cattoy-bn

I spent the month before Further Confusion (or FurCon for short) cutting out vinyl decals of catgirls.

Dozens and dozens of catgirls. Dozens of different types of catgirls. Some of them were generic catgirls with no history. Some of them were famous catgirls from TV, games, or comics.

I had one particular catgirl that I thought was going to sell like crazy.

I was working on a set of catgirls from an imaginary high school for girls called Nekogawa (Cat River) high school. I created a dozen different students - a spectrum ranging from bookworm to athlete, tabby, siamese, etc.

Then I had an idea that I thought was going to be just pure awesome.

I made a GRUMPY CAT version.

It cracked me up. It cracked my friends up. I was still working on cutting sheets apart (I use 8.5" x 11" sheet protectors for sorting and storage) into smaller pieces and I hadn't even left the shop and people were stopping by, giggling and asking if they were for sale. I had sold three before I had left the shop. I had every reason to imagine that this design was going to sell like crazy at FurCon.

I didn't sell a single one.

What did I sell the most of at FurCon? What did I run out of at FurCon? What did I have to run back to the shop to make more of during FurCon?

The Destroid Monster from Macross.

For some reason, I sold the heck out of mostly destroids from Macross. Boardgamers might instead think of them as the Battletech Warhammer and Rifleman, but I think of them as the Destroid Tomohawk and Destroid Defender.

They're giant robots.

Giant ROBOTS. Big stompy robots that no named character ever piloted and were seen primarily as punching bags for bad guys in the TV show (and movie)

And they outsold my catgirls by a huge margin.

I feel shame as a minor action.     I expect that, assuming I actually get to try, I will sell out of catgirls at Fanime and Anime Expo...

Yesterday morning (freakishly early), I managed to limp home after attending Project A-Kon 23 in Dallas. It was my second anime convention in as many weeks and I was pretty much fried.

The convention itself was great. I knew less than a dozen people at the con because it had been about a decade since I last attended A-Kon. Fortunately, one of the people I did know was on staff, so I had crash space, a dealer's room badge and about two feet of table space to try to make some money.

It turned out that nobody at Akon sold cut-vinyl decals, so I made a surprising amount of sales, selling out of several designs. I got some great feedback from attendees, so I will have a better idea of what to bring next year.

Speaking of which, I think, based on the way things went, that A-Kon is going on the calendar for next year. With a few refinements, I think it will be even better next year.

In case I hadn't mentioned it specifically, I made a travel version of the Mega Negi for Akon. It broke down into pieces that would fit into a suitcase, which was good because there's no way to bring it as carry-on baggage, but problematic because of structural limitations. I was sitting near the front of the room for the masquerade and I was being a little too enthusiastic about waving the Modular Mega Negi (MMN for short) and it suffered a structural failure. One of the sockets broke free from the shaft, leaving it severely weakened. I could still hand it out for photo ops, but its days are indeed numbered. (you can view MMN and Mega Negi's photo albums at facebook, under the account name: Mega Negi) Send a friend request if you also want to see the tshirt and sticker design album)

As for the title, I spent the con wearing my every day hat, a SF Giants cap. Once the con got started, I noted that there were a lot of people wearing Texas Rangers caps and shirts. Duh. This con is in Dallas. I can't imagine my hat won me any fans at Akon. Perhaps sales would have been a little better if I had worn something else...

But for right now, I have more pressing problems to address. I left my phone charger in the hotel room. >_<