Saboten con came and went again. This is one of Rising Phoenix Cosplays favorite cons. Due to moving and living closer to the con this year we didn’t stay at the Sheraton. We still had a great time but we did miss out on some things by not staying at the onsite hotel. Like last year the con and host hotel provided a grab and go meal option that was easy and inexpensive.
We didn’t take a lot of con photo’s as we were booked with three panels one of which was a workshop. We’ll get into more on that later. We also didn’t buy anything in the Vendor hall even though we wanted to, mainly because we are space limited right now as our new house is being built and we are going to Japan next year.
Our first panel this year was on how to restring your BJD. It did not go off perfectly but everyone had a good time. Next year we’ll verify that the elastic that Dave buys for this is actually small enough and that we bring the correct restringing tool for the size doll we are working with. Jasper survived. For this panel and before Susan dressed up as an Animegao Kigurumi BJD doll. We will have a series of posts and a you tube video for how we made the mask here soon.
Our Second Panel was on how to work with themoplastics and build a small shield. This panel is put on in conjunction with the 105th Squad Phoenix Hive. This year we had 11 paid attendees and numerous people watching. This is one of our better workshops so make sure to check it out at a con in Phoenix as we try and do it at a few cons each year. You can see the video here on how to make the shield yourself. Mini Shield Build Tutorial.
On Sunday our last panel was a general Intro to BJD led by Susan. We had a great turnout with some non doll owners showing up. The format of the panel was generally a Q&A session with multiple doll owners and me the lonely supportive husband. I offered the perspective of what it’s like live with a doll owner who has way to many dolls.
We look forward to returning next year where we plan to spend the entire weekend at the con and I plan on hosting some more panels myself on how to run a Youtube focused cosplay page and how to edit videos for Youtube.