Messages

found the PERFECT oren shirt on ebay (which is the hardest part other than the LS), so you can put me down officially as oren pierre alfonso for the gaim meet!

plan to make some ridic faces and troll you beat riders :)

trying to get some materials acquired....have a wig for malshina and a line on boots.  UGH DAT BUSTIER THO.  really don't want to have to make it from scratch so i'm trying to find a half decent one on ebay.  and a hat i can cover in PVC.  need to order some PVC for her coat as well.

and oren pierre alfonso showed up on gaim and DAMN i might need to thrift some stuff for him for the gaim meet....think i can get a durian lock seed too once the gashapon one is released.

There really should be a top-level site that's up year round with links to the forums, location, etc...

This.  There is no reason for a splash page not to be up year-round with pertinent links to the facebook, forums, etc.

ewu, can you light a fire under the webteam's collective butt??  because we're less than 100 days out from the con and having NO WEBSITE at this late in the game is really inexcusable for a con of Fanime's size.

In addition, there hasn't been ANY activity on the facebook page since the hotel registration fiasco a few weeks ago. 

Yo Fanime....it's the end of February for god's sake, and you have given us ZERO information about guests, Music Fest, AA, swap meet, the Masq (which had better be overhauled majorly because WOW that was a trainwreck last year), or ANY of the big events.  Other cons right around Memorial Day have had info up for MONTHS.  You keep saying "soon"...but if you don't release some info, people aren't going to come, and wouldn't that be terrible on Fanime's 20th anniversary??

yo toku folks!  i'll be at this year's gathering (last year's was awesome!), HOPEFULLY as malshina from akibaranger.  i'll probably be at the gaim meet too, because i'm totally hooked on lock seeds.

is there going to be a toku panel this year?  i missed last year's but heard it was great...

might be at the norcal spring gathering, work depending.  i'm a bit new to the norcal scene...looking forward to it!

Were there "Advanced Craftsmanship" awards given out this year?  (we couldn't hear from onstage) 

There is indeed a separation between regular craftmanship and advanced craftmanship, which was in turn broken down by individual versus group...and this has been in place at least since 2010 when I started attending regularly.  The only thing that Fanime lacks is a true "beginner" division. That said, I don't think that is entirely a bad thing...yes, you will get beginners that get discouraged, but you will also see beginners who get inspired and drive themselves to put themselves on the level of more experienced cosplayers.

Except this was not the case this year.  AT ALL.  The craftmanship awards went: Honorable Mention (individual and group), 2 judges awards, Best Crafts. (indiv and group), and of course best in show...plus the performance awards.  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, as it was impossible to hear the judges announce award titles from the stage....but there did not appear to be any attention to costumer level this year.  I was never asked for it on my initial judging form...but I did mention it because I feel bad when experienced folks get lumped in with less experienced costumers for judging.  There was no "Best Journeyman" nor "Best Master"....so I'm still perplexed as to how fanime didn't just lump us all together in 1 big group.

I stayed at the Saint Claire....and while I agree that the walls were thin (could hear folks in the next room like I was in their conversation) I loved the free wifi (this is rare...I travel a lot for work and most places charge $10 per day) and the location basically next to the convention center.  Did anyone else have a mural on the ceiling of their bathroom?  That was so swag.  Plus the minifridge, which was a nice surprise. 

I parked 2 blocks away for the entire weekend for FREE....really there''s no need to use the hotel's valet with all the parking available in SJ.  Only downside was moving stuff to/from the car but it was only 2 blocks so no big deal, all things considered.

Anyhow 9/10 would stay again, especially for that price.

Agreeing with everything said above....this was just a freakin HOT MESS. (I used to compete in some very poorly run masqs in FL and the cosplay spectacular made them look professional by comparison)

The scheduling thing is really what bothered me....we never knew when things were going to start/finish and I basically lost a whole day to "hurry up and wait" over at the auditorium.  When you're wearing a giant wig this is exhausting....normally I wear Scarlet Claw for 7-8 hours for fatigue issues...this time it was more like 11 hours and I was totally over it near the end.  I came to fanime alone this year, so I didn't have the ability to have someone run and get me food....and pretty much everything was closed by the time we got out of the masq.

Also NO staff knew where the cosplay spectacular room was so I had to go to 3 different places just to be sent elsewhere to get the info on where it was.  No one knew about who had submitted CDs vs. emailed in an mp3 file, etc.  The whole thing reeked of massive amounts of disorganization.

On another note...does Fanime not consider costumer levels normally?  Usually I compete at the Master level and was a bit surprised to see that all levels seemed to be lumped together for craftsmanship consideration.... 

EDIT: also, band was not really appropriate...but didn't the karaoke contest winner usually perform at the masq?  that would be WAY more fun and they could do it while the judges meet, keeping more of the audience around for the awards part.

Woo!  Submitted my entry...here's hoping I get in!  Picked some really fun songs to do.

Okay, so now I'm a bit confused since the "editing rules" aren't laid out super clearly in the initial post and I've never competed at Fanime, so maybe someone could post those specific rules?  Mostly I'm confused as to why we can't cut a track that we bring ourselves....seems to make more sense to let us pick whatever 2:00 section we'd like and let us just cut it beforehand so the staff doesn't have to fade out the track after 2 minutes?

Sorry, just want to make sure I understand before I make song decisions...

I just emailed about scheduling craftsmanship judging, so we'll see what they send back.

Hi Hank!

Quick question: you mention that we can't add harmony tracks, etc....but how about cutting down a song that is too long (especially for the first round)?  For example if I wanted to sing a verse and the bridge of a song as opposed to just the first 2 minutes (which might have a long intro that wastes time) I'd need to cut the karaoke track to fit what parts I'd like to sing.  Is this okay?

Thanks!

I got a response saying that there is a form to fill out on the website, but I don't see any such thing. We'll see if I get a link to it.

The only form on the website is the judging form where you fill out your name, character info, etc.

Does not bode well for scheduling judging.  Argh.

got my email, but I'm getting really worried about craftsmanship judging times...it takes me about 3 hours to do my makeup and get into my costume/complex wig, so I REALLY need a Sunday judging time.  Anything else is not do-able for me.

Also some more info for the display entries would be nice....I know I'll have a 30 second music clip, but the website seems to have conflicting info about display entries.

I'd be more frustrated if my costume wasn't basically finished....but, really Fanime.  Not cool.  I understand you've got a ton of crap to do, but isn't the Masquerade the biggest event with regards to cosplay?  Seems like this should be up there in the priority list.