The conclusion of my TFCon weekend--all without commericals! XD

So, today was a very tame day, as opposed to yesterday. I don’t know if people just didn’t get up early or if people left or if they bought all they wanted yesterday and didn’t have any more money to spend or what…………but the Dealer’s Room/Artist’s Alley was not as crowded today. And I’m comparing it to the fact of how yesterday they let premium and weekend pass people in at the same time and YOU COULD NOT EVEN MOVE. @_@

I had a couple of commissions that I went to see if they were done and………………neither artist had them done. The one guy was just working on it as I approached his booth, but the one girl SWORE she’d finished mine—because I was the only one who bought stuff from her that asked for Rodimus. So, as many people as I saw hovering around her booth at many points as she’d be often distracted by chatting people (with her or around her—she was in a very busy area of the AA), she thinks that it accidentally got taken/sold by someone who maybe came to her booth to buy something. So, she said she’d make sure it got done today………and I said I’d be going to a couple panels and would be back in after 1 p.m.—so she managed to finish it and hid the book/sketch this time so it wouldn’t get taken.

I talked myself out of the $170 Star Saber…………..even though it was a great temptation—I was looking at its size (it’s a very big one—bigger than the Hasbro “Leader Class” of their last few toy series lines) and thought I’d bought a lot of figures already. For a lesser amount, I got a Drift figure and some classic Casseticons—all Chinese company versions, with the ability to pose them pretty cool. The Cassetticons were versions of………the very first Cassetticons I had, Overkill (tiny Tyrannosaurus) and Slugfest (tiny Stegosaurus)—so I got those more for the nostalgia factor. There’s a part of me that, tomorrow, on the way home—I will regret getting that Star Saber, but………I think I should be glad I did curb my desire for it. (I’m not sure where I’ll display what I just got! XD)

I think two of the disappointing things for me about this convention was………..the odd layout of how “Artist’s Alley” was and the fact that there were no good vendors with unique tee-shirts. There was one vendor that had special styled ones, but their variety was severely limited to a niche and just only five or six designs………..but the other vendor had stuff that you can pretty much buy at a place like Hot Topic or even Wal-Mart’s character tees aisle, or definitely at any comic book convention I’ve ever gone to. On the positive side, I SAW a lot of unique tee-shirts that either people made themselves or probably purchased online………….ones I could admire and wish I had myself. In a similar vein—I saw LOTS of great cosplayers………….not as many with actual robot costumes as I expected, though (but the Drift and Ratchet pair was pretty fantastic—however, honestly if I see one more Dratchet thing this weekend, I may punch people…………………I rarely tire of people’s fan-pairings, but since this one is 99% official to the comic as of “Lost Light” #24……………..I dunno, I’m honestly just tired of seeing it everywhere). A lot of IDW avatar form ones—way more Rodimus cosplayers than I actually expected and LOTS of Cyclonus cosplayers. But this morning I saw my first avatar-Megatron cosplayer. There were a number of cosplayers from some of the gijinka artwork I’ve come across in Google image searches too—like the female Rodimus that looks incredibly Japanese-anime-ish. I wish I had more guts to ask to get people’s pictures…………. sigh

I went to a panel talking about collecting the toys and being a collector and that was fun, that guy hosting the panel was very funny. I caught part of one of his other panels yesterday and thought it’d be great to listen to him speak again. As a result, I didn’t need to leave the room for the James Roberts/Flint Dille writing panel—it was more or less treated as an “ask your question about writing panel” and they answered. I think some people deviated from their questions about writing to grill James Roberts a little more about the comics, but some good questions were asked and answered by the both of them. I think I would’ve wished for it to be closer to some of the writing panels I attended at FurCon in years past—where the panelists talked about writing and the writing process first, then took questions, rather than going straight to a Q&A format. But that just could be me, you know?

After the panels, I went back to the DR/AA to do a last sweep and purchase for figures or other stuff. I bought a lot more artist stuff today, than yesterday. A girl from the disappointing fanzine swap of yesterday, where I really liked her adorable stuff……..managed to get a table today, so I was actually happy to have the opportunity to purchase some of her merchandise and support her. (She hadn’t been able to get a table on Saturday, so I kind of felt bad for her to be regulated to a swap for her well-done and very cute merchandise—I’d have rather paid her for her stuff, as opposed to most of the others in the fanzine swap……….which, besides being focused more on AA quality stuff, rather than a casual fan-gathering, I felt was more of a place for people to get interest their adult materials which they couldn’t technically do in the DR/AA area being an “all ages” convention!) I got some prints and posters that I’m happy with. :)

Went to their wrap-up Q&A where they announced next year’s TFCon USA—and a lot of people asked if they’d consider doing it on the West Coast (which I guess they hadn’t done or hadn’t done in a long time?)……….and then at the end, it was announced to be in Los Angeles. chuckle Well, how about that? Next year, I’ll be going to an anime convention with a friend in April and then maybe a convention late in the year (Chicago ComiCon, most likely………but possibly Midwest FurFest???), but we’ll see. Overall…………..I got what I went for, I met some nice people and I had a good time, even if I was too shy to do most of the social things. But it was nice to see what my “base fandom” of all time was like. :)