The Old School Otaku Lounge

I was so busy with my con prep I totally spaced on getting your info to hang out, Akage! I Hope you had a good con. I had a lot of fun this weekend. I was helping on staff actually & all the Japanese guests I interacted with were very nice. I loved the free art prints they had available for Takada to sign! Did you go to the live drawing panel?

Were you the woman with the pinkish vest? She had a bunch of Lum merchandise on her lanyard that I guessed it was you.

I attended all the live drawing panels this weekend, so I was in the front row for the Takada panel. One of my friends had just opened a new credit card solely to buy that sketch. We were all there at the auction. That has to be one of the hardest auctions I've attended, not in terms of artwork selection, but simply because, even though the auction started around 8:30pm, they wouldn't auction the guest artwork until the guests arrived. That didn't start until 11-ish, and by that time, I was fading fast. Takada finished two additional small watercolors for the auction featuring Madoka and Noe, and Nishino sketched a few other things as well. Madoka sold for 1.5K, Noe for 1.8K and Lum for $10K. We all had a good laugh when the auctioneer said that this had to be the highest selling sketch at a US convention. I vehemently shook my head; The most I'd seen was $15K, whereas the same friend who opened up the credit card (he won the Madoka and Lum sketches) said the most he'd seen was $30K. The auctioneer asked us if we were sure about that, and we all hung our heads and said "Yes".

Due to the late ending auction and AnimeFest's payment site crashing as it processed our payments, I didn't return to my room until a quarter after one in the morning.

The preprinted boards were nice, just really oddly shaped. Had I not brought along the canvas print I bought from Izumi Matsumoto years ago to be signed, it would have been hard to travel home with them. The oddest item I saw at the autograph session was a Japanese UY Pachinko machine. The guy trudged along the upper light up panel to have Furukawa and Hirano sign...and then he skipped getting Takada's autograph on it

Yes that was me! Aww darn I wish you'd said hi!!

I'd heard it went for $10k, but I thought that was a rumor! Wow. Do you remember what the $30k piece was? Out of curiosity.

I think I saw someone carrying around that machine! That's so odd they didn't get Takada to sign.... The prints are kind of an odd size, but I put it next to one of my lps and I think it should fit in a record frame easily!

I didn't want to be the odd nut asking rando people if they were on a board I frequent. ^^'

I wasn't there for the 30K auction. 2009 marked the beginning of my transition from cel to sketch collector, and I had no idea that they auctioned that sort of thing at charity auctions. My friend who won the AF Lum sketch mentioned that it was a Takada sketch from the last time she was at AX in 2009. The 15K sketch was a full color Kenshin w/o the scar sketch done by Watsuki that sold at Fanime in 2011. I think I have the auction picture for that somewhere...

I'm not quite sure what to do with my boards. I don't think they'll fit the usual mylar bags I use for paper artwork, so I'll have to buy ones specifically for them.

At 17 hours, Dallas would be a possible drive, should top pros show again. They get rarer every year...
I'm not sure if artist GoHs will ever draw freely again. When the gains can reach those cosmic amounts, I bet permission to draw the "auction curtain" is easy to get. I know my own modest portfolio of $0.00 sketches would be bare if this arrangement had been indulged when cons were small.

Here's the pic of the Watsuki sketch I mentioned -



Takada posted a picture of the three sketches she donated to the auction on her Twitter account.

It's really a different environment since exclusively dedicated anime conventions began in the early 1990s, let alone during my short experience attending them. What was once free is now available for a hefty fee, with the nicest of things going to convention sponsors. Conventions, even those claiming to be run by fans or listing themselves as a charity, are being run as if they are a business. It's no longer about meeting guests who worked on something you love, but more about whether or not the guest can attract enough fans to offset the costs of their flight, food and lodging.

Wow, nice Kenshin! I think some of that also has to do with the size of conventions now. Anime cons used to be fairly small cuz not a ton of people went to them....So it was no biggie if fans wanted sketches, since maybe 50 people or less would show up for an autograph session. Now, most anime cons have lines in the thousands, so it's understandable a guest would say they probably couldn't do sketches for everyone.

I think the one and only time I was ever able to get a sketch at a con was Nobuteru Yuki at Sakura-con...and even then, after a while he had to stop because his hand was hurting. (I was actually the last person in the line to get one...everyone after me only got a signature. ) He drew Harle in my Chrono Cross Ultimania book.

Yuki was at Animazement a couple of years back, and the con staff stated that it was strictly for autographs and no sketches. Well, it takes the one dummy to ask for a sketch before everyone else wanted to get one, which is why the link took way longer than usual. I just had him sign my Lodoss War DVD, and had I'd known he was doing sketches, I could have had him sketch Lucifer or Angel from Angel Cop for me. Maybe it'll happen next time, I just have to remember. He was a very polite gentlemen.

DKop wrote:Yuki was at Animazement a couple of years back, and the con staff stated that it was strictly for autographs and no sketches. Well, it takes the one dummy to ask for a sketch before everyone else wanted to get one, which is why the link took way longer than usual. I just had him sign my Lodoss War DVD, and had I'd known he was doing sketches, I could have had him sketch Lucifer or Angel from Angel Cop for me. Maybe it'll happen next time, I just have to remember. He was a very polite gentlemen.

Brother, I really wanted to go to that one to see Yuki. Been holding on to sign-ables since Escaflowne aired...
Having a rare sketch "near miss" is the worst luck. When Matsubara had been an ACEN GoH a couple times, there was a random sketch raffle for the crowd. One of my pals next to me in line WON BOTH YEARS. He has a pair of the Sakura Taisen girls probably sitting in a closet

Actually come to think of it, I think along with my Lodoss Wars DVD he signed the ADV DVD of Five Star Stories, and there wasn't a "one item per guest" restriction at that time. I'd have to double check on that, but my anime is boxed up right now till I move in the next couple of weeks.