Hickory-Con Spring 2016: A Review and Surprise by Aki Ame Okami

                  Hickory-Con: Spring 2016


What exactly is a Hickory-con?
A Hickory-Con is a comic-con held in Hickory, North Carolina.
Some of you might remember that my first blog post ever was about a previous Hickory-con so I am pretty thrilled to write this post. Let's begin!

My day started after basically, a 3 hour nap. I had been up for 28 hours straight the previous day/night preparing my key prop for Hickory-Con. Can you tell I was a bit enthusiastic?
The blogging team received bad news though. Our dearest Heiwa had to go into work until 1 P.M. Yep... That was terrible news...
I went back to sleep until about noon. Don't judge me, it was an accident.

After Heiwa got home and we got our cosplays in order we left for the con. That put us there around 2:45 PM. It takes us about an hour to get to Hickory but it is totally worth it.

The parking garage and outdoor area was very promising seeing how cars and people were everywhere. Alright enough of that, lets get to what you guys care about. THE CON!

 Our first stop as always was the wonderful Mrs. Zexania Sutcliff! 
Today she debuted her Papyrus cosplay.
I have mad respect for her because I know that she had to be hot in that.

 It got even better though, she had a group of UnderTale cosplayers! I can't even get 1 cosplay friend let alone 3!
They gave us this amazing group shot :)

 
There was a ton of cosplayers there but unfortunately this is my last picture of a cosplay. I do regret that but today was Heiwa's turn to take pictures and I didn't realize she was slacking off...... My fault. I should have paid attention.

Anyways, this lovely cosplayer and artist to the left is Blue Jay Cosplay  and I just now realized that she is also one of my favorite FairyTail cosplayers. Excuse me while I fangirl.She was there as an artist and dressed as the blind Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender. A blind artist. I must be a terrible person because I was thoroughly pleased with this situation.

 

 

 

 We walked around a few times and ultimately had to come back to this vendor for some.. unexplainable reasons.
This is, and I quote, "Pretty Weird Art."
They are accurately named because they had some weird stuff but it was all pleasing to the eyes and fairly humorous which I thought was fantastic. Art these days (especially at cons) tends to focus more on... physical attraction(?) so I was very happy to see some genuinely funny and possibly creepypasta-esque comics. ^_^ 

More vendors! Just no more pictures...

Authors Seth Ervin and Casey Eanes were at the con today and we stopped and chatted with them for a bit. They wrote The Keys of Candor Series. After talking to them I made my first ever con purchase and bought the first book in the series, The Red Deaths, and I don't want to reveal anything about the plot but it looks reaaaallllllyyyyyy good. I actually think that I will do a book review once I have finished it. I will quote the blurb to you though.
(If either author finds this unsatisfying or untrue, even though its word for word, please email or message me and I will take this out)
"King Camden
                        Is Dead.
After forty years of peace, war rages through Candor.
The rulers of the Realms are dying.
Their precious secret of the Keys has been revealed.

Enemies unforeseen move in the shadows and the Nightmares behind the glass will be soon be unleashed.

                                  The DOMINION has awakened.

                             Three Red Deaths. Three Linked Lives. 
                       One Keeper of The Keys. "End quote. This is the blurb on the back of the book and it instantly had me hooked. If it hooked you in the same way feel free to check out the book on Amazon. Check out the books official website at http://www.keysofcandor.com/ (I love the choice of font on the website. Editors should definitely go look at it <3 )   



                                                    Altered Vision Contacts
This guys are pretty rad. They had a wide variety of everything nerdy/geeky (which, if you are in the fandom then that isn't an insult but a pet name) You know those really cute resin buttons? They had some with Slenderman and Jeff on them which was really tempting for me but I had a hard time parting with my money.
They had everything from Pokémon to Five Nights At Freddy's so that is definitely a booth that I am going back to! (With more money.) Oirnari* and Kotari* bought stuff from them.

                         Artful Sunshine by Donna & Will Petrey 

These artists and crafters had everything from earrings and necklaces to flat out exquisite sketches. I walked over to look at their FairyTail earrings but I don't have pierced ears so I was pretty bummed but the lady running the booth (My guess is that she was Donna, so Ms. Donna.) told me they had necklaces and other non-piercing goodies on the inside of the display. Well I got to looking and it turns out that they had Howl's Moving Castle merchandise.
Howl's Moving Castle. If you have been following me for any period of time then you should know that I am in love with that movie and it is possibly what started my Otaku tendancies.  If I had pierce ears I would have a pair of Calcifer earrings right now. I almost got them anyways. Definitely go check them out!
 
Alright, last thing to mention in the way of "vendors".
I got DeadPool's number.
No, just kidding (though that would have been great.) I only got his business card. The design on the card looks kinda like the Splatter Grunge Art from Marion-Con.... Collaboration maybe?! Anyways I really need to stop stalking all the really cool cosplayers in my  area.

CARS!
They had two new members in the car club this time around and I freaked out when I saw them. Jeeps are my spirit animal.

This beautiful beast to the left belongs to Don Teems who is a regular on AMC's The Walking Dead. This is his zombie response jeep.
I had to take a traditional grill shot.

Glamour shot!
It so pretty.......

That is just about it for my post. Below I have my proof(s) of purchases, A summary and a special surprise. ;)

Heiwa made me. She said,
"Look at me in your Bassy voice."
Yeah..
Anyways, This is the most alluring book ever.

And this is my precious littler Harbinger of Nightmares, Darkrai!
He is a Pokémon.
He is my fictional soulmate, or lack-of-soulmate.

Keep scrolling.



Overall Hickory-Con: Spring 2016 was a mega success and somehow waaay better than its previous version. They are properly continuing to expand their horizons and I look forward to what they accomplish in the future. They are definitely on par with Marion-Con, slightly better mostly because of size, so I am excited to see which one of them takes first place in my heart for best 1-day con.
Something that I think would be cool in the future for Hickory-Con would be a "Mall Crawl" after the cosplay contest. Nothing is more fun then seeing normal peoples faces when they see a bunch of people walking around in costume. That happened to me at lunch.
I accidentally scared some seniors...

I will post some "glamour shots" in a separate post but I have to warn you that they weren't very good. It poured rain today so my hair got really frizzy and I called the photo-shoot quits.


Now look below for one of the most amazing things ever!!






I am very excited to announce that we have added not one but two new members to the Ani-Maze-Me team! They will be called Oinari and Kotori! I look forward to working with them in the future and possibly cosplaying with them! (Unlike the other members that I mention, I don't live with these guys so they are possibly my favorites!)

~Aki Ame Okami