8:36pm - The last hour right before take down was fairly busy. Monkey was retrieving the car. The industry dealers showroom just closed down, so they all made their way to the Artist's Alley. It was a different reception from the crowd that we had been exposed to throughout the day. In short, it was a successful and a high learning curve for the first day. Tomorrow will be round two.
7:09pm - Seal had to put up with a disgruntled customer who said her stuff "is the only booth that doesn't look like anime" I explained to him that this festival is "Animation on Display," and animation is not exclusive to anime.
6:22pm - It's official. The first artist's alley booth has begun take-down. We shall soon follow as after ~1.5 hours of sleep last night, we are exhausted.
6:13pm - Not much traffic now, as the Masquerade has just begun. So, borrowing a friend's car, we'll probably pack up soon.
5:10pm - Blood sugar levels plummeting. Fortunately, Seal goes on a quest to find a soy milk chai tea and instead finds an ice cream/mochi/green tea float at Cafe Hana and brings it back to Monkey to share. Both wake up slightly. Traffic has slowed down, and the question of when exactly are we breaking down the table for the night comes into question. Potentially we could break down at 6pm, or midnight (we think?)
3:15pm - We've been thinking for awhile, that most of the "commission" work of characters from anime/manga series like Naruto, Bleach, Pokemon, and One Piece are probably considered as derivative works and are thus violations of copyright laws. Granted, most of these artists are students and hobbyists, but if they're actually selling their work, then doesn't that make them professionals and fair game for copyright lawsuits?
3:00pm - An entire costume made out of duct tape! It was an "interesting" guy in a maid dress (made out of duct tape) and he bent over (on purpose) to pick something up and Monkey + Seal momentarily went blind. It was one of those sights that cannot be unseen once it's been seen. Let's hope better things are to come.
1:45pm - Sweet! A really awesome Link from Legend of Zelda just popped by!
1:41pm - Two more ties and a few of Seal's prints have sold! Yay! Monkey took a look around at the Dealer's Room, which is a lot more stuff that you would find in a comic/specialty store, as opposed to original art. There haven't been any programming that we've been super into (the one's we are interested in are on Sunday), but Monkey is definitely interested in checking out Neko Punch who is apparently playing at 9pm. We'll see if the sleep deprived artistic duo can last that long.
12:10pm - Sold "red blood drip on black" tie to L from Death Note. Sold 2 buttons "rock" from Janken Po and "Your apathy pisses me off." Got a lot of great feedback for Rick's ties, paintings, and screen prints. Especially the "Sprinkles are to good-for you-you dirty bastard" and "Pandamonium." Got a lot of feedback for Eve's prints, but probably the price points are too high for most of our guests. Saw a lot of good and bad cosplay costumes. Lots of furry-cat eared ladies in school girl uniforms.
11:04am - Our table setup. It was a challenge finding a home for the animation puppet. Ideally we would have a acrylic glass case and place it at the front of our table. Many people are stopping by and many are commenting on the awesome silkscreened ties and prints, unfortunately, people seem to run away as soon as we open our mouths to say hello.
9:46am - The M+S team woke up at 6:30 to walk over to the Zipcar station to pick up our rental car and we packed up and headed over to Hotel Kabuki. We were the first of the artists to arrive at 8am, and after an hour and 45 minutes, our table is set up. The opening ceremony is supposed to start at 10, and the artist's alley is still pretty sparse. The biggest thing to note is that everyone else thus far are definitely anime-styled artists, while we, as you probably know, are most definitely not. We'll see if this works to our advantage or disadvantage. All I know is that the hordes of otaku are here, and there's no turning back!
4:14am - Yes, Monkey + Seal are still up. For the last four hours we have been printing, matting, and packaging our prints for sale. Seal is currently finishing up packing up the prints in plastic (which is definitely a plus since its been raining on and off this past week) and Monkey (besides writing this) has been packing up all the fixtures, comics, and all the other necessities for exhibiting at a table. Hopefully we'll finish up soon as we have to be up early to pick up our Zipcar to lug all of our stuff over to the expo. Goodnight everyone!
