Caracature by Choe

Previously I had written about how I purchased a caricature of me at the Art Show. Well I finally got the Anthrocon pictures from my camera to my computer. Here is Choe talking to me while she drew a cat version of me. I asked her whether I needed to look at her while she did this. She hesitated a bit, and replied, "Well yes."

I tried my best to keep a straight face and look straight ahead. It was tough. I wanted to see how the cat caricature was turning out. Then came the tough question. The artist asked me how I wanted the body. I was not sure what that meant. I asked whether I could be some type of muscular dude. In retrospect that did not align with the cat. Choe said she could give me a cute body. I agreed with that choice.

At first I discovered this booth when somebody else was getting a caricature drawn. The sign was catchy. You lay down $5 and get a custom drawing of yourself as a furry. That's just good business. I will scan in my own caricature later and post it here.

Rules for Writing Fiction

The final session from Anthrocon 2009 that I attended today was Rules For Writing Good Furry Fiction. It was presented by Terry Wessner, who was the published and editor of "Fang, Claw, and Steel". You may recall that long running zine about lycanthropes.

This was a knock out session for writing fiction. The session ran way over time. But most of us stayed the whole time. I knew this was going to be a great session when a bunch of us were waiting outside the room prior to the session starting. At the start time, we busted into the room and disrupted the prior session that was trying to run overtime. I bet they were like, "WTF?"

Now I know I cannot go over all that I learned from Terry today. I took feverish notes the whole time. There were handouts provided at the end. But I had more than my share of notes from the session. Terry shared the secret of writing good fiction. For that you will have to consult my future blog posts on All Things Blogger.

Fursuit Parade

Yesterday we had a busy day at the Anthrocon 2009 convention. So by dinner time we were tired. That meant that we could not stay up for the late night Fursuit Dance Competition. However we redeemed ourselves today by seeing the Fursuit Parade.

We first positioned ourselves where the people in fur suits would come down the escalator. Unfortunately they walked forward away from us. Then we moved to another location, but the crowd obscured our vision. Finally we planned ahead and got to a place where we could see the whole procession.

I saw a number of characters that I had previously met at the con. There was the dinosaur dude. And there was the wolf with MegaMan weapons. There were also suiters who we had previously seen from a distance. We got a lot of pictures. When I get them on computer, I shall post a bunch here.

Video Game Industry

There was one main session I wanted to attend at Anthrocon 2009 today. That was "Furs in the Video Game Industry". This was a question and answer session with insiders from the video game industry.

At first nobody seemed to want to ask questions. So I did. Then when nobody else raised their hands, I told the panel that I would gladly monopolize the session with my multiple questions. After that there seemed to be more people ready to ask questions.

Now I imagine I should save the technical details for a Gaming Blog, but I will share some details here. There was a recommendation to show that you can get a project to completion. You should also be able to demonstrate that you can work in groups. A college degree is important to get a job as a game programmer, as is a good portfolio. There was a big discussion about crunch time that was initiated by a question from the audience. Stay tuned for more highlights of today's Anthrocon 2009.

The Art Show

While waiting for the next event at Anthrocon, we decided to head into the Art Show section. They checked us for badges at the front door. Immediately we picked up some t-shirts and badge necklaces. Then we went down each and every row to scan what the artists had to offer.

In the middle I thought I found some plastic figures that you could get customized with your own name. I returned to buy one of them. However I found out that the only name on them were the actual names of the characters they were modeled after. Bummer.

Luckily I had seen a girl who would do a caricature for five bucks. She drew your likeness on a piece of paper with black pen, but turned you into a furry. Of course I commissioned her to draw me as a black cat. It was tight. When I get home, I will scan in the results and show you what I got. Thank Choe!

The Wonderful Boy Boyle

The highlight of the day was a presentation called "Following a Dream to Hollywood". It was done by Anthrocon guest Bob Boyle. Bob is the creator of Wow Wow Wubbzy among many other things. He talked about his interests as a child, his experiences in college, and how he broke into the animation business.

Here I thought the creator of Wubbzy would be some famous high-flying animator. Bob was a surprisingly down to earth kind of guy. He started out doing animations for other people's projects. But Wubbzy was his own creation. Bob has worked on projects for Nickelodeon and Disney.

The best part of Bob's presentation was that he left a lot of time for questions. I think we found a lot out about Bob by asking a number of questions. It seems that the jobs in the business are mostly found by networking. The jobs are short gigs which last 6 to 8 months. It seems like it is a long process from idea to actual production of an animation. Thank you Bob for a great time at Anthrocon 2009.