Anime Expo 2009 recap

Went to AX with Steffi and Eaning last Friday.
The above is an (extremely bad) picture of all the crap I bought. I won't say how much money I spent. It's embarrassing... I always thought I was relatively frugal with money. Well, I proved myself wrong.
It's always jarring meeting the creator of a work you really admire. Most of the prints I bought were done by people from deviantArt who I already stalk. When you admire their art, you put them on a weird mental pedestal... people who draw leanly muscular people seem to look like what they draw in your head. But in actuality, they don't look all that healthy, probably lack of exercise due to drawing so much. Same weird feeling as meeting Tamora Pierce at the library way back when.
It's strange. I want to see what the creators of good art look like, but at the same time I don't want to spoil the beautiful illusion of the bohemian artist I've built up in my head of them. I don't want to realize that they are (mostly) bespectacled Asian girls. Well, the ones at AX anyhow.
Maybe that's why I ended up buying so many prints of pictures I already have on my computer... pity for the poor starving artists. Haha... that doesn't explain the compulsive buying of plushies though. I'm weak to cute things.
Bought two 4x6" sketchbooks though for $2.50 each. That was something of a steal! The sketchbook that's open in the picture is Eaning's drawing of Ulquiorra for me when we were resting. That reminds me, I owe her $10 for that Ulq print.
Steffi, Eaning and I are contemplating setting up our own stand in Artists' Alley next year! Wonder if we'd sell anything... but after seeing the huge range in quality and skill this year, I think we stand a chance at least. As long as we do fanart of popular stuff.
I've just finished this DS game Lux Pain. I can't say it was a good game, but for some reason I was hooked. It's about a mental virus called Silent that infects people's brains and makes them want to commit suicide or violent crimes. I think my experience of it was 'enhanced' by the fact I was playing it in the dark at 2:00 AM. You go around poking at people's emotions that are represented by montages of text and creepy noises on the top screen. In daylight it doesn't seem like much but it's one of the few things that manages to unsettle me. There's this scene where you examine the emotions of a dead guy right before he died... I nearly wet myself.
Gameplay was horrible, but story was interesting. Worth it if you have the time, I guess. And a long attention span.

And in other news, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my Cintiq12wx! Too bad it's only 12" wide, but hell, it's a CINTIQ. More on that when it comes.