Cute

I didn't realize that there's cute Japanese anime style model for Poser/Daz Studio until today. The NearMe model sure looks very cute. I hope that they will release more of this kind of cute model in the future.

So I put up a roommate request

I posted my roommate request message at cosplay.com and Animefest offical web site. I'll fall back to my original plan if I don't get any response. We'll see.

Oh, I suddenly realized that I haven't been Twittering for a while.

Still planning on where to sleep during AnimeFest

I am glad that I posted my plan of staying druing AnimeFest in the forum and got some response. I am very interest in finding a roommate but don't know if I can find one that doesn't concern about me crossplaying. I'll give it a try anyway.

By the way, here's my messages:
------------------------------
(Original post)

I am from Houston, and planning to attend AnimeFest on Saturday (Aug 30) and Sunday (Aug 31). Here's my plan:

- Get one night at Hyatt (Saturday night, Aug 30)
- On Aug 30, wake up at 1 am, finish putting on make up at 3 am, drive from Houston to Dallas and arrive at 7 am.
- Park my car at Hotel.
- Attend AFest til the check in hour of my room.
- Check in
- Take an hour or two nap, and Costume change (yeah!)
- Continue happy AFest til next day
- Check out
- Continue attending AFest til 7:00 pm, Aug 31
- Drive back to HOuston
- Sleep like a log at home. Mission Accomplished.

The only puzzle in this whole plan is check in and check out hour of Hyatt. Does any one know?

--------------------------------
(My reply on other's reply)


I think I slept in car for once or twice in my life, and the experience was terrible. Nothing happened to me after that night but I was in ultra bad mood after no getting enough sleep and the frustration showed all over my face, something that no foundation powder can cover up. And yeah no way will I sleep in downtown area.

The check in out time is actually not that big an issue since I only use the hotel room as a changing room and sleeping place. As long as I can find a parking space within the hotel I think I am good. Check out at 3:30 pm and check out at 11 am sounds totally fine with me.

The reason why I do this is actually more to do with "not wasting money" (as in not-spending-$50-for-a-meal-at-McDonald) than "finding the cheapest way". 2 months ago I went to A-Con, paid 2 night of hotel, and all I did in the room was sleeping at night and changing costume once. I looked back and I was like, "I paid $200 for that?" Plus I went alone, and seeing a double bed room occupying by only me, a suitcase and laptop made me feel like kind of a waste.

But sharing a room with others sounds like a great idea. If I can find a roommate then I won't mind staying for the whole conference period. I also don't mind picking someone up in Houston and go to Dallas together. However, I am a guy crossplaying a female character, so I need to find a roommate that doesn't care about that (con attendees seem more open but you never know).

Let me ask around sometime today...

Planning for AnimeFest

I am planning my AnimeFest trip now. Like I mentioned before, this time I will stay in the hotel where the conference is being held, which will be Hyatt in this case. However, I am a bit puzzled by the price. Based on AnimeFest site , they have a "special rate" : $91/night + tax for a Regular Room with 1-2 Adults. But when I checked the Hyatt web site, I got $84 per night, which is even cheaper than the so called "special rate". Strange.

I am thinking of attending Aug 30 the whole day and Aug 31 til 7:00 pm, and then drive back to Houston on Sunday night. The biggest challenge willing driving from Houston to Dallas, since I will wake up at 1:00 a.m., put on all the make up, and start driving at 3:00 a.m., arrive Dallas at 7:00 a.m. , and start my day at AnimeFest on Saturday. I have a very strong feeling that I will have a very good night sleep on Saturday night :-E .

I also need to figure out when I should check in Hyatt on Saturday and check out of Hyatt. One thing I know for sure though: I don't have to carry load of stuff all the time anymore, and I can change costume more frequently this time. Yeah!

I definitely need to arrive at 7:00 a.m. (or even slightly earlier) in order to get parking space. It will be very lame to bring all my luggage from parking lot blocks away to the hotel.

Dreaming about crossplaying?

I had a series of dreams last night, but one of them really worthy noting. In that segment, I was entering a dance competition by wearing the female Mongolian gown costume. Interesting enough, I didn't recall myself dancing at all. I felt like I just kept rushing running from one location to another location. That sort of experiment echoes more with my experience back in the A-kon.

Xinjiang Girls - Daz Studio Scene

I almost done with texturing the clothing for a XinJiang girl. What left now is creating a Xinjiang hat with texture. So far I am OK with the result, although I may redo the boots again when I get time. See for yourself below.

TV

After getting used to pausing TV while watching the shows online (either thru hulu.com or ... you know ...), I found watching network TV thru regular TV a painful experience. Nevertheless, I used the $40 government couple and got myself a Digital TV Converter so that I can watch network TV if I choose to. The signal quality is way better than what I got from analog signal. But the lack ability to pause the TV while I need to really tickle my nerve. I am so used to watch content in my own term, not in the way the TV network wants me to.

Plus I still have a habit of channel surfing even with with only handful of channels. That's kind of ... sick.

Suck at it

Every once in a while, I will ask myself why I am still doing ballet when I am obviously suck at it. That question usually came up when there's one of two smart students, usually teenagers with years of training, attending either the intermediate or the beginner class. Today there are severals, and one of them was a younger man. So my ego shrink even further then used to.

My ration mind absolutely knows that I shouldn't care about the others, that I should just focus on my own problem, improve and grow in my own terms. But my emotional side still got tingled. I have a pretty big ego, and usually only do stuffs that I am good at, so that I can gain satisfaction from achieving success.

Ballet, or dance in general, is something that I suck at, and yet I just keep doing and doing. I have several theories about why I have such a behavior. None of them really make sense.

On the bright, the shame will makes me remember what step I did wrong, so that I can practice a bit when I am at home.

Am I getting ... fat?

Last Saturday I was trying out my Anna William set costume when I suddenly found out that the red Qipao I had couldn't fit me! That is kind of crazy consider that it was fitting me fine 2 months ago. (It was also kind of tight back then but still :-< ...). So I tried and tried and finally fit in. But I had to really hold up my breathe.

So it seems like my chest is getting BIGGER than before. I wonder if it has anything to do with the ballet training I had these days. This is not a bad thing since the rest of my body doesn't change. Still ... it's strange :-m .

Oh, that also means that I don't have a set of Anna William costume anymore. Guess I will go for my Mongol dance costume for AnimeFest then :-I .

Spent an hour trying o make her eyes not so shiny

Working on Daz Studio again, and still got issue. So I posted the question on Daz's web site.

------------------------------------------

This happened many many times and I was too lazy to ask around until now cause I am fed up with it. Whenever I render my character with Daz Studio 2.1 using the software rendering, I always got my character's eyes super shiny. It's like cat eyes, and makes the scene look very strange.


What did I do wrong? I already go to the surface tab to change the eye surface's Lighting model to Skin. I changed the Glossiness to 0%. They didn't changed a bit. The eyes are still as if light shined out of it. And it's just wrong :-E

Since I didn't see any complain about it, so I am pretty sure that I DID something wrong. Any suggestion?

$180 suddenly becomes $300

Just found out that the boot priced $180 (in my last post) suddenly jacked up to $300 (maybe the seller saw the competitor's high price). And now I am very confused about who stealing photos from whom. All three sites look very strange to me now. And as the result, I may shop at NONE of these store because they loss the credibility. They all claimed that they took photos from actually product, but now I started to really doubt it.

Research result: boots

I did some research on footwear for martial art costume (武俠服裝), and found the following sites with the following price:

• 黑色膠底長筒雕花皮靴 (NT$2980, or HK$814) [Link] [Image]
  
• 影視級黑色布靴 (NT$2980, or HK$814) [Link] [Image]
• 影視專用靴子-男快靴-高幫 (RMB$180, or HK$205) [Link] , Interesting, for the same photo and such selling at high price here: (RMB$300, or HK$341). IN fact they both looked like rip off of the 黑色膠底長筒雕花皮靴 above.
• 古裝女俠必備靴子*龍紋錦緞古裝戲鞋 (RMB$120, HK$137) [Link] [Image] I kind of like this product mostly because the price seems nice, also the maker has a blog so I feel like I am supporting a living person.
• 古裝翩翩公子靴 (RMB$180, or HK$205) [Link] [Image]
• 江湖俠客靴 (RMB$160, or HK$182) [Link] [Image]
• 黑色古裝布靴 (RMB$150, or HK$171) [Link]
• 古裝女俠必備靴子 (RMB$110, HK$126) [Link]

So far I think I am lean toward "影視專用靴子-男快靴-高幫" and "古裝女俠必備靴子*龍紋錦緞古裝戲鞋"

Alipay support Visa

Seems like Alipay also support paying with Visa.

Getting on China online shopping mall

I found a lot of online store selling Martial Art costume, and most of them belongs to the online shopping mall at taobao.com . The problem is that in order to shop at Taobao.com, I have to have an account at alipay. There seems to be a way to do it with Visa, but getting an Ranmanbi account at 香港招商銀行 seems to be the most easiest way. Problem is that the bank seems to have only one branch in Hong Kong. I also don't know how much effort it will take to get an account. I also need to make sure that when I create an account, it has to be a Ranmanbi account, otherwise it won't work with alipay.

I also realize that I have Bank of China Visa card, and I was told that it should work with my account. Someone said that they tried and didn't work well. Still I think it's worth trying anyway.

Be Kind Rewind .... Sigh

As much as I love Michel Gondry's odd ball music video and some of the his movies (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), "Be Kind Review" would be a total flop without Jack Black's energy carrying through the movie. Somehow, the story, while ok interesting, seems too far fetch that makes the chracters seemed too flat. The movie is like a good gimmick that would probably last 10 minutes as an extended version of music video, but far from capable to carry though a 90 minutes movie. It's an OK rental, but I will definitely shoot myself to death if I pay full price at thearter to see it.

researching

I spent a whole night last night doing nothing but researching on how to get martial art TV drama costume. I really was shocked that it took me that much time :-E.

Finding martial art costume

I posted this message at the forum:

-----------------------------------------
尋找訂造武俠電視劇服裝的地方


我現在身在美國, 參加過一次Anime Convention後,發覺美國人對中國服飾有極濃厚的興趣, 想用cosplay 展示中國武俠文化, 再加上自己從小已經很渴望 Cos 武俠電視劇的角色, 所以開始四出搜查, 看看有沒有專造武俠服裝的店舖。

我找到了幾家台灣專造武俠服裝的ONline Store, 衣款和布靴的設計也不俗,但價格頗貴, 也不知運費怎樣計. 況且我會在九至十月左右回港 for vacation, 心想如果能夠八月尾落 order, 九月回港 or 到深圳 pick up, 可能比較化算。

造服裝的地方各有專長,例如造旗袍的未必明白舞台上用舞蹈服裝的需要,舞蹈用的布靴也跟武俠電視劇中用的布靴不一樣, 所以想問大家知不知道有那些在香港或深圳的店舖有造武俠劇服裝的經驗?

我知這個問題似乎很偏門, Still, Thanks in advance!!

Message at Hong Kong cosplay forum

I posted this message at a Hong Kong cosplay forum.

------------------------------

為了找武俠電視劇服裝,來到這個論壇,又看到這個主題,忍不住想說一兩句。

我現在身在美國,在香港的時候,從沒有參與過 Cosplay 的活動,因為覺得自己大年紀, Cos 起來並不像真。想不到來到美國,在朋友的鼓勵下,不單是首次出席 Anime Convention (A-kon 19, 可能你會在 Gallery http://www.a-kon.com/bm/News/the-a-kon-19-photo-gallery-page.shtml 中找到我的怪相), 還反串一個自己在創作中的故事人物 (一位新疆舞娘,為了救自己的涵子子生妹妹,結果...)

起初我到達會場,發現 Cosplayer 們超認真,雖然自己也化了兩小時化妝準備, 始終覺得比不上人家的好, in fact 我已經沒有 concern whether I pass (how much people accept you as a female, see Wikipedia for detail) or not 的 issue.

直到自己一次又一次聽到女孩子們叫道 "Ahh! You look so cute. Can I take a picture of you?" 自己才放心下來,更發覺 cosplayer 們 all very nice and friendly, 攝影的人也很有禮貌。Cosplayer 們看到大家 Cos 同一個角式, 反應是……衝上前互相抱擁,大叫"Objection!!" (大家大概也知道她們 crossplay 那一個 NDS Game 吧 :-} ) 跟著又見大批人大跳 涼宮春日, 又有 US Characters, 亦有 J-Anime Characters, 無分你我。

可能由於我找到這個Forum 後, 首先看到的是 "守望相助" section, 覺得 "How come it's so different from the experience I had last week?" 不過也很高興看到大家在面對無知的白眼時, 一於無視, 盡管用自己的努力,心思,創意,表達一個屬於自己的美感世界, 將來你們回頭看這一段青春的, 絕對可以無悔。

Effort

I got hugged a few times last weekend at A-kon, and strangely enough, I suddenly became very shy and didn't know how to response :-P. (As a foreigner I was not used to hugging anyway ...)

No matter what role you try to cosplay, it's the effort that count. When you cosplay, you have to do your best to portrait the character you try to role-play, regardless of gender. For instance, it took me almost 2 hours to put on makeup in the morning before I went to A-kon last weekend. I almost wanted to give up after failing to put on fake eyelash the third time. But then all the effort paid off after I heard girls calling me "ahhh!!! You are so cute!" several times. I personally think I was really not that pretty that day, but, hey, thanks for whoever gave me encouragement that day.

Worn out heels on my high heel boots

When I brought my pair of boots back when I was in Hong Kong last year, the sales throw in 2 replacement heel tips for my boots. I was like ... why do I need that.

At then, during A-kon, I wore that pair of boots on the street the first time in my life, and and found that with my way of wearing it, the heels were seriously worn out within JUST ONE DAY. That makes me sort of decided that I should NEVER wear that pair of boots on the street again.

I think I need to shop for boots if I ever need to wear a pair of boots on the street again .

Still need to reserve a MAC make over session

I am still not too happy with the makeup I did last Friday morning for A-kon. That's why I am still thinking of scheduling a private session at MAC and use it as a learning session. Also I want to see what it would be like when everything done right.

(Or I may give up on doing make up when I find out that even the professional artist at MAC couldn't turn my face into something decent.)

A-kon 19 photos already start showing up

I am so glad that I didn't spend a lot of time taking photos at A-kon 19, because tons of people did much better job than I do. In fact photos start showing up at Flickr already.

Didn't get a chance to wear earring

I just realized that even though I brought the whole set of earrings with me for use at A-kon, it turns out that I didn't wear any of them, mostly because ... I just forgot. That and all the costumes that I brought with me but didn't get the chance to wear makes me wonder whether I should bring less next time when I go to convention.

Well, there's always the first time for everything. Next time I will be smarter.

Creative people are all very Self aware

M. Alice LeGrow kind of reminds me about myself: talkative when in the right mood, and very self aware. Maybe it's the ego of creative people, we (see, I am grouping myself into the bright people's club) tends to self-reference what we said before, as if everyone cares and remember everything I said, and thus got the punchline based on the reference.

Left over food saves my day

I was hungry at Friday night when I got back to motel from A-kon. We didn't get a chance to have dinner because of the schedule: first it was lining up for the concert, and then the concert itself, and finally the Rocky Horror Show. So I drove back to motel and just when I started to consider whether I should go out to have dinner at 2 a.m. or not. Then I realize the I didn't finished my lunch earlier that day, and the to-go bag was still in my bag.

And that's what I ate they night. When you are hungry, even crap taste good.

This is why people pay $200 instead of $75

Before I went to A-kon, I was wonder why people will pay $200 for a night at Sheraton Dallas Hotel (the place where the convention was being held) when they can get a room for $70 at a motel 10 minutes driving distance away.

Well, I found out why in the hard way:

• Morning traffic sucks. 10 minutes driving distance turned into 25 minutes driving.
• Parking sucks. I need to park my car 5 blocks away. That really hurt my high heel boots (more in coming up blog post).
  
• Carry stuffs around sucks. Without a car parked near by as a mobile locker room, I have to carry a lot of stuffs around. That hurts my enjoyment at the conference.
• No costume changing sucks. Without a room in the hotel, I can't change costume at ease. Sure I can walk up to my car, bring the second costume, and then go back to convention, find a restroom, and then change, bring the undressed costume back to my car, and walk back .... See, this is TOTALLY clumsy. Not to mention how filthy restrooms are. I won't allow my costumes touch restrooms floors like that.

So next time when I try to have a full experience of an anime convention, maybe I should also consider living at the hotel.

Try your very best to resist scratching your itching legs ....

Here it happens again. 18 hours after I shaved my legs, they were starting to itch like hell. I controlled myself and wait until I got back to the motel on late Friday night, and then I scratched my legs like a mad man. That caused a lot of red marks all over my legs but i didn't care because it was darn itchy. It was so painful that .... I went into sleep. And then I was OK next day I woke up. See, my instinctive defense system in my body surely knows how to protect myself. Once again, sleeping solves every problem.

Still if you can, you should resist the scratching. And here one idea that works for: using a tow to soak cool water and then rub it on your legs. It works fairly OK.

Late Night with Conan O'Brien

The great thing about Late Night with Conan O'Brien is Canon O'Brien's improv capability. Throwing him in any situation and he can make fun out of it. The reason I suddenly said these is because I am watching the show at hulu.com now, and found that even the shows during the writer trikes days are still very funny.

This makes me very worry about the upcoming Jimmy Fallon era of Late Night show.

Critisim

During the session with M. Alice LeGrow at A-kon, Alice reminded the audience how important it is to receive comment on the work you produce. People who can't take criticism won't produce good work. That rang a bell in my head because I had quite some fragment work (writing, sketching, art work) done but never shown to the public. So in the near future I should put them not only in blog, but also some armature writer site and get ready to be harshly criticized. What does kill me will only make me stronger.

You don't really think much while spending during the trip

I am now calculating how much I spent on the 1 day 2 nights A-kon trip. This sounds boring but I am a control freak, and that includes my finance. The result is pretty much I expected. In fact I didn't buy any souvenir during the trip at all. And yet I still feel like I spent more than I usually do when I was at Dallas.

Tourist sure is great for economy.

One day to recover

I am so glad that I have this Sunday to recover from A-kon. I always need one whole day to get myself together after a trip in order to gain back energy for regular work day.

Not much cheaper with greyhound

I found out that using Greyhound to go from Houston to Dallas doesn't really save much. It still takes $40 for one way. Plus there's a lot of advantage driving:

• I can arrange my car in whatever way I want.
• I can go whenever I want.
• I can bring whatever luggage I want.
• I guess to an extreme, I can even sleep in my car.

So I guess I will stick with driving by myself if I need to go to Dallas again.

Driving to A-kon

I found that a trip between Houston and Dallas used up 5/6 of my tank. That means the trip to and from A-kon 2008 costed me $35 one way, or $70 both way. I wonder if there's a cheaper way to go to Dallas.

By the way, it turns out that 4 hours driving is not too bad if you pick the right thing to listen. On my way from Houston to Dallas I chose Podcasts, which doesn't work too well. But when I drove back form Dallas to Houston, I listened to Harry Potter Book 7 audio book, and it was proven to be a fantastic choice. I was attracted by the story and the drive felt much shorter.

Of course, the 12 pack of Coke that I brought before the trip also helps a lot.

Hit or miss exercise

I was thinking of doing an exercise called "Hit or Miss" once everyday in order to train my English communication skill. Here's how it works: for any given question, answer it in one short sentence.

The reason I came up with that idea what that I found explaining things in wordy style most of the time, and found that it irritates people and make people less willing to chat with me. Not that I encountered something bad at A-kon, but I am such a self aware person. Being a software engineer, I am so used to fixing bugs when I find one.

Since I find a bug in my bug, I want to fix it :-P .

GPS

I was seriously considered getting a GPS device before A-kon because of my track record of getting lost during trips. But now it's proven that I can survive a long trip solely using maps printed out from Google Map site. I was still slightly lost when I tried to exit freeway to go to the destination of A-kon, but eventaully I made it by spotting the huge hotel name at the top of the building and navigate accordingly.

Once again, once iPhone 3G released (or official unlocked iPhone released), I will get one and use it as a GPS device.

Bleeding

I was nose bleeding this morning but it's OK now.

Biggest mistake: bring work to A-kon

I shouldn't have taken the task of writing a lyrics for a friend right before the A-kon. Result: I had to continue working on the lyrics during the downtime at A-kon (mostly while I was waiting for my friends to show up, or waiting in line). In fact I was STILL working on the lyrics yesterday while I was in theater waiting to see Houston Ballet's performance Three Classics, Five Tangos.

I still hope that I can meet the deadline, which is 12 hours later.

Meeting M. Alice LeGrow

I had totally no idea what I was looking for when I walked into the a panel session hosted by Ms. M. Alice LeGrow. All I knew was that:

• I was tired and I need to place to sit down.
  
• I perfer something that gives me more insight and information about how manga industry works in United States. And the panel topic "What's going on in the industry" sounds like something I was interested in.
  

So I went in the room, stay through the session, and was glad that I did so.

• She's such an hyperactive and interesting speaking even though she side track form the topic she was talking about like ... A LOT!
• She mentioned about a great book called Writer's Market which gives you all you need to start breaking into the industry.
• She constantly reminded us how important it is to meet your publishing schedule in order to continue stay in the business.
• She's much prettier in person than in any photo of her I saw online.
• She mentioned an indie comics that she loved called Thieves & Kings. As much as she enjoyed about indie publication, she reminded us the importance of getting an agent, and working for a publisher instead of going solo and independent. I found that really insightful, because she mentioned a lot of value added by the publisher, including having some professional editor to clean up your script and story plot and marketing people who knows how to make your story reaching out more audience.
  

Last word: Buy her book.

When will I learn to memorize names properly?

Ah .... I met quite some people at A-kon but I forgetting people's name even though their faces are clearly marked in my brain!! Why can't I learn how to use pen and paper? Here's a post I put on cosplay.com:

---------------------

Ahhhhhhh! I met someone right in front of the Rocky Horror Show entrance door getting ready to get in with my friends, and I FORGOT that girl's name! She wore a pink wig and mentioned that:

- She didn't know how to pronounce my forum name (oh, you can call me Xin or Sin :-P )
- She saw me at the Gravitation message thread on cosplay.com site.
- She gave a hug (so sweet!)

So if you are that girl, I am so Sooooorrrrry that ...

- I was slow that responding your hug. Hugging is such an uncommon thing in my culture, and I am still learning the American way :-<
- We didn't get much time to chat as I was worrying that I may lost my friend in the dark theater and want to get in with them.

Gomenasai!!! Could you leave me a message when you see this? Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!! And darn it why do I have to leave on Saturday?

Finding an Uygar Exchange Student I met a A-kon 2008

Here's a message that I posted at Cosplay.com forum which about my desperate seraching for someone I met at A-kon:

------------------------


I am very sorry if this is the wrong place to post this kind of message. Please direct me to the right spot if she. But when you are desperate, you gotta go all out.

I met a Uygar Exchange Student at A-kon on Friday at around 2 pm. We started chatting right at "Escape Reality clothing" booth on the ground floor, and we exchanged email address. Unfortunately, I lost her email address. So I am trying to find a way to contact her again.

The reason why I am so desperate is because the girl I met came from a place called Xinjiang Uygar Autonomous Region (sort of in China), which is EXACTLY the regional costume I was cosplaying at A-kon. Now imagine you love Sailor Moon so much that you cosplay Sailor Moon at A-kon, and then the lady who CREATED the Sailor Moon character came by and told you how much she appreciate your costume, and even exchange email address with you. And then later that night you found that were stupid enough to lost that email address. Yep, you got it. That's my feeling now.

Unfortunately I didn't take any photo of her, instead I only know these from our conversation:

- She speaks fluent English even though she was only in this country for 1 to 2 years.
- She didn't cosplay that day.
- She came because her friend dragged her to A-kon (she didn't even mention whether her friend was cosplaying that day)
- Her email has yahoo.com domain .
- She's an exchange student from Uygar (at least around that area)
- She was attracted by my yellow costume and asked where I got it.

So could someone who know this girl ask her to email me with the email I gave her? Thankkkkkkksssssss!


I know it is kind of hopeless to find someone this way, but then may be the idea "Six degrees of separation" really works.

Oh I also miss the dark skin girl who was in dark blue QiPao and chatting in Mandarin Chinese with me while I was rushing food court to get dinner, and then the pink wig girl who I met before the entrance of Rocky Horror Show .... Ahhh!!! Why didn't I bring a camera, or at least bring out the best ancient techology called pen and paper... Ahhh!

Father, please forgive all the mistake I made during A-kon knowing that this is the first convention of my life. Amen.