The other aspects of Otakon…
Aug. 22nd, 2001 07:44 pm....like the lines! Oi! I barely dare to think of those horrific lines, the ones we all tackled in the name of our Otaku-ness. o.O* I don’t even want to get into it. I’ll just list some of the stuff I don’t want to get into and leave it at that.
Lines
"Chair! Chair! Chair!"
Lines
Badges
Lines
Lack of good cels at the dealer’s room
Okay, so I’m just going to have to go into a few details for that last one. I saved several hundred dollars this year with the intent of buying a good cel at the dealer’s room. Last year Asylum Anime had a really great selection, but I was in no way prepared for the prices. I hardly knew anything about cels and exactly which cels were worth what. I admit I gave in and bought one of those studio reproduction cels (no sketch, of course – grrr) of Hotohori for $70. I don’t regret it a bit. It’s a very nice cel of him, close-up of his face. My sister did a color-pencil drawing of that cel:
Liz's drawing of Hori-sama
(I've discovered that geocities won't let you link directly from outside the site, so right-click & open in new window... what a pain!)
I’ve seen some better Hotohori cels with sketches on ebay, but those inevitably go past my (so far) $150 limit. I really like the cel I have, but if I found another Hotohori cel that I liked better (with a sketch, and hopefully under $200), I’d buy it in a second and put the one that I have now up for auction on ebay. And I know I’d at least get my $70 back, which is all I’d really want. In any case, I was looking forward to buying a cel this year, but there was nothing I saw that really grabbed my attention. There were a few Hotohori cels, but they were either out of my range (although I don’t remember there being any of those) or they were cels from the scenes where he’s already dead, so he’s drawn in a lighter, faded coloring. I don’t really like those. I mean, some of the scenes when he’s dead make really good cels, but I’m looking for one where the coloring is all there. It would have to be something amazing for me to get one of the ones where he’s all faded. And in that case, it’d probably be out of my price range. o.O* Another instance in which I’d pay good money for a Hotohori cel (or any cel, really) is if it had an AWESOME sketch. I love douga even more than I love cels. I think I’d pay more for certain sketches than for their accompanying cels. That’s why I’m a little disappointed with the Hotohori cel I have now. It’s a great cel, it just doesn’t have a sketch at all. I think I’d probably be less likely to part with it if it had a sketch. ::sigh::
Not that I was specifically looking for a Hotohori cel. As a matter of fact, since I already have a cel of him, I wasn’t really even concentrating on that. I was thinking about Duo. Duo cels are pretty rare on most websites, and therefore at the only big cel table in the dealer’s room because I’ve been to their site many times. Asylum Anime has a great selection of cels…. it’s just not what I was looking for. I guess I’ll stick to ebay. Besides Duo, which I didn’t really expect to find anyway, I was also looking for some nice Kenshin cels. In that area, I was disappointed too. They had some good ones, but not really cool ones that I’m looking for and the few cool ones they had were out of my range. Again. You can’t get anywhere in the cel market unless you’re a real serious cel collector, willing to spend $200 a pop. I suppose there were a few that I was quite tempted by, that were in my price range, but nothing really grabbed me so hard that I couldn’t get away. And, since, I’d already tentatively bid $50 on Mana at that point, I wasn’t willing to part with my hard-earned cash (and it was very hard-earned, you don’t know hard-earned until you’ve worked with my bosses!) for a close second.
So that’s my tale of cel woe.
I think what I came out with from that dealer room – besides disappointment in my ninmu shippai -- is an even greater determination to get a nice Duo cel and a nice Kenshin (hopefully Battousai) cel, and a loosening of my limits. Maybe the next time I see a good cel on ebay I’ll be willing to put a little more on it instead of thinking ‘maybe I’ll find a better one for the money at Otakon’ or something like that.
But onto more interesting things… like Midorikawa Hikaru-sama… ^_~
Lines
"Chair! Chair! Chair!"
Lines
Badges
Lines
Lack of good cels at the dealer’s room
Okay, so I’m just going to have to go into a few details for that last one. I saved several hundred dollars this year with the intent of buying a good cel at the dealer’s room. Last year Asylum Anime had a really great selection, but I was in no way prepared for the prices. I hardly knew anything about cels and exactly which cels were worth what. I admit I gave in and bought one of those studio reproduction cels (no sketch, of course – grrr) of Hotohori for $70. I don’t regret it a bit. It’s a very nice cel of him, close-up of his face. My sister did a color-pencil drawing of that cel:
Liz's drawing of Hori-sama
(I've discovered that geocities won't let you link directly from outside the site, so right-click & open in new window... what a pain!)
I’ve seen some better Hotohori cels with sketches on ebay, but those inevitably go past my (so far) $150 limit. I really like the cel I have, but if I found another Hotohori cel that I liked better (with a sketch, and hopefully under $200), I’d buy it in a second and put the one that I have now up for auction on ebay. And I know I’d at least get my $70 back, which is all I’d really want. In any case, I was looking forward to buying a cel this year, but there was nothing I saw that really grabbed my attention. There were a few Hotohori cels, but they were either out of my range (although I don’t remember there being any of those) or they were cels from the scenes where he’s already dead, so he’s drawn in a lighter, faded coloring. I don’t really like those. I mean, some of the scenes when he’s dead make really good cels, but I’m looking for one where the coloring is all there. It would have to be something amazing for me to get one of the ones where he’s all faded. And in that case, it’d probably be out of my price range. o.O* Another instance in which I’d pay good money for a Hotohori cel (or any cel, really) is if it had an AWESOME sketch. I love douga even more than I love cels. I think I’d pay more for certain sketches than for their accompanying cels. That’s why I’m a little disappointed with the Hotohori cel I have now. It’s a great cel, it just doesn’t have a sketch at all. I think I’d probably be less likely to part with it if it had a sketch. ::sigh::
Not that I was specifically looking for a Hotohori cel. As a matter of fact, since I already have a cel of him, I wasn’t really even concentrating on that. I was thinking about Duo. Duo cels are pretty rare on most websites, and therefore at the only big cel table in the dealer’s room because I’ve been to their site many times. Asylum Anime has a great selection of cels…. it’s just not what I was looking for. I guess I’ll stick to ebay. Besides Duo, which I didn’t really expect to find anyway, I was also looking for some nice Kenshin cels. In that area, I was disappointed too. They had some good ones, but not really cool ones that I’m looking for and the few cool ones they had were out of my range. Again. You can’t get anywhere in the cel market unless you’re a real serious cel collector, willing to spend $200 a pop. I suppose there were a few that I was quite tempted by, that were in my price range, but nothing really grabbed me so hard that I couldn’t get away. And, since, I’d already tentatively bid $50 on Mana at that point, I wasn’t willing to part with my hard-earned cash (and it was very hard-earned, you don’t know hard-earned until you’ve worked with my bosses!) for a close second.
So that’s my tale of cel woe.
I think what I came out with from that dealer room – besides disappointment in my ninmu shippai -- is an even greater determination to get a nice Duo cel and a nice Kenshin (hopefully Battousai) cel, and a loosening of my limits. Maybe the next time I see a good cel on ebay I’ll be willing to put a little more on it instead of thinking ‘maybe I’ll find a better one for the money at Otakon’ or something like that.
But onto more interesting things… like Midorikawa Hikaru-sama… ^_~