Otakon '05

1) Otakon 2005 was DR's first ever Otakon, and the first ever con where DR had a table in Artist Alley.

2) Otakon (held in August) is right around the time of both Santineao and Tesselara's birthdays.

3) Adam gained the title "Roadmaster" during Otakon 2005, because he drove three madly stressed girls to Baltimore, got them successfully, not only to their hotel, but then to the convention center. After completing this amazing feat, Adam then made sure that Tesselara, Feraloup and Santineao all remembered to eat during the con. Adam was the reason no one got hurt, and everyone got where they needed to be. Since "Manager" doesn't even begin to describe the number of amazing feats of death defying strength and gravity defying wonder Adam pulled off that weekend, we dubbed him "Roadmaster", the master of all things while we were on the road. In order to correctly honor Adam, but not have to type too much, this is often shortened to Rmr. Adam.

4)  At Otakon 2005, a fan traded for a sketch drawn by Santineao, with large chocolate bar. Santineao, though she adores chocolate, immediately traded the chocolate bar to Feraloup for a drawing commission to be completed later. Everyone involved thought it was a good deal.

Getting to Baltimore involved much trial and tribulation.  Santineao, Tesselara, Feraloup, and the amazing Roadmaster Adam had to endure much hardship to finally arrive at the convention center, late Friday evening. Said trial and tribulation shall not be gone into in depth here because it no longer matters. We arrived stressed, and Otakon fixed this.

Arriving on Friday, we drove into the beautiful Baltimore area, and found a place to park. Walking to the convention center, we succeeded at confusing ourselves in circles, finally stopping to ask a native, we got to the correct door to enter the con. After a surprisingly speedy registration, we wandered our way through the convention center to the artist alley to claim our table.  By this time, it was around 6pm.

Setting up as quickly as possible, we actually sold numerous items before they were even unpacked. (Santineao brought a bunch of her original design costume accessories, since they had been laying around the house anyway- these were among the items snapped up) The leather wrist cuffs were a big hit. We all stayed until Artist Alley closed that night, meeting tons of great people and making new friends.

Saturday, three bleary eyed women dragged themselves from sleep, to face a much too awake Rmr. Adam. Give that man coffee, and that's all it takes. Breakfast was followed shortly thereafter by much running around madly trying to get into costumes. As all three costumes involved corsets, this took some time. Eventually it was agreed that Rmr. Adam would take Feraloup and Santineao to the con, drop them off, and return for Tesselara, (who was valiantly attempting to organize prints and other items that would have been ready before the con- if not for the aforementioned trials and tribulation).  Santineao and Feraloup had a lovely morning... er... early afternoon... hanging out in Artist Alley. Eventually, Rmr. Adam and Tesselara arrived, prints in hand, food in bags. This day too, contained meetings with many wonderful people, and some with fabulous costumes as well. The DR girls all posed for pictures when asked. And asked many of the passers by with great costumes to pose for pictures too. (Many of these pictures are not currently on the site, as they have been misplaced since the con, hopefully they will resurface in the future.) At one point towards the evening, Feraloup was momentarily carried away. Scooped up, thrown over someone's shoulder, and carried away. Santineao called after the gentleman with the odd bundle slung over his shoulder, and said "But we need her... sorry". Feraloup was then returned, unharmed, and before she was provoked to do harm.   A warning: Feraloup looks small... but her bite is actually worse than her bark. A fireman's lift, is not a recommended seduction or abduction technique. 

Saturday we also managed to wander around the Artist Alley a bit, and talk to people we'd met before, and meet a few new people. Links will be forthcoming, eventually. Perhaps they are hanging out with the misplaced photographs.

Saturday night, LATE, we returned to our hotel, stopping at the nearby drive-through for something that vaguely resembled hamburgers, and other things that not only resembled, but personified the greatness of, french fries. 

Sunday went by rather quickly. We hung out at our table in Artist Alley for a short while, then attended the Piano Squall concert. HIGHLY recommend Piano Squall concerts for wonderful entertainment. Piano Squall (aka Michael) is an amazing pianist. (Not to mention he looks pretty nice in his leather outfit.) Another bummer... our picture with him is also among the currently misplaced photographs. Plus, it didn't come out so well because of the lighting. Oh well, we'll just have to meet him again, won't we? Warning to your eardrums... where Piano Squall goes, fan girls follow... and squeal. Oh yeah, they're loud.

After the concert, we actually sat still and did nothing for the first time all weekend. We just sat outside the hall where the concert had been, and chatted. After an hour or so, we decided it was time to leave... as much as we wished the weekend could just keep going, by that point, we all needed more than 4 hours of sleep in a row.  Getting out of Baltimore proved slow, due to heavy traffic. We decided that this was best avoided by stopping to obtain dinner. A Friendly's was then found. This was the first time we actually sat down to a full meal all weekend. After dinner, we got back on the road and continued home.  The rest of the day... fades to black.

Comments from Santineao: To the lady who's picture is on this page, yeah, YOU, the one chopping off my head. :)  If you would like your name listed under the picture, email me.