Due to *gestures wildly at everything going on South of the Canadian border* (no offense), I have chosen this year to stay in Canada and attend one of our furry conventions instead of AnthroCon. CanFURence, located in Ottawa, is a much smaller event, sure (final guest count was roughly 1600), but still a very nice place. And, bonus, I don't need to book a plane ticket to get there. Just had to drive for a little over three hours, which admittedly brings its own set of worries for me, not to mention driving on my own to a city I don't know at all. But I'm back home, and I can say I loved it regardless.

And of course, when I attend a furry convention, I can't help myself, I just have to spend most of the money I have - so here goes, once again, a quick stock of everything I've got. (Plus, such a list helps me keep track of everything I've obtained, and whatever else I have yet to get, too.)

Art (prints, stickers, etc.):
-Stickers from: *deep breath*  Strive, KariPup, Caustic Canine, ScottDerg of  StarWarriors, Otter & Odder, Bark Boutique and Telekitnetic (who'll be GoH next year). Honestly, wouldn't be surprised if there's any I forgot to write down, I ended up with so many;
-A Sonic lanyard from SnaggyPeets;
-Two Zines, one from ScottDerg (see above), one from KariPup (link in stickers);
-Prints: Two (Shadow and Loona) from ExplorerOrion, three from the stand of Catgutz and Koepek (sorry, can't remember which one of the two), three from Crow Party, one from  Eevachu (this one, in fact;
-Magnets from Scott of StarWarriors (link above)

Other stuff:
-A "Derg/Dwagon" tag for a friend;
-A Game Boy, pixel art "lion" tag from  aver-art
-A mystery grab bag from Caustic Canine (link in stickers above) including stickers, a lanyard, two keychains, a pin...
-Tome 1 of Tamberlane, by Caytlin Vilbrandt
-A CD of music (this one) from  Anubis038, one of this year's guests of honor at the con;
-Sauces from Dark Bunny;
-Shot glass + pin from the Furnal Equinox table;
-And a shirt of a previous year's edition at the con store table.

Art commissions:
-An in-convention piece of traditional art of Malum, drawn by  Blue_fox3465, obtained;
-A traditional piece of Chess the cat purchased from  GenyStar, will receive post-con;
-A traditional art piece of Marjorie by  Nicnak044, obtained;
-A piece by Tornatic, will be received post-con;
-And a free art from Scott of StarWarriors, since I gave her a free art piece too (yep, I drew something - doesn't happen often. I drew her dragoness 'sona as a gift since it was my first time meeting her in person, after years of trying! Gonna post that pic, too.)

I think I will have time today to post the art I did receive. Stay tuned for that!

Oh, what a great year this was for AnthroCon! Not just in general (attendance over 17,000, charity donations over 100,000$ to Grey Paws Sanctuary)... but also on a personal level! I hosted my first panel ever, the International Furs Meetup, and it was very successful! Got to meet furs from all over the world, who made the trip to Pittsburgh for the weekend. And in return, many of them got to try out maple syrup candies for the first time­. Figured it would be a very, heh, "sweet" idea especially for the folks who never had those before.

As usual, I take stock of all the stuff I got at the convention. Lots of boxes, lots of prints and commissions, lots of random stuff. I tried my best to list everything I purchased as I went around the Dealers' Den and Artists' Alley. Since I went around writing my wishlist really quick, I might have to decipher some of my chicken scratch, but in short: I tried to think of listing every artist as well.

Big things/boxes:
-The Pirate-themed Furry Mystery Box
-A Fursona Pins mystery box (included a very cute plushie!)
-A pet food bowl from Furryland (AKA Pizza Parma, who embrace the furry theme every year)
-A copy of the Here to Slay board game by Unstable Games
-The Scott Pilgrim VS The World Complete Edition game for the Switch bought at Static Claws' table
-A shirt from Hyena Agenda (my first time buying from them!)
-And the little elderly dog plushie from the Charity Table, with all proceeds going to Grey Paws Sanctuary.

Art prints:
-Toothless and Stitch by Tsaoshin
-Three "Across the Spider-Verse" prints from TriclopsRabbit (which I couldn't find online);
-This Quaquaval from UlarioGryphon
-This jedi raccoon from GoldenDruid
-This incredible library print from Zray!
-A greyscale city picture by  Stratica which I haven't found online
-Two prints from NeonSlushie: Plush Lucario and a harvesting mouse
-A Cyberpunk-inspired print from  TheLivingShadow
-A print (which I haven'ty found) by WaywardMutt showing the three Paldean starters together!
-A print of Blaze the Cat from an artist whose username I've unfortunately forgotten about.

Lots of stickers, some Starter Pokémon, some of various characters, a couple of free ones from Hyena Agenda...

Others:
-A Porygon figurine purchased at Static Claws
-Two Slowpoke figurines
-Three badges: "Crits happen", "House Pokémon" and "It's called a hustle, sweetheart"

Art commissions (will be updated with links to the pictures as they are posted to this FA gallery!). This year, for the most part, whenever I commissioned an artist, I would let them check through the copies of ref sheets and other art examples for each of my characters, and would let them pick the one they felt like drawing. This was Marjorie the Raven's lucky year!
-A picture of Marjorie by keenadraws (digital, therefore I won't receive it right away);
-A small picture of Marjorie by Remimakes
-A picture of Nicolas by  rueweko
-A cool art of Marjorie by  SavageShark
-Two sketches, one for each of my lesser-drawn characters Alexis the coyote and Chess the cat, both by  TheLivingShadow
-A halfbody shot of Nicolas the Lion by  HariKuran

And that's about it! Thanks again Pittsburgh for your welcoming of furries, and thanks AnthroCon! See ya next year, if all goes right!

AnthroCon 2023 has come, and gone, and now I'm home, back with a whole bunch of souvenirs and memories. And as usual, that means I got some new art and a whole bunch'a stuff, as usual. This is my way of sorting it all out. (And this time, I got everything with me upon return - didn't lose my luggage like last year.) It helps me synthesize the weekedn to go through all the stuff I got, realize the event is over but having all the memories... Anyhow, before I get any more teary-eyed, let's get through this.

Art commissions: (Will be posted here soon)
-A quick doodle of my birb girl Marjorie (traditional) by TrashCamell on Twitter;
-A more complete, badass picture of my evil crow guy Malum (traditional) by  Ice-Hero;
-A commission of my lion Nicolas, as done by  KittMouri (to whom I asked to draw him in her sort of romantic art akin to that on her novel covers such as The Carpenter and the Nightingale) (traditional);
-One digital picture by  UlarioGryphon, likely to be done sometime over the next few weeks. It will also be a picture of Marjorie.

All in all, not as much art as I got in the past, but still a bit. I'll be scanning these soon.

Other art:
-Three pieces by  TheLivingShadow;
-Two pieces by realdud_bass, one of Death from the latest Puss in Boots movie and another, smaller picture of a feline guy;
-An Asia-inspired Snorlax picture by [url=https://artofgoju.com/]Art of Goju[url];
-A cool tiger "static" piece from Vaedesigns (it's literally the picture behind the title on the front page of their website, its so cool).

Mystery boxes:
-Two boxes from the Furry Mystery Box stand: The Cute one, and the '80s one. I got a little shiba inu plushie as a bonus for buying two. So much stuff - two T-shirts, a lot of pins and stickers, a cassette, more plushies... so much!;
-One Fursona Pins Mystery Box;
-A bag of varied Pokémon art including a pin.

Other:
-A cap from Mango Island;
-Monster Hunter Generations for the 3DS, purchased at Static Claws' table
-Got my badge from last year redone at the Lizard Lamination and Embroidery booth - this time, no color smudges!;
-And two books for the tabletop RPG Ironclaw, the big second edition Omnibus and an extra Player's Book, from Sanguine Games. I don't even know if I,ll ever play it. Might try, who knows.

(not finished, saving for now in case of thunderstorm)

Well, my luggage was delivered to me yesterday. Hey, it only took 36 hours; wished it didn't but it still arrived relatively fast in the circumstances. Most of the stuff I purchased at AnthroCon didn't take a ton of space in it, but I was looking forward to getting it. And now - what it is that I got.

-This year's "cute" Furry Mystery Box, including a plushie of a bunny character, a corgi T-shirt and lots of little extra goodies like pins and stickers. (You know what I like about the Mystery Box? It's thick enough to fit in my suitcase but also has enough empty space in it that I can put most of the stuff I bought into it for easy transportation!)
-Some Yu-Gi-Oh cards - speaking of, R.I.P. Kazuki Takahashi, whose passing was announced today; he's left a great legacy of mangas and games behind.
-A Funko Pop of Silver the Hedgehog, which came with two free comic books!
-Three stickers showing D20s with different results and appropriate reactions (ex. "Oh yeah!" for a Nat 20!)
-A 3D-printed Jiggy from Banjo-Kazooie as well as a 3D-printed Porygon, both purchased at Static Claws's table!
-Three Certified tags by  marymouse : Hustler, Puff!, and Paladin (which is what I like to imagine is Nicolas' "class" of sorts in any situations where he's Tercius, like here

So yeah, not as much stuff as I thought, but great stuff nonetheless!

AnthroCon, how I've missed you! With the in-person event two years out of commission due to the Covid-19 pandemic (though the virtual editions did their best to give the feel of the event in spite of that), it was good to return to Pittsburgh this year. And what a massive event it was, too - likely due to the two years without it, this time had more first-timers than before. Attendance numbers are impressive - some 9700~ attendees and an estimated 2700 fursuiters. Very awesome.

As usual, I'm going back over the stuff I purchased, which is mostly art. As a matter of fact, this is pretty much all I can talk about in this post, because something happened to me on the way home: Air Canada lost my luggage in which I had safely stored the Furry Mystery Box, which was big enough to contain just about everything non-art that I had purchased. So I'm making a first post here and will likely follow up with a second one, when my luggage filled with stuff purchased and four days of laundry finally gets home. This covers everything in my backpack, basically.

BADGE
As you can see from my profile, my badge this year professes my love for metal, with devil horns and the Dream Theater hoodie and all. Done by the super-talented IzzySqueakzy, I got this piece laminated and then wore it as a badge for the rest of the weekend. Only downside is that it rubbed against the printed refs I had brought with me to the convention, and the photo paper didn't like that mixed with the hot weather, explaining the traces of color errors in the picture of the badge. That said, I liked this one so much that I'll definitely try to get it redone next year - without color issues this time!

ART COMMISSIONS: TRADITIONAL ART RECEIVED
I made five art commissions this year, three of which will be received digitally - in the meantime, the other two travelled in my backpack, meaning that I'll be able to show them off here right away!
-The first is a gorgeous piece by  KittMouri , who drew my raven girl Marjorie.
-The second is a piece by  EdgarKingmaker, whom I tasked with drawing a fight scene between my characters Nicolas the lion (or rather, his StarWarrior version Tercius), in a battle of the fates against my villainous crow Malum.

Artists commissioned for pieces either digital or to be received post-convention are  TheLivingShadow,  PuppieChow and  JM-anime . Looking forward to receiving those!

OTHER PRINTS
-Two prints from the same artist (unfortunately I forget whom it was: One showing Miles "Tails" Prower doing the peace sign and the other is cub Simba with the leaf mane in the middle of his "I Just Can't Wait to be King" sequence. Their artist name isn't anywhere on the pictures so if anyone knows the artist who did these let me know, I'll credit them properly!
-A mystery envelope of 5 prints labeled "Cats" also purchased from  TheLivingShadow!

That's about it - for the rest, it'll be in Part 2 when my luggage arrives, hopefully not too late.

Third year in a row that I go to AnthroCon. This year was... a bit more relaxed, I would say. I went to panels, made purchases... I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't take quite as many photos, but I guess it happens. (Plus, I took the best ones last year, including two pictures of myself with Uncle Kage and Alkali, respectively). Aside from Ben Diskin, I didn't really take pictures of myself with the guests of honor, even though the occasion rose for all three on Saturday; I did get a picture with Diskin, one without and one with the head of his Haida fursuit. I should have taken a picture with SonicFox (who had a Q&A Panel on Saturday afternoon) and Steve Gallacci (who helped co-host the Zootopia fan discussion panel on Saturday night).

Last year, I will always remember the incredibly lucky and fun time I had at the convention, like a return of balance after an exceedingly unlucky trip on my way to Pittsburgh. This year, I had absolutely no problems on my way; planes arrived on time, departed on time, the weather was nice (on the days I was flying, at least), and I feel like the convention felt a bit mellow. Still awesome and great, though maybe I had too much planned for those four days and not enough time to stop and chill. ...Also, this year, almost everybody else I know had travel troubles instead. One's car broke down on the way, the one who picked the first guy up had his car break down during the days of the convention, one has his return flights delayed...

And so, just like that year, I feel it's just fair to give credit to the many artists I've bought art from at AnthroCon, send some nice words their way. It's not just exposure, I literally just bought art from them - if this Journal allows some people coming to my page to find new creators with art styles they like, then that's a nice plus.

Let's start with...
REGULAR BIG ART - big pictures I can't fit in a binder.
-This piece of art by  Stratica
-A big piece from  ifus that shows Ghost-type Pokémon scared while watching a horror movie - can't unfortunately find it anywhere online, but it's absolutely fantastic and I love it, love it, love it.

REGULAR-SIZED ART - Art I can fit in a binder!
-A picture of various cute Fire-type Pokémon (Arcanine, Flareon, Fletchling, Torchic) together, bought from Usula Vernon in the Dealer's Den.
-Three works from  Ulariogryphon : This picture of Rocket, this lioness, and this Alolan Marowak.
-Three pieces of art from  CloverHare, which I unfortunately couldn't find on FA; all three pictures show, respectively, the Grass-type, Fire-type and Water-type Pokémoin starters from Gens 1 to 5. It's sweet and cute.
-More art from  TheLivingShadow, namely viking Deadpool, Zootopia 2049, and of course... Haida! (I actually showed that one to Ben Diskin!)
-Two art pieces that say "Henbe 2017", one showing Judy Hopps, one showing the Adelita Twins (from The Book of Life). I can't find them anywhere, I would love to have some help!

COMMISSIONS
All three will be posted soon to my profile, with links to the artists' profiles on here. I printed four copies of my ref sheet along with clothing ref examples (casual clothes, scarf, cosplay attire), both from  CHAOKOCartoons .
Commissions were by  Snapai ,  SavageShark and  PuppieChow !

OTHER STUFF
Man, those Furry Mystery Boxes were all the rage this year. As soon as the Dealer's Den opened, I swear I started seeing these boxes in literally everybody's hands. I personally went for the Cute box, as I don't really have an interest in dakimakura or pirates, but didn't want just the random box. Quite hapyp with the contents; lots of pins, an adorable T-shirt, a comic book with a plushie of one character in it, a few bits of art. Oh, and there was a lanyard in there too, I believe? Good stuff. The thing that's both a blessing and a curse is that the boxes are pretty big for how little stuff there appears to be in there (I figure it's mostly becauseof the T-shirt), but the advantage is that I managed to fit most of the other stuff I got at the convention inside that box, so I had one smaller package for all of that stuff in my luggage when I went home.

I also finally bought a tail! After two yars without one, it was about time. Though, admittedly, I'm still not entirely used to it, and the logistics of wearing it are... impractical, to say the least. Let's just say I am glad not to be a fursuiter.

Among the things not bought, but rather received, I got a bowl from the place that replaces Furnando's (also took me two years to get one! What's wrong with me.), and a shooter glass that says "dumb bunny" on it (won t the Zootopia fan discussion panel).

Oh, and Yu-Gi=Oh cards, because I am a goddamn addict.

Other stuff include: Another lanyard that says "Do not pet", two Certified tags by  marymouse , "Rocket!" and "Trainer!" (Guess I was feeling Pokémon that day), got my convention badge laminated ( This one specifically, also a creation of  CHAOKOCartoons ; and Tome two of TwoKinds.

If the Gods of Finances are nice to me this year, I really hope to be there at AnthroCon 2020.

So AnthroCon 2018 is over, and it was a lot of fun. The theme this year was Movie Monsters, and thought it was a very loose theme, I tried to adhere to it at least ever so slightly, mostly through a badge that I commissioned, then had laminated in the Dealer's Den. It's been posted to my gallery, by the way. I count that as a souvenir, but I of curse but much more!

BOOKS
-TwoKinds Volume 1
-DreamKeepers Volume 1 by  Dreamkeepers (gotta start somewhere!)

BADGES
-A transparent "No. MA097 Panthera leo" badge (I don't remember who makes those)
-Two Certified badges by  marymouse (namely, Writer and Chief Bogo's "Don't Care")

CARDS:
-Way too many Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Pardon me, I am an addict. But hey, at least I got some cool furry cards in there, like some Fur Hire monsters.

PINS
-Two Undertale pins by  Sonyasha , namely Papyrus and Flowey!

OTHERS
-A flowery-mane lion sticker by  PaintedDeer!

ADDITIONAL ART
-Two pieces of art by  JAEH : A "Rock On" sticker of a wolf (as seen here) and a singing Luigi, which is really friggin' awesome but i can't seem to find it anywhere on his profile. Would be awesome if I could get a link!
-A Ratatouille picture that says "Heart of a rat, Soul of a chef" - I lost the receipt for that one, unfortunately, but I would love to find the artist to give proper credit!
-Two pieces of art from  TheLivingShadow : This adorable piece of Nick and Judy from Zootopia, and this cool new-style version of Retsuko. I forgot to grab his picture of Haida at the same time.
-This lovely picture of Sans from  danigrillo. I also bought from them a picture of Skull Kid, which I haven't found in their gallery on FA unfortunately.

SKETCH COMMISSIONS
-Two pictures of my lion Nicolas, one by  Alice_Alexia , one by  vpower17 . I have received permission from both artists to publish them here, with credit given each time of course.

...

But of course, I did not only buy stuff at AnthroCon. I had some great food at the convention, and also before and after it (I will spare you the details, but I had a lot of airplane troubles on Thursday, and I sopent some of my Monday in Pittsburgh some more as well). I had plenty of time to pass by souvenir shops and similar places to get lots of additional items.


-A Pittsburgh shot glass
-Bottles of maple syrup that I bought in Montreal - five, to be precise. I gave three to the guys I was rooming with, one to my friend who drove me fron the con to the Pittsburgh airport, and I kept one.
-A Pittsburgh cap!
-Monday's Pittsburgh Post Gazette. I like to have a copy of a journal of a place I went to, for some reason.
-A manga version of the movie WALL-E
-The magazine Popular Mechanics, July/August 2018
-A notebook that says "Jst another day in paradise" on the cover
-Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time". There's my nerd cred.

Okay, if I have any other journal entry to write, I'll be around!