Hey everyone! Thanks for stopping by the site. We are working on over 28 hours of video from ACEN and processing the photos today (monday). I hope to start getting them uploaded to our facebook fansite for tagging and will get them up in higher resolution here later on tonight or tomorrow. We have over 1000 photos to go through.
We also have the following videos we are hoping to get done by the end of the week:
I will be checking with my hosting company to see if we can provide a few of the videos for download so you can watch them in full HD on your computer.
Check back soon! In the meantime please like us on facebook and upload some of your own pictures!
Welcome to all our fans and all the new folks we met at ACen! We will be proudly hosting our first ever live event tonight at approx 6pm CST. The Anime Central Masquerade LIVE!
I will not have a chance to update the site before we head out to ACen so just a few quick notes:
Check out our facebook fan page which will have updates as to whats going on and where we will be at at ACen!
We will be attempting to broadcast the masquerade LIVE at ACen. You can click our LIVE! button on the bar above to see the viewer. If everything goes well you can watch it live or anytime afterword immediately via the on-demand section. I wanted to use 2 HD cameras for this but we are running out of budget for Acen and will have to settle for 1 HD cam for live. We will still be doing 3 HD camera footage for youtube though and will get those out as soon as possible after ACen.
Hope to see you there!
Another quick update! 5/7/10
We are starting to add our videos to facebook so you can tag yourself if you are in it. No more “It’s me at 3:14″! Get on over to our facebook fanpage!
Update 5/10/10
Megatokyo confirmed that we can film their panel!!! YEY! I am a HUGE Megatokyo fan. ^_^ We tested our live broadcasting gear over the weekend and our feedback was good. Ordered a CLEAR WiMAX card this morning as a 3rd option if our att or sprint 3g cards dont work at the Hyatt. Im working on all the animations and stuff we will be using for Acen and im still hoping to get to the Hyatt today (monday) or tomorrow (tues) to do some filming for a “Get ready!” video. We will see how things go.
Lots of stuff going on lately for us. We have been doing alot of testing and getting the equipment necessary to start doing live HD streaming of events and masquerades at conventions starting with our 1 year anniversary convention ACEN! We are really excited about this and think it will be a hit. You will be able to see everything as it happens and if you miss it, you can watch the archived show immediately. Right now we plan on doing 2 HD cameras for the live stream and 3 for the youtube skit uploads. If we can get some sponsors, ads or support from the conventions we will expand that into a full 5 HD camera live streaming setup over the next year. If you or your company / con is interested in sponsoring us or buying some ad space please contact us by clicking contact at the above link.
Secondly we finally got another HD editing station setup for Brandi! She is learning final cut and already working on some videos to start chipping away at the backlog we have. My real life job has been eating a ton of my time over the last month so this should help us stay somewhat current. Alot of people want to see things right away and we wish we could do that for you but until we can make this a full time job it will take us a few weeks sometimes to get stuff up for you. We are working on that part though.
Convention News:
C2E2
Soulcrash just got back from C2E2 last weekend and is working on getting us his video and photos. Im really looking forward to seeing these and Ron always does a great job. C2E2’s press department was great to work with and very responsive. Im really looking forward to bringing the entire crew to this convention next year and according to what Ron has told me its a GREAT time. For those of you needing a fix before ACEN in the Chicago area its a great one to put on your list.
Anime Central 2010
We confirmed with the ACEN press department at C2E2 that we have our press badges for ACEN and we could not be more excited!!! ACEN is our home convention and we are happy that our yearly anniversaries will always be spent here! Im working on putting together our shooting schedule for the con but right now here is what we are looking at:
Megatokyo 10 year anniversary panel (pending authorization from ACEN still) Spoony Bards Concert *Confirmed!
ACEN Masquerade
ACEN Soap Bubble And Sewing Is Half The Battle Cosplay Panels
Remember that you can still vote on our facebook fan page in the discussions section to get a panel into our shooting list.
We will hopefully have two teams this year with cameras roaming the hallways looking for your cosplay picture. Make sure to track us down!
In other news we will be handing out badge ribbons throughout the convention. 1 of these will be our 1 year anniversary ribbon and two other secret ones that you will have to check on the site during the convention to find out how to get! On sunday we plan to award a $50 visa gift card to the first 2 people to collect all 3 ribbons during the convention! In the future we hope to be giving out at least 2 ribbons at each convention we attend.
Other Conventions:
Marcon is coming up right after ACEN and we are looking forward to it. Im still waiting on press badges and authorization to do photos and film while there but im sure it will go through. The Wold Steampunk Expo is the same weekend as Marcon and we are working to get Soulcrash up to cover that one. Next year I hope they are not on the same date so we can bring the entire crew to both.
OMGcon is our first convention in june and this one is a BALL. We love OMGcon to death and highly recommend that you attend if possible. They have some really fun events and the staff is amazing. Paducah KY is not that far of a drive and its totally worth it. At the end of june is JAFAX! Up in Grand Rapids MI this is an amazing FREE 2 day con. We had a lot of fun there last year and are really looking forward to going again.
Event News:
This weekend we will be at the Chicago Zombie Pub Crawl! This event is a great time and we highly suggest you go if you are in the Chicago area. Its followed up by a full on Zombie March in June and we will be there as well! BRAAAAAINSSSS! /NOM I will be bringing out my Tallahassee cosplay for this year.
Project News:
We are still working on getting the cosplay wiki off the ground and hope to have that open to the public in the next 2-3 months. It will be the first wiki of its kind devoted ENTIRELY to cosplay. How to make costumes, makeup, props… everything you need to help you make those awesome wings you have seen, etc. We are hoping that it will help out the cosplay community a bunch and cant wait to see how its used.
Contest News:
DSLite Contest…. hummmm…. maybe I set the number of emails too high? Seems that we are not getting alot of interest in this so I think we will bring the DS to ACEN and try to give it away in some fashion. Maybe for the ribbon gathering as a prize? If you have an idea be sure to let us know!
Cool stuff:
(This will be an attempt to show you some fun crazy stuff and maybe recommend some good anime to you.)
Remember to check out our Facebook Fan Page (All the really cool stuff is happening here!) and follow us on Twitter. We are posting all our photos on facebook for you and your friends to tag. We really do ALOT on the fanpage so make sure you check it out!
Ok. This will be a short update because we are backed up on things to get done. Here are the next 5 videos from Anime Milwaukee! Enjoy!
We are still about 20 emails away from having a winner in the DS Lite contest. Get your feedback emails to us today!
Remember to check out our Facebook Fan Page (All the really cool stuff is happening here!) and follow us on Twitter. We are posting all our photos on facebook for you and your friends to tag.
Everything is falling into place for ACEN and we are super excited. We have started to see alot of new people searching for ACEN videos and making comments so we can tell that excitement is in the air.
Ohayocon 2010 Review (Just a little late!) by Brandi:
Masquerade and Jonthan Coulton Concert
The main event room was far away from the rest of the con, which slightly sucked, but it was worth the trip to see Jonathan Coulton and of course get great footage of the masq. The masq was set up very well with little flaws happening, which was nice to see ^-^. We loved the MCs Zack and Jim do an amazing job keeping the audience entertained during the whole show. There were a lot of very good skits here..We were thoroughly impressed by most of them J (most of them are up on our youtube page). Also, in the walk-ons there were some pretty amazing costumes.
Right after the masq was the Jonathan Coulton concert!!! So of course we stayed and Nick even talked to Jonathan and he let us film it!! But Nick has to clear all the legal issues first before we can put them up for you guys L but the concert was amazing! And I suggest if anyone has the chance, ever, to go to one of his concerts to do so, you will really enjoy yourself.
Rave
Let’s see… that rave, ok so it was awesome cuz we got to see Greg Aryes and talk with him again ^-^ but it kinda sucked that the room was small and every hour or two they would kick everyone out of the room and cycle in new people. I understand this probably helps to make sure everyone stays hydrated and such but when the line is THAT long they just need to get a new room or new plan >.< Anywho, Greg is an awesome DJ so no problems with the music the videos played were a little creepy but we still had fun!
Hotel
We stayed at the Marriott Courtyard, only a few streets away from the con. It was an amazing hotel! For the first time ever we didn’t have any problems here and they were very nice! They would call a cab for us and help with everything no problem ^-^ and they had valet parking which never caused any problems either. We will definitely be staying there again next time we go. The room we had was very large (plenty for all of us and our excessive crap lol). And the view was nice at night but I think the city just looks better, generally, at night. It was a very comfy hotel, with a microwave and a fridge in our room X3 .
Friday
On Friday, it was only Nick and I but we got a lot accomplished ^-^ we learned they layout of the con, grabbed our press badges, gabbed with our friends at the OMGcon booth, went to the Steampunk panel, made friends with some amazing Sailor Scouts ;), interview with the Gurren Lagann girls, photoshoot with our friends CJ and Lisa cosplaying Time Lords from Doctor Who, and finding time to squeeze in food. Needless to say, once we got back, we were pretty tired. So we hit up the hot tub to relax then went back to the room from alittle bit of WoW playing till the rest of our crew arrived J
Saturday
We all really liked the area where the convention was located. It had a lot of room and very spacious for taking pictures and having large crowds. It had many different “settings” to take pictures which helped a lot, though we had to be careful of the time of day for lighting. We all LOVED the food court!! First con ever were an abundance of food is available that you don’t have to travel for!! This was right in the convention center and they had options for everyone ^-^ It was super convenient and a great place to see/meet people. We had fun doing some small photoshoots with the Yes Girls and their crew and also just walking around the halls grabbing people.We even talked to Chris Aryes for a bit about his new voice acting role.
Sunday
Again Food court was awesome; we all enjoyed a nice large breakfast. Sadly 4 of our crew had to bail out early on Sunday but Nick and I stayed for a few hours longer and did a photoshoot with an amazing steampunk group, who then changed for us into their fantastic Guild costumes ^-^ We had fun and made new friends.
Webcomic: Penny Arcade! We LOVE these and if you dont know about them you should. They are behind the awesome Child’s Play charities and PAX. One of these days we are going to try to get to a PAX as I hear they are amazing fun.
Anime: Valkyria Chronicles Anime (Sorry, all I could find on youtube was the opening. Its good though!)
DS Lite Contest:
We are coming up on the winner for the DS Lite contest. Less than 60 emails to go! Please go ahead and send us in an email! It just has to be a short single paragraph giving us feedback on what you like or would like to see on the site. Its EASY and you could win the DS!
Remember to check out our Facebook Fan Page (All the really cool stuff is happening here!) and follow us on Twitter. We are posting all our photos on facebook for you and your friends to tag. I will be adding older convention photos as I have time.
Convention Videos:
Really big thanks go out to Soulcrash for getting all this great video of Anime Milwaukee! Enjoy the first 5!
Well, it looks like Anime Boston is not getting back to us on press badges. It sucks that we missed the press deadline by only a few days. We will have to put that one off until next year. While it might have been really cool to just wander the hallways and do cosplay photos we decided against it. Brandi has been there before and without a press badge it would be really difficult to get into events and we would not be able to film the masq.
That means that our next convention is ANIME CENTRAL! This is our home convention and we are super excited! If you are interested in setting up a photo shoot with us send in an email right away! We are only doing about 2 per day so we can focus on the events, panels and hallway cosplay.
Webcomic: 8-bit Theatre This an awesome Final Fantasy sprite comic.
Time Waster:Alice is dead. This is a flash adventure game.
Website: GIANT Microbes! I don’t know about you but I am ordering Ebola. SO KEWT! >.<
Anime: Soul Eater We have been seeing ALOT of Soul Eater cosplay and finally had a chance to check out the series. Its pretty good!
Convention Videos:
Things have been really crazy in real life over the past 2 weeks. This has put us a bit behind on videos but here is what we are working on:
Anime Milwaukee!
A&G Ohio Cosplay Wrestling
Ohayocon Cosplay Review
Brandi will be helping out with videos starting as soon as I can get her the equipment. That should help us out a TON for getting out more videos.
DS Lite Contest:
Things are going really well with the DS Lite contest! We are about 160 emails right now and still looking for #250 to win the DS Lite! All thats required is that you send us a brief email with some feedback. We have got a ton of good stuff so far and already put some of it into play!
1). Change the gallery so its ordered newest first
2). Do more multi-camera stuff! (People would rather wait a bit for really good stuff).
3). More hallway cosplay! We are going to be shrinking our photoshoots at conventions to only 2 a day so we can do more hallway cosplay photos.
4). Panel filming! We will be posting the schedule for the convention and allowing you to vote on 2 panels / events per day that we will then film and publish (as long as its ok with the panelist!).
5). Win free badges to conventions! We have not figured out how we will be doing this but in the future we will be doing contests for free weekend badges to conventions.
6). Start a COSPLAY wiki. This would be community maintained and will contain measurements, materials and all the information we can get to help cosplayers with costumes. This will be a HUGE undertaking but expect updates on it soon. This will be the ONLY wiki devoted to cosplayers and the creation of costumes.
You have a chance to provide direct input on what you see here! Dont waste it and send us an email! You might even win the DS… :)
Remember to check out our Facebook Fan Page (All the really cool stuff is happening here!) and follow us on Twitter. We are posting all our photos on facebook for you and your friends to tag. I will be adding older convention photos as I have time.
By the power of alcohol, 5 hour energys, and techno we magically appeared at the Cincinnati convention, A&G!
Hotel
For this convention we stayed at the Holiday Inn (which just happens to be the location of the convention on the main floor :P). Small but very nice as far as our hotel experience goes, but being as that we stayed in a room with friends we didn’t have much interaction with the hotel staff. The few we did interact with were very nice and helpful. The hotel is conveniently located right off the interstate with plenty of food and stores for all your needs. The Holiday Inn is right across the street from the Eastgate Mall, which is a very short walk from the con, and has a large food court with plenty of options.
We ourselves sampled Buffalo: Wings and Rings on Friday in the mall (a slight knock off of Buffalo Wild Wings *though not as good*) but was still very yummy though sadly lacking enough Killians for the 2 of us…. but making it up with a Blue Moon for myself and yummy, boneless, parmesan garlic wings! We give them a B ^-^
Then for lunch on Saturday we took the ‘long’ trek to O’Charlies (right across the parking lot from the con). We had some interesting and fun looks from the costumers as we and a few cosplaying friends arrived but everyone was friendly and never actually said anything. Though lacking in the vegetarian food department for one of our friends, O’Charlies is a good place for those carnivores out there. For those who have never experience O’Charlies they are a restaurant much like T.G.I. Fridays, Logans, and Applebees.
Ok first things first- the good things about the Holiday Inn hotel/convention area =
Hot tub- though small, it still felt amazing!
Fancy, with a fountain, waterfall, bridge/river, and pond in the lobby; also a nice restaurant too
Friendly staff and an easy check-in
Convenient and easy parking
The bad things about the Holiday Inn hotel/convention area=
Poorly stocked pop machines!
Small main event rooms
Friday
When we arrived at the con we were greeted in the parking lot by a transformer of epic proportions! A fully functional, semi Decepticon! (pictures will be up lol) Made from a torn-up semi in a junk yard by Travis Lyon (www.DecepticonMotormaster.com).
Once we finally made it in the door (after getting side tracked by the Decepticon) we visited con ops for our badges and then began our random wandering of the convention. Happy to see familiar faces, we greeted those we knew before continuing on our mission to get lost, which we happily succeeded at till we finally made our scope of the terrain and stalked out our prey…. I mean subjects <.<
Also, we attended the Anime Cosplay Wrestling event that went over quite well. The staff was very creative when they created this event. It is both unique and original. The con rented an actual wrestling ring for the event that the staff seemed to enjoy playing on very much. Though the crowd was quiet most of the time (probably from the suspense ;P lol) it was fun to watch.
Saturday
After rolling out of the holes we slept in and exiting zombie mode, we stumbled downstairs and, lo and behold, to our surprise there were many more cosplayers and the energy had risen from the day before! We set up shop and began mini-photo shoots inside for friends and random cosplayers we managed to nab. The day went well since we made some new friends. We visited the dealers room and browsed for a short while before returning to the halls, but of course not before we said hi to John and his cohorts at the Fast Food Anime booth.
Of course with it being Saturday the main event of the day was the Cosplay Contest! Though short, there were many interesting costumes and amusing skits. The videos will be posted as soon as we can. ****Oh! AND A NOTE TO ALL COSPLAYERS WHO ENTER A COSTUME CONTEST!! When you walk across the stage for walk-ons, pause when you reach the center of that stage at least for 3-5 seconds so the photographers can grab a photo of your costume! You put a lot of work into your costume, I’m sure, so please let us see it and get a good photo of you rather than a picture of your back as you flee off stage!!!!***
Convention Overall
As a whole we enjoyed ourselves; it was great to see old friends and new friends alike. Con staff was very friendly and helpful even with being busy and stressed (and Jen’s duct tape dress was fantastic btw!) They seemed very organized, though as we have seen with other small cons they seemed to have issues with their sound systems too.
The con-goers were mostly younger (teens) in age and less cosplayed then we expected. It was very internet/troll-e…. many people holding cardboard signs, many free hugs, etc. :\ but it happens. Sadly when we arrived the energy of the con on Friday was very low; happily it was much better on Saturday (probably because people finally recovered from their trips to the con).
If you have any other questions about the con feel free to email either myself or Nick and we will get back to you as soon as we can!
We are heading out this friday morning to Columbus OH for A&G! Hoping to arrive around 1pm and start getting in some photos and videos. If you would like a photoshoot friday will be the day for it. Just send an email to the contact button above and let us know! The masq will get filmed and the skits put on youtube over the next few weeks.
We missed the press badge application for Anime Boston by a week but I am still trying to get them to consider us. If you know someone on Anime Boston staff please throw them a friendly reminder that we would love to come and cover the convention!
Ron will be heading to Anime Milwaukee this weekend. He will be doing photoshoots and getting video of their masq. Expect those on the site in the next few weeks!
We have put in our application to C2E2 Chicago for press badges. Ill let you know when we hear back from them. If they say yes we will be covering that as well.
I have spent HOURS browsing around this site downloading AWESOME video game remixes. There is some really cool stuff here. Just type the video game you would like to find some tracks on in the search bar.
Some of you might already know of Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw from his weekly series on The Escapist called Zero Punctuation Reviews. Check them out for a great time! Did you know he also makes his own 2D oldschool adventure games? They are along the lines of Secret of Monkey Island and Space Quest. You can download his games for free (or the special editions for a donation, they are WORTH it). While slightly annoying at points the story telling is great with mystery, horror and suspense.
Anime of the week: Toradora
Convention Videos:
I was not able to get any new videos done this week. Im hoping to buckle down tonight and knock out at least 1 to post in this spot tomorrow.
Contest News:
We have a Nintendo DS Lite in our hands and ready to give away. However we just cant seem to come up with a really GREAT contest to do so. If you have some awesome ideas go ahead and send us an email by clicking contact in the title bar. We hope to have everything put together and ready for next weeks update!
Remember to check out our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter. We are posting all our photos on facebook for you and your friends to tag. I will be adding older convention photos as I have time.
but I think the city just looks better, generally, at night. It was a very comfy hotel, with a microwave and a fridge in our room X3 .
