Dear Zerreth, How was NYAF 2009?

NYAF was last week, and this week I was swamped with projects due, so I haven't had much time to post. Sorry.

NYAF this year also had the World Cyber Games (WCG) national finals, so the booth vendors and attendees were actually mixed. Samsung had a booth near WCG as well as Sega, and I think that by hosting WCG at NYAF, it attracted a somewhat bigger crowd than last year. There was no maid cafe this year unfortunately. Next year, Comic-con is co-hosting with NYAF on the same day and share the same space. My thoughts are mixed about that, but I'll dive into that later.


This year, ATK wanted to go to the artist's alley again. This time, however, he and a few of his new friends in college wanted an artist's alley table as well. Prices actually went up in the artist alley by about 30%, whereas booths took a lesser hit. So instead of buying a table at the artist's alley, he decided to buy a booth and share the space with others. He contacted a new found friend at last year's NYAF, RedShoulder, and I contacted one of my college friends, Neolight, who was majoring in animation. Adding one of ATK's college friends we had 4 artists all sharing work at the booth.

Around August, ATK had to think of a name for the booth, so I proposed "Medley" as it was a group of artists with different styles and mediums all sharing work.


The first day (Friday) was relatively slow (as expected). All of us were all over the place trying to determine a better layout for the booth, we eventually ended up with a S shape with 3 tables. The table at the front would display all of our work while the tables to the side and back made an opening for others to enter the booth and allow attendees to extensively look at the artwork of each artist.


We had some support the second day. TheGunrun and his friend brought over some electronic equipment for us to try and advertise the booth better. At first we decided to have a small space dedicated to DJMax Trilogy so that we could try and hook some people in, but what ended up happening was that we were drawing a crowd of the wrong demographic, mainly those of the "join crowd because there's a crowd and leave once point of interest is now boring" group. It ended up distracting any onlookers from looking at the work, so we switched it to a stream of Neolight working on his animation on his tablet, and ATK's speed paints. For the later half of that day, I had to set up a playlist with my Zen as TheGunrun's PC on shuffle didn't really give us the music we needed.


The third day, we switched the setup so that there was only a monitor of DJMax playing and those interested would have to walk into booth to try. This shifted the crowd over to one side and freed up the front table so that it displayed everyone's artwork better.


I didn't track everyone's sales but I believe everyone at least once had a major sale one of the days. What surprised me the most at the convention was this one person who took a liking to ATK's Vocaloid crayon fanart (They're originally on this 17" X 22" paper) and bought them each for $50. We weren't intending to sell them, simply to display them to attract customers but who knew someone would take such a liking to it?

I feel that ATK and I should've also ordered DJMax Trilogy in bulk or something. The number of DJMax fans as well as those interested in buying the game was enormous. If only I linked them to this blog first, I could've probably gotten some commission from Play-asia...


I gotta say though. I was dead tired on Monday. I almost fell asleep in class and my performance in Kendo was atrocious. Regardless, this year was a good experience as well. Maintaining a booth and setting up a table at the Artist's Alley were on whole different levels.

I'm not sure what ATK should do next year though. Because NYAF is co-hosting with Comic-con, there's gonna be a larger number of attendees that will probably head on over to the artist's alley. At the same time, there's also going to be significantly more attendees. The closest thing to Comiket that we have here in the States is probably Otakon but nothing really focused on the artists. Hopefully, we'll get something like that soon.

NYAF 2009

Tomarrow is NYAF, and once again ATK and I will be there presenting artwork. This time, we'll be at Booth 131 along with 3 other artists who all do independent work. Aptly referred to as "Medley" we intend to try to make this bigger and hope to have more artists collaborate next year.

The Artist's Alley is fairly out of the way and cluttered which was a slight problem. In addition, prices increased and ATK decided to take advantage of this by buying a booth and sharing it among other exhibitors. Not only would this cut costs, but it also gives us prime space and more potential attention. Be sure to drop by.

DFO Early Beta Key results

Considering only one person commented. MrLucky77 will get two keys.

That means that I still have 5 remaining. If anyone else wishes to get a key at some point between early beta and open beta. Comment and I'll see what i can do.


In other news. I've pre-ordered Wet which looks like it's going to be that game that I wish was made already. Can't be sure though, and DFO begins tomorrow. Luckily, college hasn't roundhouse kicked me in the face yet.

New Artwork

I just got a chunk of work from ATK.



Another crayon sketch that blew my mind.



A nice piece of acrylic work. This one is pretty balanced in terms of contrast. My eyes are moving all over the place and I'm having a bit of a problem find a focal point, but it's good work nonetheless.



A good use of basics. A nice black and white piece with some really nice detail.



I had to "smart sharp" on photoshop on the original image. I think ATK took a hasty shot in capturing this image. Another interesting black and white using the dark background to highlight the tree.

Government spending is too much....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8252939.stm


First off. I JUST realized today was Saturday. ooooh boy. Second, I have an RSS feed to BBC and this happened to be the latest headline.
After reading the article, I'm a bit vexed at the situation. From what I understand, Obama's being criticized for spending too much money. I'm a bit troubled considering that this is coming from conservatives and from a certain president who likes guns.


I understand that Obama HAS spent quite a lot of money for a lot of stuff, and he's most likely going to spend even more. Considering the rate that he's spending and ASSUMING he continues this rate, somehow recovering from that is going to get hairy and most likely result in higher taxes, which by the way is a necessary evil.

A certain John Maynard Keynes created a macroeconomic theory that mostly involved deficit spending. It worked because the spending helped stimulate the economy. That spending was for jobs such as bridges. Because people got jobs, they then spent money, and that spending helped other companies and so forth.

Currently that's what Obama is doing. I'm not saying that we're going to revive immediately, nor am I saying that this kind of spending is a great idea. Certain criticisms on what he spend the money on, somewhat bother me.


In particular, GM. In general, Conservatives' policies with the government and economic involvement is to stay out of it. If the government doesn't do anything the economy will work itself out. This is capitalism, where bad companies are supposed to fall and companies with good policies thrive. At least.... they're supposed to do that. Apparently, when companies are doing well, they complain to the government to butt out of their business. When their policies fail and companies have to start using the red ink, they complain that the government isn't doing enough to support them. And if the government doesn't support them, they threaten the country with unemployment and argue that it's not the workers fault that they entered a falling company, THUS the government should help the company.... Of course bonuses are basically unchanged.... I think that's being spoiled.

To then criticise the government for them bailing out certain US based auto companies for their poor standards on vehicles really annoys me.


Then there's a certain shrub who was elected nine years ago who decided to have fun with the middle east. This person, (let's just say "bush") retaliated against Afghanistan and left immediately saying that it's not the U.S's job to "nation build," a term that involve the in US spending billions of dollars smothering another country and then rebuilding its infrastructure which would (is supposed to) result in a more stable country.

(Funny enough, because we left so quickly, we have to go BACK to Afghanistan.)

Of course this shrub then decided to attack Iraf and guess what.... more or less attempt to nation build Iraq and ruin a certain Powell's chances for presidency. War is bad in almost all regards. Economies spend vast amounts of money and often result in many issues later on. Things that benefit from it: Population control, military companies, and fuel suppliers.



This is what we call a double standard. And it's even worse since Bush isn't that far behind. Your hindsight doesn't need to be 20/20 to see the mistakes. You LIVED through them.


By the way. During World War II, the upper echelon of the income bracket was taxed heavily to try and reduce the debt that war builds. Taxes were cut when we went to Iraq.

I'm not gonna shed a tear for everything Obama does, and if this does continue, we're going to be in a bigger problem. At the same time, I don't stand for hypocrisy.

DFO Beta Key Giveaway Contest

Gamespot has "only" 50,000 keys available, and 1up.com apparently has now stopped releasing keys.

Considering that there were keys distributed at PAX, I find it hard to believe that anyone WOULDN'T have a key if they wanted. Regardless, I have 7 keys at my disposal to distribute. So I decided to host a contest to distribute keys. Here's how it works.


Simply post a comment with your e-mail address. There are restrictions however:

1. When you post a comment you are not allowed to choose anonymous. Anonymous

2. If you choose Name, you MUST type your email address or blog site as the URL.
2a. Name must be appropriate. You don't have to type your actual name, screen names are fine. I will completely disregard nonsense. You know who you are. I have some tolerance, but I still can't stand stupid.

3. No repeat entries. I understand that there are trolls and griefers, so it's best to use either an Open ID account (Live Journal, Word Press, Type Pad, AIM) or a gmail/blogger account. Because this is more easily traceable, it will guarantee you a slot.



Results will be revealed on the 14th where you can then download immediately and wait the next day.



Good Luck to you all.