymore. (For the record, you are not supposed to use laserjet anyway, but I liked the color it produced.) And my work Epson was not cooperating; all the bishies were coming out really tan and line-y, so I gave up trying to print on it. I was complaining to my mom, though, about all of this, and she said "hey, I have this new printer I bought like a year ago; if you set it up for me you can use it." Wha?! Apparantly she bought an HP when she got her digital camera, so she could print out photos, and never hooked it up because she didn't know how. (The longest part was installing the printer software onto her computer. A pox on PC's; if it was a Mac we could have just plugged it up and have been ready to go. Oh well.) So we hooked it up for her, and it is BRILLIANT! All inkjet printers put lines in the solid colors, but because it is designed to print photos you can barely see them. And the color is perfect, even beter then my laserjet; it prints slightly lighter than the screen colors, so that when you iron them and they go darker, the color matches precisely. The best part about the new paper formula? It doesn't crack or go on funny! Before we had to iron them a second time, after a Elicia sewed them and we turned them right-side out. No more, I'm happy to say. And the texture is less plastic-y and feels more like the actual fabric. And the color. . . er, I've mentioned that already. So yeah, the journey to get the pillows printed has been tedious, yet ultimately satifying.

I am looking into a place in town that might be able to do digital press printing for us (a printer prints the image right onto the fabric; CafePress calls it "direct printing.") I think most of the t-shirt places use transfer or screenprinting methods, which is no good; the first is what we are already doing and the second wouldn't cheaply allow for the variety of colors our bishies have. But I am hunting nonetheless. Why you ask, when the transfers are doing fine? A couple of reasons: ironing on the transfers is time-intensive; digital printing will make the pillows even more durable; and we could finally get HUGE pillows made, for raffles and such, whereas the transfers restrict us to an 8.5 by 11 size. So the hunt is on, but in the meantime I am loving the new transfer paper.

::

Between Elicia's inspiring phone updates and having more time to breathe this weekend, I actually got another bishy completed! Kenshin is all sketched and ready to be bishified; I will scan him in today and start working on him, and hopefully he will be done by Friday. And I'm going to reopen Zuko and see if I can't finish him up at last. He was all done except for his scarred eye; it looked wonky but I 'm hoping I can finally get it to look good. If all goes well both of them, and a few other bishies too, will be available at the Anime Banzai convention in Salt Lake in August.

Well, that's all for now. Elicia informed me that we need to print more business cards, and good thing; our old ones didn't have an e-mail address!!!!! Yikes, and my fault completely. If you need to e-mail us or whatever, the best one is ellostudios@yahoo.com. But mine (lizzabell@gmail.com) works too. Or post a comment at DA, or here. Lots of ways to get a hold of us, ne?

ACEN Ahoy: Off we go to Chicago!

Hooray, we are leaving tomorrow for ACEN (Anime Central) in Chicago. We weren't able to get a table in the alley, unfortunately, but maybe it's just as well: where there was a famine of manga/comic creators at Boise, here there is a proverbial feast. Dominic Deegan creator, Gargoyles creator, Applegeeks, and of course on the top of the bill: YASUHIRO NIGHTOW!!!!!!! Of Trigun!!!!!! Am excited, no? =) And a plethora of other web and print artists to fill the time. So really, am not sure how would have fit in manning a table and going to panels after all. I even bought bright and shiny new mini sketchbooks or Leeshee and I to take notes! We'll be wearing some of our Angsty Bishy and Ello Studios gear, so if anyone is actually reading this and is going to ACEN, feel free to say hey to us at the con!

I have to run and get packed now, but hope to have a good report of this (and hopefully Boise to) up soon. Tschuss!

Oh Boise! Almost Ready to Go

The last few days have been hectic, but we are almost ready to head to Anime Oasis. I'm nervous, but really excited; I just hope people are happy with all the stuff we are selling, and that Elicia can get all her cosplay stuff done in time. We still have a lot to do, but the end is definitely in sight.

:: Merch ::

Getting the stuff for Artist Alley has been an ordeal. Somehow our business cards got misplaced, between my house and Elicia's. So I get to cut 300 new cards over the next two days! Meh. But it is probably for the best; because of this I got to put "Swirly Fish Cake" on some of the cards. Also, we are doing buttons, and the place making them for us can only do 2.5". We were planning to recycle old cards into buttons, but they are definitely too small fot that. So all's well that ends well, I suppose. The plushies are looking fab; we have wastd a whole bunch of transfer paper in the process, but it is totally worth it. And honestly, if we at least make back our costs, it will all be worth it. And as a bonus, I wasn't lazy and actually printed new posters of the AB's I have done since the last con! So Roxas, Kanda, Yuki and Kyo are now bright shiny new posters.

Also, the t-shirts and button we ordered from our CafePress site came today! So we have lots of our online merch to wear and show off. It looks so good, I cannot get over how great they turned out.

Here is a list of merch we will be selling at our booth:
:: AngstyBishy Posters
:: AngstyBishy Plushies
:: AngstyBishy & L Lives Buttons

:: Cosplay ::

Wow, has Elicia ever been busy. She has made a Sanzo costume from scratch, with props assisted by Meliss; pulled or bought clothes for Mello and got a wig styled by our hairdresser; made or modified costume pieces for others; and made from scratch and found a wig for her super-secret cosplay. (This in addition to sewing and ironing all our plushies.) But I think her costumes will be fab. now to find a place to put them all in my car. . .

:: Skit ::

Elicia and Meliss are also prepping a skit for Adult Cosplay. It's looking good; I will actually attend just to see them.

So that's the rundown of our pre-con activities. Now I just have to helpe Elicia finish the merch and costumes, clean out my trunk, pack my bags, check my tire's air pressure, and I will be set. I have work off tomorow, thankfully.

If anyone reading this makes it to Oasis, give us a shout out in the comments! I'd love to hear from you and know what you thought about our merch, Elicia's cosplay, etc. See ya there!

Anime Banzai 2006: We Came , We Saw, We Cosplayed

I suck, I've been sick and bed-ridden and Blogger has been down for maintenance for the past few days. So this is the first chance I've gotten since the con to post. Argh. Better late than never? Perhaps.

Anyways, a whole slew of us road-tripped to the anime convention in Salt Lake last weekend (20th and 21st), and I had a booth for our bishies in the artist alley! We didn't sell much merch , only 9 posters (why did I print off over 100 again?!), but we recouped all our costs and handed out a slew of business cards, so all in all I feel it was worth it. Plus talking to people is always fun. =) And I learned a lot about making manga, and more importantly relit the fires of passion for making manga, which were flickering a lil' bit what with all the work pressures I've had lately, and my freak-outs about Elicia leaving me next fall for 3 years for grad school. So much to do manga-wise, so little time! But I think I've calmed down again and we will get back on track.

I totally should have submitted fanart for the art gallery, I'm still kicking myself for not doing that. I did art for friends for presents last X-Mas, which I totally should have entered. I did Host Club Fanart in prep for this con but didn't have time to finish them. But I have plenty of time to get them display-worthy for the Boise Con, so look for them there if you are heading there in March.

Most of my next posts in my art blog will be recapping important things at the con and especially my notes on what the artists like Amy Reeder had to say and interesting facts and links. So if that interests you at all, head over there in the next week or two and enjoy.

I also will have a bishie up this week! I kept promising people at the con about my goal of adding an AB every Friday, a noble aim that I can totaly meet if I try hard enough. =) This week's AB is sketched and scanned, I just need to pen and color him in Illustrator. Exciting , ne? (Ne, he is complicatd this time around, blast his hair, but I think he will be cute indeed.)

Back to the post at hand: we all agreed that Banzai, while much much better than the first year around, is still just an appetite-wetter for bigger cons like Boise's or San Diego's Anime Expo. We are going to Boise for sure, and either Anime Expo or one out in the mid-west. And we will have a booth in the artist's alley with new, improved merch: posters like last time, smaller posters, buttons, maybe fanart, and pillows of the bishies! Elicia's planned the pillows out already, and I am soooooo excited for them! I think they will be a huge seller. And then I will have an AngstyBishy Light of my very own to squeeze. =) Elicia got the idea whan I made my AB Howl, and is looking forward to having a Howl of her own to smush to her heart's content. Mmmmmm, can't wait. Since our first planned con is the one in Boise in March, We will be busy over winter break sewing and ironing pillows, but will have much to show for it by the end. =)

Anyway, that's all for now. I feel bad we don't have much to update here; Elicia is a LJ snob, so she mostly posts over there, and I mostly post at my art blog, DeviantArt, and occasionally LJ. So if you want to hear from us those are your best bets for the time being, really. If people commented here I would post here more often, but this is mostly for really important updates in the world of Ello, which really are few and far in between. But for anyone who has stopped by and more importantly, has read this far into my post of unending rambling doom, you are SO awesome, kudos to you! =) But seriously, check out the other sites I mentioned, they are seriously 100% more interesting.