Ok, just like last year myself and Charlotte wanted to make a pumpkin, took her a while to figure out what to do, but we have just finished it.

Gaze in it's glory...or um something ^_^.

Also a very creepy thing, the light shadow that Mario casts, looks like Bowser *OMG* if you can't see it, think of how those bowser levels look on Mario 64 when the level starts.

Ok well as I'm doing an art course on game design at the moment you'd expect hordes of drawings coming from me....well they'll come later when I like them, but at the moment I've drawn one picture I'm happy with, which was just a sketch of me. But it's from a reference pic which I can't seem to do without, but hey great artists like Alex Ross use references so maybe I have hope yet ^_^

Anywho feel free to comment on my picture, I realise I've yet to draw eyes but I like it how it is :).

Expect more pictures soon, unlike Debbie I'm not a picture machine O_o

Ok well after having such a fun time at the London Film and Comic Con (LFCC) we decided to go to Collectormania 10, going to London was a pretty normal thing for us, plus the fact we were only an hour or so away on the train.

But this time round it was a little different as we'd never set foot in Milton Keynes before, and especially from Wales..well thats quite a journey.

So to start it off we had to catch a train at 5:00 in the morning which was of course a lovely way to start the day, I ended up not actually sleeping before hand, and also managed to lock myself out of my room (how clever of me), as you can see no sleep for kitty means I don’t smile :P.

Everything got sorted thought and we managed to get out in time ready for the taxi. It dropped us off at the train station, where we got out and sat in how annoying platform 3, meaning we had to go all the way round. Ok so after that we sat waiting for a while…the train ended up being about 10 minutes late, which was ok, but kinda annoying cos it was very cold.

When it finally came we filed onto a cart, and we couldn’t of picked a worse one, I myself expected the train to be empty, maybe a couple of people fast asleep but that’s it. But I couldn’t of been so wrong with that assumption. There was about 8 maybe I’m gonna say students on the bus after a night of drinking, talking at the top of their voices being so bloody annoying I could have screamed. But I just stayed calm and waited for them to get off at Bristol which seemed oh so long.

Once they left I had a bite to eat (sandwiches I made, how cute) then pretty much fell asleep until we got to London, where we then had to catch the tube to Euston, proving rather hard as there were delays on the circle line, finally by the time we got to Euston we had missed our train, (also the train to London was delayed a bit so we ended up getting in London 20 minutes late).

Ok so by the time we made it to Euston we had missed our train, so we grabbed the next train that the information guys told us would get us there, which confused me, but we had to get off at Harrow and Wealdstone, and then find the train that got to Milton Keynes, which it seems everyone wanted to get on.

We then all filled onto a train unsure of if it was actually going to Milton Keynes as it was a Glasgow train, but then after Charlotte worrying we found out it was the right one. Took us a while to get to get there, thus we were then about an hour later than we expected by this time.

We had finally gotten to Milton Keynes, then not sure of where to go, consulted Charlotte’s map and decided to just walk straight forward. Which was a good choice as we came across our hotel, booked in and then headed off in the way we expected was the shopping mall.

Which may I say was bloody huge, now I thought lakeside was big, but I must have been mistaken, we entered at one part of it and then found out we had to walk around a lot. After about 10 minutes maybe we finally found Middleton Hall, although of course I made us stop on the way there as there was a stall for a cat charity thing and they had a really cute magnet for 10p so I had to get one, although I feel really bad and should have got one for mum too :(,

Anywho we were unsure of where to start, we saw stalls full of stuff, and not a guest in sight, we then spotted the boards of guests after sifting through lots of people, and headed straight that way. Making sure to pick up virtual tickets for anyone we might want to see.

Then we saw the Knight Rider car,

so I took a picky and we went off exploring, we spotted a Darlek and took a few pictures of him, and he let us put Moo on him, and he ran off with Moo.

After a bit of wandering around a bit we found the Silent Hill cosplayers, only two though :( but they were both nice.

Then after a bit more mooping around we decided to go see Mark Lutz who plays the Groosalugg in Angel. Charlotte asked me to draw a picture for him to sign earlier, so I did a poo one up on the computer, I don’t like it as it doesn’t have that certain special quality to make it look like him. She said it was ok so we brought it along, now when we got there Mark didn’t even have a queue so we walked on down and introduced our selves and so on. After having conversations about Essex, clones and what types of Wales there are in Wales, we showed him the picture, which he said was good, but meh :P. We then got a picture of him with us two.

And then with moo, which he thought was strange, but he did pose with him in a way :).

And then here’s what he signed on my picture, and the horror that it is.

Next we wondered around for a bit, as it seems we were doing the whole time we were there, but we came across some guys dressed as ghostbusters, which we had to get pictures of so as you can see below, we also saw one of them dressed as a stargate guy later on, how busy he must have been :).

Then there was a lot of wondering around, and we came across some more cosplayers, this time Final Fantasy characters, and a whole range at that, Vincent, um some advent children guy, and Rikku, I didn’t really get into Advent Children that much.

We then decided to have a bite to eat cos well neither of us had eaten much and carrying around heavy bags with no energy was no good, so we popped to what seemed the best place to eat as it had a top floor where you could see everything from, so I took a bunch of pictures before we got any food.

I even managed to get a picture of a clone trooper, which we only saw at this time.

We then grabbed something to eat, which was yummy, Moo loved it too.

While peering over the side as well I noticed someone dressed as Chucky, so I managed to get a pretty cool picture of him, even though you can’t see all of him.

Ok so we decided next to go see Louis Gossett Jr, now I’ve never seen him in a film, but our request of him was rather different from what a normal person might ask for, we got him to sign our copy of Half Life 2 Raising the bar (Half-life art book) as he did a voice in the first Half-Life, which was the Vortigaunts. So we brought it up to him and he recognized Half life ^_^ and he signed over the picture which is cool. It was nice though cos like Mark he asked what our names were. We then got a picture with him, but decided it would be best if we didn’t ask for a separate one with moo as we were uncertain of how he might react to that.

We then ran into a staff member who was intrigued to what we had him sign, so we showed him, and had a nice conversation about how we wouldn’t be able to get many other people to sign it, as they are too famous :P

Ok so next we were wondering off to a sweet shop that we popped in, as they sold American sweets and Charlotte can’t get away from butterfingers ^_^ although on the way there we popped into a bag shop and I got myself the cutest bag, and well since my pink cat bag has almost had it I thought since it was on sale I should get it :)

We then popped to the sweet shop where I got myself a bag of candy corn

Cos it’s yum, and a bag of marshmellows, cos I can’t find little ones in shops anymore

Also Charlotte picked herself up a few butterfingers.

After that we wondered round yet again, and I finally decided to make a choice on what I wanted to buy from the Tokyo Toys stall (there was more of the stall round the left hand side)

Where after getting Charlotte to take my picture with two different hats on I decided on getting a Fruits Basket dog hat of Shigure, which is the guy that turns into a dog.

Some pocky one box was free :)

And I got Charlotte a keyring, as she was jealous of all they keyrings I had with my keys.

We then wondered around even more, Firstly we went to a guy selling posters where I selected to get, this lovely Alex Ross.

This weird Joker which has been signed (can’t remember who drew it)

And this Lovely Jo Chen Chun-Li Print, as even though I can’t stand her, I love the image.

Charlotte got three lovely David Mack Daredevil posters, I really love his style, they were also all signed by him

I then bought myself this lovely Battlemoo patch to go on my bag, I love patches.

Then after more wondering we noticed Mark had kind of messed around with his face name thingy, which is cute cos it reminded me of LFCC and how Nathan and Alan messed around with each others.

Ok so then we moved onto the cinema store stall, where I looked at the lovely Miyazaki books Charlotte flipped through the posters they had. They did have some real nice ones, I love the way art has come through in cinema posters, well back years ago. Anywho she picked up a City Lights poster.

And a The Seventh Seal Poster, which may I say was a great film, which made me laugh.

We then moved onto the stalls with comics, seeing how one of them had all there graphic novels for 10% less than the price they had, and 30% on comics. After having a lovely conversation of them thinking we were Irish and not believing we were from Essex, Charlotte bought Kraven’s Last Hunt, which she has wanted for a while now.

We then walked around, talking to other stalls, myself trying to see what Alex Ross books everyone had, which was not much. We then had a chat with the nice man on a stall selling old original cinema posters, who had a lovely Soylent Green poster, which he wanted a whoping 95 quid for! We then talked to him about how Charlotte makes films, and he showed us his son’s work which was very pop arty. Was a nice guy ^_^, we then turned round and went to a t-shirt stall, I was admiring some hoodies but Charlotte’s eyes were set on a Nosferatu top, which after thinking about she got, as it was also the last medium.

We then got tired after looking around a fair bit and sat down on some seats, with Charlotte finally deciding to meet Ian Somerhalder, which was cool, so we popped over to him, and by the time it was he didn’t have a queue so we went on down, the women in front getting a picture of him with each of them separately which was amusing to watch.

Then we got to him, and he commented on how he liked how Rules of Attraction looks like, obviously meaning it wasn’t the first one he signed. He was a really nice guy, like everyone else asked us our names, and then asked Charlotte what she wanted him to write on the dvd sleeve. Which was her name at first…which she spelt wrong to him, which I must say is the funniest thing that happened all weekend, cracked me up completely. But he stayed cool and managed to sort it out by going over it with silver marker so that he didn’t make a mess of it, even though it was Charlotte’s fault. So here’s what she ended up with.

And we then wanted a picture and were unsure of who to get to hold the camera, trying to get the attention of a staff guy who wasn’t paying attention to us, then Ian shouted and he came over and took the camera ^_^. Now of course the guy with the camera obviously didn’t care about how the image looked, I’m not moaning but um they couldn’t of put Ian in such a worse place, there was so much sunlight our photo is kinda poo, but that doesn’t matter as we still got one in the end.

We then asked if we could get a pic with Moo which he agreed to which was cool, but told us it better not be going on any weird internet things ^_^.

Ok well after that we decided to call it a day and headed off towards the hotel, although we first stopped off in Virgin as they have a sale on, but didn’t spot anything we wanted so we left there. We were considering the fact to go see Children of Men at the cinema there, so we popped to it and asked about it. Although it ended rather late so we decided not to this time round as we didn’t wanna get lost in the dark.

Now very peckish I decided to take us into Burger King to have a bite to eat, were we got shakes and some food, mmm milkshakes ^_^. After having a nice meal we popped off on the journey back to the hotel, which seemed a lot shorter than it did on the way there.

Both pooped we went back to our room and looked at what we had got, taking pictures.

After this we tidied it up and were kinda ready for going down for dinner at the hotel, but we ended up falling asleep on the bed and woke up when they stop serving food. So I remembered the bar sold food, so I popped down and asked at the reception when the bar stops serving food, and well she told me 10pm, so I got Charlotte and we popped down thinking we were about to be fed. After waiting about 10 minutes to have the barman come over he told me they stopped serving food at 9:30 and couldn’t do anything about it. This bloody pissed me off so we went back to our room, in my case hungry and wanting food. So Charlotte went to sleep, where as I stayed up a bit trying to finish the picture of Amber Benson she wanted. I worked on it for a little while and ended up falling asleep as well. I’ll post up some pictures of the hotel now, incase anyone wants to see them, as we took a few.

We then woke up pretty early, probably as it was really cold, and went down to have breakfast, which was tasty, but may I say the most expensive breakfast I’ve ever had…We then booked out of the hotel and headed off at about half past 8, as we thought it would be good to get there early, so we walked there trying not to take too long, but we had heavy bags so it was a bit of a feat. I also took a picture including the sky line of the buildings in the area, to give an impression of how tall everything was.

Although as we finally got to the entrance to the shopping mall type place we realised they hadn’t opened it yet, as it didn’t officially open till 11. But firstly I had to take a few pictures, so now you can see the massiveness that is “the centre:mk”

So we then had the lovely task of walking all the way round the centre, which was a very slow, but we got there in the end, once we’d found the entrance we needed we popped in and went to see what was going on. This happened to be not what we expected, as there was a big queue, so we joined the end, after a bit of asking we realised we were in the right place. But this was at about just after nine in the morning.

I was amazed there were so many people there already, At about half ten the queue finally moved and we squidged in to get vts for Amber and Juliet, and then ran out of the lump of people before we got squished.

I had at this point decided I really wanted the Trigun neko hat as well as the dog one, so we popped back to the Tokyo Toys stall and met well apparently if I’m right an Ann Rice inspired lady, and a Japanese/Chinese ghost story/horror girlie. If you read this blog entry I’ve done please tell me who you are supposed to be as my sister swears she should know but isn’t sure.

Ok so then I got the neko hat, so I was happy.

We then walked around a lot more…I see a bit of a pattern, anyway we were browsing the stalls and I noticed a book stall I looked at on Saturday had a Final Fantasy art book, which I just had to get, it’s got such wonderful illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano in it so I just couldn’t resist, although it would have been nice if it had more recent work in it too, but I’m happy with V and VI, I’ll just have to look out for other ones in the future.

Ok so after that we did some more looking around, and noticed that some people were actually selling games, and I spotted an unopened Ty 2 on the Gamecube for so I couldn’t resist as it was cheap, plus I thought the first Ty wasn’t that bad, there are better games but it’s a nice little platformer.

We then had a look around at where all the other guests were and spotted Clayton Watson, who plays the Kid in the Reloaded and Revolutions and of course the Animatrix (Matrix stuff if ya didn’t guess) and I thought about it for a minute and then decided I wanted him to sign the Animatrix, so we popped off to the HMV and I picked it up for £2.99, it’s the version with the soundtrack, which is bloody cheap, plus it’s nicer as it’s not got a cardboard packet.

On the way back from there we came across two padawans (well some girls dressed as them) so we got a picture with them and moo, which was nice of them.

Ok so we then popped over to Clayton introduced ourselves and so on, talked about Kid’s story a little, and how his eye is on the front of the dvd for the animatrix, which he nicely signed.

After that he nicely popped round from his table so that we could get a picture.

And then we asked nicely for a picture with Moo, which agreed to, and he even posed with Moo differently, he was a nice guy :).

Ok so next we decided to go to Amber Benson (Tara from Buffy, but I can’t see how someone wouldn’t know that) she still had a pretty long queue but Charlotte wanted to make sure she met her. By the time we finally got to her the first thing she said was who’s this little guy pointing at Moo, which was cute ^_^. Now even though Charlotte wanted to talk to her about making films, she didn’t as she felt rushed, as the guy maning the queue was trying to make it move as quickly as possible. This is a real shame as I think she really wanted to talk to her about her film and why she makes them. Ok so we got her to sign my very crap unfinished picture which I hate and really need to improve.

We then got a crew member to take a picture for us, although Charlotte kinda wasn’t looking at the camera, which is also a shame…kinda something with Amber I suppose :P.

And we then asked her about a picture with Moo, which she was happy to do, so she stroked him ^_^ cute, and I took a picky.

We said our byes and then wondered off, and I finally decided to buy myself a Miyazaki art book, and had decided with a My Neighbour Totoro one, but when I got there I realised there was a Howl’s Moving Castle one there, so I got the two of them. Although I would have also liked the Kiki’s Delivery Service one and the Porco Rosso but I feel I made the right decision.

Charlotte then decided that she would go meet Juliet Landau (Drusilla from Buffy and Angel, of course she was also in Ed Wood). And Charlotte knew the exact thing she wanted to sign…well more or less, was a quote from Angel, and something about a cow, ending in Moo. Which she realised was something she said, and that nobody else had asked for it. It was also kinda funny cos she asked our names and she went on about how she’s playing a Charlotte in a film, but has yet to play a Catherine.

We then asked if we could have a picture which she agreed to nicely.

And we then asked if we could possibly have a picture with her a Moo, which is then when she called us strange ^_^, and we explained how we’d gotten his picture with other people, and she agreed to it which is cool.

Ok so Charlotte after lots of thinking decided she would get an Angel puppet by this time, which is a replica of Angel from an episode of Angel called Smile Time, where he is temporarily a puppet, similar to a muppet puppet. She would have got the normal one, and not the vampire one, but he was very pricey.

At this point we were deciding on leaving, plus we had just picked up our posters (as they nicely said they’d look after them till the end of today so we didn’t have to move them around everywhere). So we were about to leave when we saw the guy dressed as an Alien solider type guy who we had seen earlier in the day, and really wanted to get a picture with him and the “moohugger” which was really cool cos he agreed to do it, and I must say it’s a darn cool picture.

And here’s also a normal picture of the nice guy

Ok so at that point we decided to call it quits and go catch a train home, but by the time we’d walked a little while my hands were killing me, so I remembered that I saw a variety of bags in M&S so I popped in there and had a look, and well, there was pretty much an answer to my problem, they sell like an old lady type bag thing to carry shopping, and bloody hell it made it easy to carry all the crap that I had.

I now use it for any shopping trips that may be heavy :).

Ok so we made it back and were going to walk back, but we noticed it was pissing it down we rain, we considered catching a bus, but choice to get a taxi as it would be annoying to carry the giant posters and stuff onto a bus, it wasn’t too expensive and it got us to the train station fairly quickly.

We then got out and rain inside for shelter, where the nice train man told us the train to Euston should be coming soon but warned us with what we had it might be hard to get on the train, so we thanked him and went to catch it :P
Although as we did this I never got to take pictures of what made the train station remind me of the Shibuya terminal from Jet Set Radio, which is a shame :(

Ok so after waiting for about 20 mins the train finally came and we hopped on and managed to get a seat, we finally got to London after a while. We then did a bit of walking, catching tubes and then waiting around for a while for the Cardiff central train. But it finally came and we rushed for it, it’s like the whole train was first class, we had to walk for ages until we finally found any seats which weren’t reserved too!

But in the end it all worked out, and I played a bit of New Super Mario Bros.

And Charlotte kindly took a picture, but I got a little tired of that after I kept dying, so I then had another nap. I was almost asleep the whole time we were on any transport.

Charlotte did also take pictures of other people on the train, but I’ll be nice and not post them, as it’s kinda rude, but I may use them as drawing references :). We finally got to Newport in the end, called a taxi and got home just before it started raining again which was lucky. We then crashed in my room and tried sorting everything out, which as you can see from the pictures below meant make my room a mess

Overall I really enjoyed collectormania mainly since we were there two days, but also having a lovely camera helps, so I’m extremely happy I went, and can’t wait for the next convention we go to! Hopefully there’ll be comic artists wherever I go next :D.
Also here’s our left over vt’s and the photos we have :).

I hope everyone else who went had an enjoyable time like we did, and I hope people like my pictures.

Also you can now see how it affects my desktop, I now have a lot more pictures :).