I’ll try to be Short and concise here, since my visit is kinda short…
I got there at around 3 pm and spend roughly 3 hours there… …Spend the first hour walking around, with the first on the shopping list being at Dreary Weary to buy his latest release The Resident Tourist Vol. 4, a pleasant surprise I must say as nothing was said of it before.
Followed by a stage event, showcasing the skills of the Hollywood Stunt guys. Wow they are really amazing.
However things took a turn for the worse with an empty stage… later and finding out that the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiyah KUJI is over.. … and the discovery that most of the “TAIWAN” booths over there sells… weird(read fake) stuff… … A disappointment…
Thou It does feel good when I walked pass Gorden’s 501st booth and seeing quite a good respond, hope they managed to earn quite a sum for their chosen charity!
I then proceed to the walk around 1 more then to Chuang Yi to hopefully get books… Yes I got Karneval… Haven’t got time to read it thou…
To cap things off, I decided to attend the panel by the artist for V for Vendetta, David Lloyd. Man he sure likes to talk, a lot…
Overall, there is nothing much for me to take a picture of in the hall, although I did took a few pictures… … Perhaps, it’s because I’m not as into this event… since there is nothing much for me to see here…
Ultimate… Yah right…
I’m so glad I left early and goto liang court to attend MMK maid cafe’s mobile cafe… so much more fun there… Still I think, I have just not yet recover from AFA yet… Something like STGCC just can’t compare… sian… If only they are more spread out… like last year…
Utada Hikaru’s final concert, Wild Life, have ended successfully on Thursday. She sang a total of 22 song per day, which includes many of her classics like First Love, Stay Gold, Traveling, Hikari and etc, along with new songs like Goodbye Happiness.
And the statistics for the first day’s online streaming is out, according to 毎日新聞デジタル, a total of 925,000 views are clocked for the streaming and live broadcast in Japan and around the world. This sets a new record for the such a category, if there’s one.
The number is exclusive of the 17,000 watching in the 64 theaters around Japan.
On twitter’s side, 185,000 tweets is posted concurrently related to Utada Hikaru’s concert, by over a 100,000 users.
These numbers are especially welcomed and very fitting of Utada Hikaru’s concert. She is now a record holder of a new category on her final concert, congratulations!
Some thing interest is found. It’s a brand new Singapore Dojin group, that does not only illustration but also music, something along the line of eletro-pop.
It’s helm by, for now, 2 person, namely Ume(Illustration) and Cutulhu(Music). Ume, well for those who don’t know, is the artist that did the mascot for SGCafe, and the MMK Maid Cafe manga edition(Below).
Ume is also quite a singer apparently.
While Cutulhu is a literal unknown… But from the demo below, it’s actually quite good.
Here’s a demo of their upcoming product, Bento Event.
Bento Event, the group’s debuting product will be released at the coming EOY at an interesting price of just SG$5, comes even with a sticker poster… What a steal!
They are situated at booth number 13, WC-Don, during the festival and do give them your support!
How I found them? Well it’s through CDS, whom will also be at The EOY at booth 14…
The Competition Commission of Singapore have released book 2 of their comic titled Foiled!, produced by Collateral Damage Studios. Using great art and some basic(Easy to understand) story telling to spread the word about the abuse of Market Dominance.
Generally, the comics can help one understand the basics and help you decide what is considered an abuse, but I find it a little short for not elaborating what the investigation is about, yup, I’m looking for some CSI action that this comics almost totally leaved out…
Thus for me, there is not much of a satisfaction when I finished the comic, which is about 12 pages. But compared to the FIXed!, the 1st book released by CCS, the art has greatly improved and the story more fluid. Maybe the third time will be a charm? So, what’s next? F***ed?
Still it’s quite a good read if you want to understand a little what Market Dominance abuse is about or you have about 10 minutes to burn. And since it’s free, it’s not that bad an idea.
You can read the digital version uploaded by CCS, here, while the physical copies will be out later, if you want to keep a copy.
Starry Night is the first Touhou X BRS dojin for the group, and their publicity officer recently gave me some of the sketches to look at. Take it as a preview if you may.
As you can see from the draft sketches by WaHa, there is no doubts about the quality of the artwork and with the story by Komicer, it will definitely be a potent mix. Further more, there will be other CDS artist contributions as well.
Starry Night is going to be a 30 – 40 pages thick book and very reasonably priced. Currently it seems the project is about half way done, with an expected release date as early 2011, at the SOY event.
About Collateral Damage Studios:
They are a group of artist found around 2007 and have since became one of the best Dojin studios in Singapore. They have also reached out to other countries around the region, like Malaysia, New Zealand and South Korea.
CDS is also doing commissioned work for creative companies and have collaborated with the Competition Commission Singapore to produce Fixed!, a manga to promote competition fairness.
Utada Hikaru’s 2nd Single Collection is now up on CDJapan for pre-order now! Have you already gotten it?
Why you should!
It includes this very nice song, Goodbye Happiness, which seems like a song to say good bye to her fans as she proceed to the next stage of her life or her indefinite hiatus.
Here is a PV of the song GoodBye Happiness, uploaded on Hikaru’s channel just 1 week ago.
For those who don’t know, this type of PV is the hardest to made, because there is no stop in between and if there is, everything have to be redone.
So kudos to her for completing the almost 6 minutes routine.
I just love Hikaru, I sure hope she will come back to the industry soon!
Utada Hikaru’s 2nd Single Collection will be released 24th November. You can pre-order it now at CDJapan at 3300 yen.
This year at AFA X, Canon not only provide a stage for the Cosplayers to compete, a backdrop, camera and printers for everyone to take a picture and print it out. They have also organised photography workshops, 1 on each day for the camera users.
On Day 1, Figurine Photography
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It’s Alafista from Alafista.com to talk about figurine photography.
On stage he mentioned abstract stuff like lighting and how to control them in indoor shoots using reflectors that might just be a piece of white cardboard.
Of cos, he did mention about how one can make figurine photography fun, here are is one very important tip from him.
Bring a Friend/s Along
Since doing figurine photography, you might sometime encounter weird stares and etc, bring a friend or a bunch of friends normalise your behavior, somehow, that is how sociology works I guess.
Other then the above, he also share a few tricks on how to make the nendoroids stand and etc…
But since you have already missed the boat… too bad… Maybe Alafista should just upload his slide online… Either, below are some short snippets of his workshop.
Day 2, Cosplay/Portrait Photography
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Presenting the workshop is Cosplay photographer, Valeforho, to teach more about cosplay photography. It seems light is quite an important factor in photography… He too mention the types of flashes and what to use indoor and out door, including the pros and con of using E-TTL(Canon Flashes) on flashes to automatically adjust the power.
Of course, there is also a part where he mentions how he used the simple stories to make the picture more lively and compelling. Then he also shared a bunch of photos and how he goes about composing them.
I personally learn quite a few things from here, and applied some that day.
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Too bad I don’t have video of that session. But he did have a Q&A session and here are 2 of the questions,
Q: What would lens you recommend a amateur DSLR user to get, if he want to do event cosplay photography like the AFA?
A: Canon 50mm F1.8, It’s one of the cheapest lens available and it’s fast enough for a indoor photography.
Q: How do you reduce reflection, when taking pictures of item behind glass?
A: Well for DSLR there are certain filters, but for you Point and Shoot, you can try putting the lens directly on the glass enclosure. That would reduce the reflection index of the glass.
About the rest, I just cannot remember… … …
As for the pictures of the 2 workshops at the Mini Stage, look below.
Disclaimer: I have a confession, Canon asked me to go take a look, and help keep a lookout for their products and so I did, in exchange for something nice, a front row access to the Regional Cosplay Competition, and unlimited access to the Cafes~ So it might be bias in some form, but a picture is still a picture right?
AFA X Regional Cosplay Competition presented by Canon is over and everyone can agree that we have seen some awesome display of cosplay skills and movement.
All teams this year incorporated action into their skits, and did really well. I am sure, this have really stumbled the Judges, as it took a rather long time to tabulate the score and come out with a winner.
Being a Singapore, my support is most definitely on Team Defense Devil. Still they out performed beyond my expectations with big movements, good acting and some surprises. But still Thailand have to be the best when it comes to their costumes, acting and their story.
Team Thailand deserves the 1st place.
And so the winners of the Regional Cosplay Competition are,
1st Thailand,
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Drachen, with their very nice Monster hunter cosplay. Below is their award winning act,
Congrats to the winners above! But also take a look at the other 2 teams that did a wonderful job on stage and for presenting a high quality display of Cosplay, Courage, and Charm!
From Malaysia!
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Chris and Zoey, bringing us the story from Fairy Tail
Canon sponsored, the cameras given as award to the top 3 places at the RCC10. The model is the latest Canon IXUS 1000 HS. It’s good because it can work really well in low light environment like the event hall, somewhere indoor or at night.
View the full gallery below, but mind you, there are 92 pictures below… So take it slowly, don’t choke.
Disclaimer: I have a confession, Canon asked me to go take a look, and help keep a lookout for their products and so I did, in exchange for something nice, a front row access to the Regional Cosplay Competition, and unlimited access to the Cafes~ So it might be bias in some form, but a picture is still a picture right?
The UK people are apparently either quite disturbed or very curious about Hatsune Miku as she have once again been featured by a UK Press, this time, it’s MAIL Online.
On the page of the article itself, they have even embed a video of the Miku’s Thanks giving concert.
