Moé Moé Rabu

One of the things about conventions is the amount of people that attend. Saturday is always the day with the most people but Sunday, well it was all quiet on the convention front. This year is also the first time for SMASH to be running for 2 days and is now one of the major anime conventions in Sydney. Normally I’d question whether I attend the 2nd day but this year I have a good reason: I’m a guest panelist. Plus I’m there to take photos. So hit the jump to check out coverage of SMASH Day 2! WARNING: Picture intensive post.

Once again I woke up at the ungodly time of 6:30am and with very little sleep as I was trying to finish off the items I needed for the BJD Panel. Picking up Roobar and Blox on the way we got there before the doors opened. Though compared to the Saturday, there wasn’t much of a line for those waiting to get in. Though for me, I had my guest pass from the Saturday so I could get inside via the backdoor. Last time I was able to get inside a convention before the doors opened was at Animania many years ago when I helped run the JAUWS table.

Anyway I first went upstairs to the ABJD table so I could set up Erika in another new set of clothes as well as Roobar’s Saber. The new clothes that Erika is wearing is Tohsaka Rin’s (from Fate/Stay Night) school uniform. It’s rather strange as from a distance it doesn’t look like a school uniform all that much. Once the doors were open, Simon came up and set up his Rin and Illya dollfie as well. Also Saber here is without her armour since it’s a pain to put it on.

With some time till the panel starts I wondered around doing the usual greeting, though thankfully with Sunday it’s not that many people. The downside is that there not as many cosplayers so taking a lot of photos was proving to be a struggle. Still it gave me time to actually absorb what was on offer in the various areas.

koshiko and Ou7 of furudango

Some of the important guys of the SMASH committee

Looking as delicious as ever over at Paris Cake Shop

It’s Blox and Roobar!

Eventually it became time to head over to the Madman Theatre where I was to be a part of the BJD Photography panel. Yes my moment to shine has finally come and I have eagerly been awaiting for this moment. Though for me this was a great test on my public speaking skills as well as my presentation skills. However I never had anything really prepared except for images I was going to use and I decided I should try to answer questions off the top of my head.

Yes it’s me and my sweet Erika.

I’m not too sure what others thought of the panel but on a personal level, I think I did alright given I winged the entire thing. But I know I could have done a better job if I actually prepared proper answers. Also thanks to Roobar for taking the photos above with my backup camera. Still, for those who attended, I do hope you got something out of the things that J*me and I discussed about. It was fun being able to talk about a hobby that I’m passionate about and I would surely do it again if invited again.

With the panel over, the rest of the day was pretty much a relaxing day. I hung around the BJD table a bit and decided to take some photos of them.

I also took off Erika’s coat as she looked WAY better without the coat. Must always have my princess looking her best! I still have about 2 sets of clothes that I have yet to try on Erika. Hopefully you’ll see those in the near future. Also not that long afterwards was the BJD Workshop. I wasn’t around for very long but stayed a few minutes to have a look at what was what. At this point I don’t have too much of an interest in doing faceups for BJDs but perhaps in the future I might.

With some time until the start of the cosplay competition, I decided to head into the Maid Cafe with Roobar and Blox just to see what it was like. Of course I didn’t go the Saturday since there was quite a long line for it. Well we still had to wait for around 5 minutes which wasn’t so bad.Knowing that this is a maid cafe for a convention, my expectations weren’t really that high. Though to be honest, I found that most of the maids weren’t really maids at all. Most were dressed up in goth/punk type clothing or something along the lines of a short miko outfit.

The food was mainly cakes from 85 degrees, but then food in maid cafes aren’t really all that good anyway. The most amusing thing about the maid cafe for me was that I got my drink (which was a hot chocolate, but more like Ovaltine and warm water with milk) served to me by a butler whilst Roobar and Blox had theirs served by a maid. Overall the food is a let down, but the whole purpose of a maid cafe are the maids themselves. Despite not being in actually maid outfits, majority were most appealing to me eyes. And dare I say it? Yes even the guys were pretty nice. Moving along…..

Even with the small turnout for a Sunday there is still plenty of people about, and there were plenty of cosplayers about. So here is some of what Sunday had to offer:

Of course by the end of the day, many amusing things can happen, like cosplay that is made right there on the spot in 1 minute:

It was such an awesome cosplay that you had to be quick to see it! The blur effect was mainly because the camera body decided to use a slow shutter speed. Still pretty neat effect.

SMASH as a two day event I would say was quite successful. The venue was the right size for the expected attendance numbers, entry price is low, and they have some rather interesting events (even though I didn’t really attend any of these). Heck even Roobar took part in the SMASH panel in the Madman Theatre giving his 2 cents. I suppose my only complaint is that the main stage is a little too high for taking photos from the front, but that can’t really be helped. Actually one thing I discussed with some of the regular photographers that I meet at conventions is that perhaps they could provide a reserve system where the front row of seats is reserved for photographers. Of course this isn’t free, pay a small price for that reserved spot or something. Even though I wouldn’t mind paying a small reservation fee, in reality it probably won’t work since getting seats is first come first serve and I doubt many people would want to pay extra.

This being my 2nd attendance to SMASH, I can see that the event has grown not only in what is available for the attendees, but also the increase in the number of attendees. Though I’m sure next year SMASH will still be at the Roundhouse I start to question if and when they’ll reach the point of moving to another location. Let’s hope they don’t because I don’t want to be paying $30 for one day passes.

That pretty much wraps up SMASH! 2009 Sunday. The next post will cover the cosplay competition and I’ll have a post of what I bought on the Saturday. In the meantime check out others who have covered SMASH! 2009:

• Hunting the Elusive (Day 1, Day 2)
• The Dis-Jointedzone
• Bubby’s SmugMug (Day 1, Day 2)
• Technical Solitude
• SMASH! Forums Photo Thread
• The Tsundere