Here it is: MY SAKURA CON REVIEW

I've been putting this off for a while because I am in the middle of making a new website for my new business. That's right I bought a business. Hypergate Studios. We are a web design, video, and digital art firm. But thats beside the point.

SAKURA CON DAY 0 (Thursday; day before the show)

I arrived with my staff (my roommate from college) at 2:30ish in Seattle. I had a hotel reserved for three nights and four days so the first thing we did was check in. Our Hotel was... ok. Kinda smaller than I wanted and there was construction on the floor above us. It made it hard to hang out with other convention goers. Because this was the first time that I have gone to a con as a presenter and for selling art, we darted over to the convention center to check in there ASAP.

Once checked in, which took an hour and a half, we headed down to where I was going to sell my art. It wasn't set up yet. Not that it was a big deal but we had to kill time and come back at 9pm. We started to set up and I realized I didn't have any materials promoting my business or me as an artist. There were just prints laying on a table. So in an act of desperation I opened my dying laptop and whipped a little promotional screener together as fast as I could. We put it on a cd and ran to Kinkos and luckily had it printed.

That night I couldn't sleep. I was going to give a presentation the next day on Photoshop and there were going to be at least 100 people there. Yikes. Eventually I fell asleep on the floor in between the wall and the unmovable bed frame. Ouch.

SAKURA CON DAY 1 (Friday; Opening Day)

I was a wreck. It was 9 am and we darted to the convention center to finish getting some of my art sales up. Then the waiting. I had to wait 3 hours until I could begin presenting so I found a chair and parked it. We were sitting right outside the room so I could see as people arrived to the presentation. I wasn't identified as a presenter so I sat in the crowd and listened to the people talk about the presentation before it started. There was a lot of talk about the convention and people saying what they wanted to do for the day. But I caught one girl and guys conversation that really stuck out.

:Guy approaches:
Girl: Hey dude, what are you doing here?
Guy: Oh I just wanted to see what this was all about. I figure I have to get started somewhere. What are you doing here?
Girl: Just sitting here. I want to grill the guy who is giving the presentation.
Guy: Gonna laugh at him huh? Well you do know a lot about Photoshop

I didn't know how to react... I just slowly backed away and thought, "oh, I'll show you." It's funny because I know they didn't mean to do this but it gave me all the confidence in the world. I wanted to prove to this girl that I knew way more about Photoshop than she did. I mean come on, I've been in college for almost 5 years learning this stuff and 3 years in high school before that.

The presentation started off late. The woman before us was presenting on Origami and she needed a few more minutes. She was really nice about it so it didn't matter. When things got started though there had to be more than 100 people in there. This was supposed to be an introduction piece to Photoshop, but when I asked who had used Photoshop before all the hands went up. Still I was committed to giving the best presentation I could.

I started off with Digital inking, moved into base colors, shading and so forth - all the while watching the girl who thought she knew more than I did. Nothing yet and I was running out of time. So I shot for the moon. I went off the lesson plan and showed how to color and shade your lines to match your perspective and shading done in earlier steps. By the time I finished I heard her lean over to her friend and whisper "COOL".

I did it; I had won my little mental battle. Oh it was amazing. Afterward I was interviewed by someone from the press and met an associate from Adobe. Really awesome for a college student. The rest of the day was devoted to spending money and watching the AMV show. I was on cloud 9.

SAKURA CON DAY 2 (Saturday; Busiest Day of the Convention)

All the joy and awesomeness that was yesterday was gone. I had another presentation to give today. This time it was on creating your own fan web page. It was a pretty easy topic for me to cover but things didn't feel right to begin with. It took us 3 hours to finally find someone who could tell us how to buy an internet connection. This was going to be mandatory for the presentation.

It worked outside in our chairs from yesterday which was great. The first part of my presentation was going to be about the WORLDS here at THEOTAKU.COM!!!! I still felt like something was going to go wrong so I took screen captures of all the Otaku world pages.

Of course things did go wrong. Only 30 people showed up because there was a huge learn to draw presentation going on next door. Also THE INTERNET DIED in the presentation room. AHHH panic! Thank goodness I had the screen captures.

I showed what I could without internet but after 40 minutes of doing everything I could think of I was out of content. Too much of a technology gap between the audience members. So I finished early.

It was sad because I couldn't show anybody anything. In the end though a little boy came up to me about 10 years old and thanked me and shook my hand. It was SOOO COOOL. WOW... it was totally worth it.

Next I ran down stairs to THEOTAKU.COM meet and greet!!! Ahhh so cool I finally get to meet everyone. I met Someguy and Panda, and got to see the recording of the podcast live from Sakura Con. I even got some SWAG. Free DVD set from The Otaku!!! My thanks to Gail, Someguy, and Adam. I was very appreciative and Special thanks to Gail for recognizing my screen name with my work. She said that it was very good. Thanks Gail!

With both my presentations out of the way it was time to party. We hit up the Seattle night life and also enjoyed taking some pictures of awesome cosplayers and danced out at the anime rave! By the end of the night I was exhausted and I slept amazingly.

SAKURA CON DAY 3 (Sunday; Final Day of the Convention)

Still exhausted from the other day, we trudged into the convention center. Not a lot happened on this day. I checked out of my art show table. I made about $200 on sales! That was a great feeling.

I was waiting anxiously for closing ceremonies to find out who had won the mascot challenge. I couldn't wait. I entered three pieces. Check them out below.

The closing ceremonies started and we waited to see who won. Then over the speakers they said there were technical difficulties and that you would have to check out the website to see who won.

UGHHH!!!!

We hopped in the car and took off for home. I had a strange sense of unease. I didn't know if I had placed at all. Slowly the convention feeling faded and I remembered what real life was going to be like.

Late that night back home I check the website and sadly I saw that I didn't win. Oh well. Either way I was happy over all.

Sakura Con was a lot more work this time around but I was so happy I went and most of all people liked my art enough to buy it. WOW

Just WOW.

I'll have pictures up soon. (updating at work has its limitations)