Man I was lazy with a lot of my pictures this year. It's a lot easier to ask for pictures cosplayer to cosplayer rather than creepy random to cosplayer. I mean I don't normally find it creepy personally, but I always I assume I'm being creepy. Anyhow...
Met up with Shauna at her house and we went down to the con together, mainly with the objective of seeing Nolan North. We wandered around for a short time (kind of the theme of the con unless you have a dedicated schedule for autographs and pictures) and went to go pet more dogs.
Because dogs. =D
Did another loop by the LEGO display (I forgot that half of my pictures were hosed and forgot to take more...or rather when Shauna mentioned it I'm like NO I TOTALLY GOT SOME...'cause I'm smart), and we checked out the autograph times for Mr. North. He was there at the time, but we decided to come back after his panel.
We came across a table with some incredibly derpy looking Game of Thrones figures. Brienne was probably one of the worst. Shauna said I needed to take a picture and do a caption contest. There's a lot of photos and pictures I feel this needs to be done for (*cough cough Testament of Sherlock Holmes*).
On our way back into the other halls I ran into this guy:
Good to see you again Mini! Also wow, a picture I don't look like a major dork in (intentionally or not). There's a rare sight.
Outside we found some awesome cosplayers. I got the Fallout crew I missed yesterday as well as...this fellow:
Shauna and I weren't sure exactly who or what it was, so if anyone can enlighten me I would be grateful. Awesome, terrifying, but I honestly have no idea.
We checked out the gaming and arcade area (of which Shauna was a disappointed in as she assumed it would be a massive section). Some of the units they had there had multiple games available, but all were in use. I believe there were about 10 units total in addition to all of the consoles, a computer cafe and a special stage for tournaments (there was a League one set up for noon, but we were in a line-up by that point).
We lined up for Nolan North about an hour early, happy to sit in the shade and watch all the random cosplayers. We met a pair of Bioshock Infinite cosplayers (who Shauna got a picture of, so I may grab that from her) who had excellent costumes (and were very photogenic) as well as a young man (whose name I THINK was Sydney...I'm really sorry if I misheard you) who had lost his friends and decided to line up super early for the panel after ours.
So the time finally comes to go in to see Nolan North, we're at the front of the line and it's awesome. Then the dude takes us to the wrong door by accident. So all the people behind us see an opportunity to get ahead, so we literally waited an hour in line for nothing. Thanks guys.
Thankfully it didn't matter too much as we were the third row up or so. Still...principle of the matter.
After another short wait and Shauna becoming increasingly tired of my Streetpass farming, Nolan North took the stage with Sam Maggs as the moderator (that was an awesome appearance I didn't expect). Nolan talked about his experiences voice acting, mostly with Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series. When the time came for audience questions, the gentleman behind us opened with, "Would you rather fight 100 duck sized Troy Bakers or 1 Troy Baker sized duck." He just kind of stared at the guy for a few minutes, said "Who's Troy Baker" and "Have you eaten today, sir?"
Nolan gave some great in-depth answers, some samples of his voices and some advice on voice acting and his experience. He stated that if you wanted to break into voice acting, become an actor in general as you have a wider range and the ability to add facial expressions, tones and actions to the words. He also stressed the importance of saline nasal spray to avoid colds.
I ended up taking quite a few pictures as Shauna's camera wasn't working too well and I was trying to get my own to cooperate. My phone camera crashed twice in the process. Apparently it doesn't like it when I zoom in and try to take a picture anymore (it also completely crashed for no reason a couple hours ago so I may need to fix this). My other favourite bits of the panel was Nolan taking about face capture technology and acting out scenes you'd see in the game (including holding his breath even though it really wasn't necessary). I also enjoyed him talking about auditioning for voice acting positions and just straight-up recommending other voice actors to the people holding the auditions if they thought they'd be a better fit.
We went to get lunch after the panel where I tried a butter chicken poutine, which...actually wasn't half bad and listened to a father who didn't understand how the internet worked explain to his son why he couldn't go play video games at the con (apparently if you log onto a public network it'll give your home computer viruses).
After lunch we went to go line up for autographs and discovered Nolan was already there early. We got up to the front, had a quick chat with the volunteer there about autograph logistics and met Mr. North. I haven't actually gone to meet anyone like this at a con before. I've waited for OTHER people doing that, but I figure I have nothing interesting to say to most people (at least nothing they haven't heard before). This was different cause both Shauna and I were interested and I have an appreciation for good voice acting (mostly thanks to Mesk telling me a lot about it).
Anyhow, went up and shook his hand and said hello to Mr. North, who promptly told me to call him Nolan. My interaction mostly boiled down to him asking if I had played the whole series and I said I was on the second game still because I got stuck in the stupid museum for a long time. He said I should hurry up because I have about 7 days before the next one comes out. I wasn't too sure where to go conversation-wise from there, but Shauna joined in and talked about my recent life changes and our friendship.
Nolan went to shake hands with her, but he was like, "give me your hand," but he was holding it out as if he wanted her to place it there and both Shauna and I got very confused, then he's like "oh I want to shake it." Nolan signed her picture (Last of Us print) and talked in David voice for her saying that as you know from the game, friendship never really goes away. I thought that was really nice. Shauna was hard on herself after thinking she sounded lame in front of him, but everything was fine. While Mr. North will likely never read this (if you are I think I'd pee myself a little), I'm sure he'd reassure her and say it was a pleasure (and that there are way weirder things to talk about). We got him to do a little voice acting for us, so I consider that a win. Thanks Nolan!
So that concludes my con experience in 2016. I am fairly exhausted (but less exhausted than I have been in other years as I didn't cosplay and wander the con in heels for 8+ hours). Looking forward to next year (where hopefully Troy Baker will make an appearance) and to see what else the con has in store for the future.
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