FIRST THINGS FIRST. Still looking for Bro Calendar participants!! Guys, I'm getting desperate now!! I'll now take pre-drawn images, as long as they fit the theme and size requirements, and haven't been in a previous Bro Calendar! You can also do multiple entries! You'll get an additional copy of the calendar (or any in-print manga volume of your choice) for each additional calendar!

Okay, now, other things. This is only over a month after the convention, hahahahaha…

Warnings: Swearing everywhere, rambling, fangirling. 7 Photos.
( SAN DIEGO COMIC CON 2013: We Came, We Saw, I FangirledCollapse )

It has been FAR too long since I made a proper LJ post. I meant for this post to be about Comic Con, but that's only half-written and I don't have the energy to finish it tonight.

But yeah, went to Comic Con a couple weeks back and had a great time, but I'll ramble for pages and pages about that in another post. The weekend before that, my brother, dad, Nur, and I went to an A's game vs the Red Sox. Great game, the A's won, had great seats, everything was great. Except that we left like an hour later than I wanted and missed out on the giveaway for the game; a Reddick jersey replica. Reddick is my favorite A's player, I wanted that, boooo. My dad told me I could leave early to get one, but I wanted to go as a family, so… bah. Oh well, I can make my own or something.

The day after the game was my dad's birthday and it just happened that my uncle and aunt from SoCal were staying at my parents' place that night on their way to Seattle! We had a nice dinner with lots of pleasant conversation.

Last week Nur kindly took me to a local jewelry shop… to get my A's hat signed by Eric Sogard! Because for some reason he was signing there? He's really cute and seems nice and now my hat has a nifty signature on it! The next day we went to the J-Pop Summit in J-Town and participated in the Real Escape Game which we TOTALLY WON (along with like 600 other people BUT STILL, we've never won/escaped before). Saw awesome people there too, and it was generally just awesome.

Uhhh what else has been going on… oh! The always lovely Jump crew was kind enough to let me join them on last week's (7/29's) Shonen Jump podcast! I give terrible opinions and advice! I'll also be on the next episode (8/5's), because I happened to be in the office that day, but I'm still terrible in it, so yeah. But I did get to talk a bit about two books I worked on that are coming out on 8/6 (Nura 16 and Tegami Bachi 14) and say a few words about Ayatsuri Sakon. The awesome editor for Blue Exorcist is on the 8/5 podcast too, with some great Blue Exorcist discussion. The podcasts talk about the current Jump issue, so beware of spoilers!!!

I went to visit Viz on Friday and ended up coming home with a box of books because I'm a manga loverhoarder. It was like 30lbs and I had to drag it from about Pier 39 to the Embarcadero BART station which is… pretty far if you're trying to lug around a box of manga. Nur came to my rescue and ended up carrying it the last four or five blocks to the BART station and then from our stop to his car. T^T~♥ Like I told him in my plea-text for help, my eyes are much bigger than my muscles. Then we came home to three big boxes from RightStuf, a bajillion books from like… four different HUGE orders from the last three or four months. It was manga madness in our apartment, got something like 125 new volumes in total yesterday. Where the hell will I put all these? At least right now I feel pretty satisfied with all my manga… stuff. Like there's nothing nagging in the back of my head, reminding me to pick up this or that. I should have pretty much everything I follow preordered for the next few months and hopefully I should be able to avoid any major orders or manga splurging.

Oh, I also got the Tsuritamas BluRays in from Sentai yesterday. Love dem fishing boys. SPEAKING OF WHICH! Anyone want to cosplay Haru from Tsuritama at Japan Expo USA? We have a Yuki, a Natsuki, and an Akira (with Tapioca!!), but no Haru yet. =(

I'm also trying to finish up John Doe from Dream Eater Merry for Japan Expo USA, but I'm sorta thinking I'll just take it slow and wear it for Minna no Anime's Halloween Party? Ehhhh… I haven't decided.

Went to another A's game today, another lovely game, but I slept terribly the night before and the sun during the game sapped my energy. And I also got sunburned, lol.

It's been sorta busy lately, but in a fun way. Good times.

THIS PART IS IMPORTANT!
The Bro Calendar 2014 is still looking for participants! Please sign up! Tell your friends!

Back from Japan! Actually, have been back for about three weeks. Had a great time and I'll post a gajillion pictures in a bit, but I need to get some projects out of the way first.

Haven't posted at all lately because I came back and all sorts of projects have been demanding my time. Halloween is coming up, and I have two costumes to finish before then. They're personal projects, obviously, but I still have a deadline! I'm working on a boy!Inga from Un-Go for the Minna no Anime Halloween Party and a feral tengu for just regular Halloween. Inga is nearly done, thank goodness. The tengu? Lots to go. Finished the beak and I think I have all the fabric, but don't have much else done, gah! In addition to those, I spent way too long designing and creating a display stand to use at my cousin's wedding… just to have it come out a huge failure and decide not to bring it. I'll post pictures of it later. I've gone from loving it at the design stage to hating it at the fabrication stage to thinking maybe it's not so terrible now that's it's 99% done. (Still looks like some sort of 3rd grade art project though!!) Arrrghhh and I still need to finish my Bro Calendar picture by Monday! Just need to shade it…

Then of course I've had job-work… That's been a strange series of OMGWORK and oh… yeah.. nothing to do. I have plenty of books to work on, it's just the usual trouble of missing one or more things that will allow me to actually do the work!

Finishing up His Favorite v3 (draft 1) this weekend. Love love LOVE this series, I highly recommend it. It's BL, but it's just about work safe. The books are rated Older Teen and although you know the two characters are making out and doing some slight fooling around, you never see anything. I don't mean it's censored, I mean… in three volumes, there are two scenes that are even close to showing anything. One is an off-panel hand job and the other is them sitting on top of a made bed with a box of tissues. MAYBE THE CLEANEST YAOI, LOL. Super super cute stuff, love working on this series, love reading this series, love love love love love this series. The first volume is out now, the second comes out… in December, I think? Please check it out!

Somehow that reminds me… Hey friends, you know that if you have a problem with the way a manga company is handling a manga your best option is not to just rage quit and not buy it anymore, it's to TELL THE COMPANY (and sure, not buy it until they "fix" what they are doing wrong). These companies have no idea if they are doing things "wrong" unless someone SAYS something. Let them know what you don't like about the book. They may not change it, but YOU NEVER KNOW. Email them, write a letter, pester them on Facebook or Twitter. Let your voice be heard! I know I'd like to know if someone doesn't like the work I've been doing. It's embarrassing to keep making the same "mistakes" (or keep doing things people don't like) because I simply don't know better. On that note: if you read any books I work on and dislike something about the lettering PLEASE let me know. I want to continue to get better, and I have trouble seeing my own mistakes in my work!!

Ummmmm. Yeah. Going to Seattle for the first time this weekend because my cousin is getting married! Very excited about that, but I worry that most of the time I'll be locked in my hotel room working, hahahaha! At least I'll be able to feast on the delicious seafood as I work! Yum yum yum!!

Been watching Seirei no Moribito with Nur because I was finally able to get my hands on the first BluRay set (after having it on order for months from a couple different places). We're about 2/3 through and it's just as good as I remember. And such a visual feast! I love it to bits.

After a bunch of rounds of corrections, I finally sent in final (fingers crossed) files for a BL book I had been working on. Sent in files for X/1999 vol 3 as well, so hoping those all go through alright. Been working on Psyren v11 between corrections, and it's coming along well enough. Haven't really been rushing on it because it's not due until June. Platinum 5 is at the licensor right now, so not much to do for that. Really, I'm just going slow until I get scripts for things due soon. I'm afraid everything I'm waiting for file and/or scripts for will come in all at once. But what can I do until then? I'm just going to relax, work on Psyren v11, and enjoy life.

With work in a bit of a slump, I SHOULD be working on my costumes for Fanime, but Persona 4 is still demanding my attention. I'm so addicted to this game it's ridiculous. My excuses for not working on cosplay (mainly the lack of supplies or references) are quickly being remedied, so soon I'll have to find a balance between P4 and cosplay during my free time!

Persona 4 is still delicious. Maybe more delicious than it was last week. It had me laughing so hard the other day I thought I was going to be sick. My train of thought while playing the game right now is pretty much "KANJI KANJI KANJI," but WHAT CAN I SAY? IT'S (fictional) LOVE.

Started rewatching Sacred Seven. Since Bandai isn't going to be putting out new releases, the chances for Sacred Seven to come out on BluRay here are significantly slimmed and I was hit with a great sense of sadness. Unfortunately, that sadness led me to check if the limited edition Japanese release of the first disc came with a box. And it did. And cards with Alma on them. I do LOVE me some Alma, so yeah… ordered it. I'm not itching to suddenly buy the other BluRays for it and I don't care all that much if I get the limited editions of all of them (just needed the first because ALMA and BOX), so I'll try to pick up the discs second-hand next time I go to Japan. I will probably order the Night movie, even if it is just a rehashing, because… no, I don't have any good reasoning besides "WANT IT. NOW." It doesn't release until April, so not breaking the bank all of a sudden, thank goodness.

Yeah, that's pretty much everything going on in my life right now. Pretty boring.

Thank-you jen_kat for the lovely card! ♥

Yesterday a bunch of awesome people came over to watch the awesome movie Redline. I had so much fun, thank-you to everyone who came! I hope we can do something like this again soon. We went out to dinner, watched Redline, watched silly/stupid/awesome videos, and tried to play Oregon Trail. We named our team after Tiger & Bunny characters (Agnes led the team of Kotetsu, Barnaby, KeithJohn, and Yuri). Kotetsu died not one minute into the game, Barnaby died shortly after we lost all our clothes, and Yuri was sick when we had to stop playing because we couldn't get the second part of the game to load. OUR POOR PATHETIC TEAM! We even had to shoot a couple of Rock Bisons to keep Agnes, Yuri, and KeithJohn alive. (P.S. To the people who were over last night but haven't seen T&B yet, you can watch it free and legally here!! EVERYONE SHOULD AT LEAST CHECK IT OUT! …but the trailers are pretty mehhhhhh, don't judge the show by them.)

Got all the fabric I needed for Inga's panda hat and I finally drafted a pattern. I cut out everything in some extra fleece and pinned it, but I didn't feel like sewing it today. Tomorrow, perhaps. I made a pattern for Plush!Kazamori and cut all those pieces out too. Both the hat and Kazamori are going to be olive green and white, so they'll look weird, but they're just test pieces. If they do turn out, I'll post the patterns for anyone interested. (That's a big if though!!)

Work has been good… it was really busy for a while, I had something like five volumes due over six or seven weeks. To get a sense of how INSANELY CRAZY THIS IS, generally I can work at a good pace and finish a volume in two weeks. I lucked out and was able to get a volume of Tegami Bachi done in less than a week and a volume of X done in four days. FOUR DAYS! Of course, that's because that X volume was like A GIFT FROM THE GODS and was EASY BEYOND BELIEF. The other three books were pushed back because of troubles getting files for them. It means I'll be scrambling to finish them when the files do come in, but it's very nice right now. I was able to get the next volume of Psyren done in the mean time, which helps clear up a bit of time later. I should be starting on my first SuBLime title this week, and I'm very excited about it.

I went into San Francisco on Friday because I had to pick up the tankobon for Pokémon Platinum v5. I do all the text-lettering in InDesign, so I need to keep a close eye on the tanko when placing pages. Placing Platinum pages is sooooo frustrating too… the proportions of the physical size of the tanko and the Viz version are different! The Viz books aren't as wide, so it makes it difficult to find a happy medium. No matter what, stuff on the sides gets cut off (although the Viz books have a bit more image on the top and bottom of the pages!). But yeah, went into the city after having a nice breakfast with my brother and dad, got curry from the JapaCurry truck (SO GOOD), and headed to J-Town. Finally picked up the last calendar I had my eye on (the extremely expensive but extremely gorgeous Nurarihyon no Mago one) and a handful of books (other than Platinum 5). Thank goodness I get 10% off with my membership card and had a $15 off coupon, or else that trip would have been a lot more painful! X_X After that, I headed to Viz and got to talk with almost all my editors. I get to work with such wonderful people, I'm so lucky. I met an editor that I'd like to work on a certain title with, and it looks like I might be able to! The series is super cute and I'm really excited, but I haven't signed a work order or anything for it yet, so no guarantees that I will get to work on it. I'm not going to say the title because I don't want to jinx this!

I'm thinking of finally changing my layout… I used to change my layout four times a year (once for every school quarter + summer), but life has been busy and I have been increasingly lazy, so I've had my current Birdy the Mighty layout for… 2+ years? Maybe I'll just work on cosplay instead. Hahahahaha…

I'm going to make some sort of massive post about Oumagadoki Dobutsuen and why it is totally awesome and why everyone should read it and then cosplay it soon. Here's a spoiler for it: I FREAKING LOVE THIS SERIES TO PIECES, OMG.

Hahahaha, so life's been a little crazy lately. Both good-crazy and bad-crazy.

Earlier this month I went into Viz's office and talked to the (very awesome) head of Viz's BL line, "SuBLime." I've been interested in lettering some BL for a while, and she gave me the opportunity to pick some titles to work on. I decided to do three, one digital-only release and two print and digital releases. The one I'm most excited about working on is Three Wolves Mountain. Naono Bohra is one of my favorite artists, and by far my favorite BL artist. Being able to work on one of her titles is a dream come true, and Three Wolves Mountain was one of the first of her works I read, so it's extra special. ♥ That'll be released in June, so please check it out then! =D The other two look fun and cute, though I haven't actually read them myself yet. (Well, I've read the volumes, but in Japanese, so I haven't read-READ them.) I haven't actually… STARTED work on them, but I'm very excited to do so (which hopefully will be within the next week or so).

Thinking of work, X volume 1 was released earlier this month! It's a GORGEOUS release, so please check it out if you have the chance. It's an 3-in-1 edition, so it's HUGE, plus it has color pages and is printed on delicious, thick, lovely paper. Volume 2 will be out in April (I think), and I'm working on volume 3 right now. I'm not very happy with how volume 3 is coming out, but I'm very happy with volume 1, I think it's some of my best work!

This month and next will be insane with work though… I have five volumes due in six (maybe seven?) weeks. Usually, I like to have AT LEAST two weeks per volume, so yikes! I'm not too worried about two of the books, I can get them done in a week each without too much pain, but the other three are completely new to me and I have no idea how lettering will go with them. GAAAAH, so nervous about this! I'll be working like a madwoman all through the holidays! More importantly, THIS MAY EAT UP ALL MY COSPLAY TIME. Holidays shmolidays, but HOW WILL I MAKE MY INGA COSTUME FOR ALA NOW? *sob*

Alllllso earlier this month I headed down to SLO for Minna no Anime's Halloween party. It was a fantastic weekend. The party was great, the people were great, everything was GREAT. I got to hang out will all sorts of awesome people, I got to cosplay, I got to go through Phyillis's bajillion boxes of books from Tokyopop's reference library, I got to sing karaoke for hours… what's not to love?

Aside from the work-driven stress, my family has been… heh… yeah...
( Family WoesCollapse )


Oh, but happier things(?):
( Anime Watching BlarghsCollapse )

Uh, yeah. Not a lot of interesting stuff going on. My life is pretty much work and whining with a lot of TV on in the background, but I really can't complain all that much. I'm constantly tired and a lot of things have been driving me mad, but overall I'm happy and I'm making money doing something I love. Ever since we moved into the bigger apartment, I've been feeling more relaxed than I had in a long, long time, and I don't have as many problems sleeping. So life's been pretty good.

Happy early Thanksgiving for those who celebrate! ♥

Thanks for all the kind words on the last entry! =D

My grandparents from my mom's side visited last weekend. It was really nice to see them, but… one of the first things my grandma says to me is "Oh, you've gained weight since the last time I saw you…………………………… it looks good on you." GRANDMAAAAAAA the compliment doesn't make it hurt much less! T^T And I'm a little tried of being umm… slyly…(?)… compared to my relatives. I know I'm not like them. I'm sorry, but I'm happy with how I am. Over all, it was very nice to see them.

Nur stayed home on Monday because of a cold, which I promptly got and have been fighting off since. It's not too bad, but it's so annoying!

( Some doodles, a costume-y thing, and our stacks of books in our new apartment.Collapse )

I can't believe September is nearly over.

Work has been going… well-ish? I shouldn't have too much trouble completing my 3-volume early-October goal, but right after I have two volumes I need to get done asap. I turned in an X volume a couple weeks ago, turned in a Tegami Bachi volume today, and I should have this Psyren volume done by next Monday at the absolute latest. Then I'll have another X volume and a Pokémon volume that will be fun-fun rush times. And by fun-fun I mean I will stain my keyboard with tears of pain and frustration. The X volume isn't so bad except for the first thirty or so pages, which is an epic battle filled with a multitude of overlapping screentones, speedlines, and semi-transparent sfx. It's going to be… a challenge, to say the least! The Pokémon volume doesn't look as bad as usual, so my fingers are crossed for that one. I got a quick job last week, turning around two chapters of two series in a couple days. It wasn't hard work, but the stress that came with the required speed really wore me out (it was fun too though, like a crazy race!).

Nur and I should be moving shortly! Like I mentioned in an earlier post, it's in the same apartment complex and it should nearly DOUBLE our space. I'm so excited! Our moving date has already been pushed back once though, so I'm a little nervous about it. We were supposed to move starting October 1st, but there was some issues with the people moving out or something, so now we are moving the week after. Unfortunately, our apartment has already been rented, so instead of the week we were going to have to move, we have three days! And one of those days I have a staff meeting for Fanime and another Nur is working on, so yikes! Once we move we'll have some fun stuff going on… I'm hoping to have a karaoke party to test the Minna no Anime karaoke files before the Halloween party in SLO (and to have some fun!). We'll probably have an Adventure Time marathon and a Redline party at some point too. Now that we'll ACTUALLY HAVE SPACE, people can actually come over and relax instead of being crammed in. =)


And Kamen Rider Fourze is still made of FRIENDSHIP AND RAINBOWS. I love it to pieces.


ALSO ALSO! I'm still looking for participants for the Gijinka and Bro Calendars! Info and signups are here! Please spread the word! =D

Ugh, it's been too long since my last post. It took a strangely long amount of time to recover from Comic Con (or maybe I caught something minor that just sapped my energy for a couple weeks), then I was rushing to finish a Nura: Rise of the Yokai volume to meet a personal deadline. I met it, and now I'm working on a Psyren volume that has been very kind to me, so I should get that done without any trouble by next Friday. …and then it'll be back to Nura for a new volume! …because I don't have scripts for anything besides Nura and Psyren right now. I'll just tag team those two until I get other scripts. =3

I started the anime season watching two series. Now, that number has grown quite a bit, hahahaha…

No.6 remains awesome. As I posted on my Twitter, my thoughts for every episode start out all scientific and generally devolve into making general happy sounds. Love love loooove this series.

Sacred Seven is fun. Not deep or anything, but it's pretty and I really like the main character. And the opening! UNF YESSSSSS

Started Mayo Chiki! by accident. I thought it was a different series. Much to my surprise, I'm enjoying it quite a bit! It's silly and often borderlines stupid, but I laugh during every episode and always end up having a big grin on my face during most of it, and that's what matters to me.

Winner of "COOLEST FIGHTS OMG" of the season is Dantalian no Shoka. THEY FIGHT WITH BOOKS. LIKE, READING BOOKS AT THINGS. My mind EXPLODES with how FREAKING COOL IT IS. The last couple episodes had no book fights, but hopefully this week's will. =D Because OMG, BOOK FIGHTS. ♥ Also Dalian is pretty adorable. Huey too, but in a different way.

Kamisama no Memochou is pretty much like Gosick for the modern day, but since I really enjoyed Gosick, I think that's pretty cool. The best scenes are when Narumi visits the Hirasaka-gumi and works on their computers. I could watch the show just for those scenes.

I've watched the first couple episodes of both Kamisama Dolls and Mawaru Penguindrum and thought they look like they could be pretty cool, they didn't really grab me so I'm not actively watching them. I'll probably watch them all at once when they finish.

Still watching Tiger & Bunny and Nichijou from last season and they are SUPER AMAZINGLY AWESOME. Both of them. Nichijou gives me stomach aches when I watch it because I laugh so much. XD

Uhhhh, in other news, I caught up on Arago after being a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE fangirl and falling about 8 chapters behind. SO MUCH has happened. SO MANY CRAZY THINGS. SO MANY BADASS THINGS (Wolf with a GUN NNNGHHH YESSSSS). SO MANY SAD THINGS. This series is amazing. AMAZING.

Nur bought the special edition Redline BluRay and it came in the other day so we're going to watch it tonight. I can't wait! The movie is FREAKING AWESOME. I just wish we had a better sound system so we could get full effect of the superb music!!

So here is my long and rambling post chronicling my wild and crazy adventures in San Diego last week.

31 images (some fairly large!), random paragraph breaks, work safe except for some language. Some spoilers for Toaru Majutsu no Index (if you don't know Accelerator's season 2 outfit, there are spoilers).
( San Diego Comic Con 2011Collapse )