I was at the Anime Expo this past weekend doing a digital painting demo for Vision 21 who shared a booth with Nexon.

To make a long story short, I got hit in the face with the unexpected. Growing up, one of the things that got me into drawing was Dragonball, along with a slew of other Japanese comics. Back then, you couldn’t really find any of it in English. So I would have to drive all the way to Koreatown and find Korean translations of the Japanese comic (now known as “manga”) just so I could see what would happen to Goku and his friends. Eventually my interest in manga faded over the years. Now fast forward to today. I haven’t really been keeping up with manga and how popular it’s gotten in the U.S. I’ve been hearing of things such as “cosplay” here and there, but never really experienced it first hand. I got a glimpse of it at “Video Games Live”, but wasn’t prepared for the sheer weirdness of it all.

1. After a long day of ninja-ing around, Snake Eyes decides to holla at the ladies. 2. Check out the detail on this model!!!

There were thousands of kids dressed up as their favorite characters walking around as if they did it everyday. I was totally fascinated by it. I kept on thinking how awesome life would be if everyone dressed like this everyday. Life would never be boring. I also liked the fact that so many kids could come out and be totally consumed by their eclectic sub-culture.

1. Dammit, was I the only one who didn’t know that I was a geek???

In the end, I met a lot of good peole, had a blast, and left inspired. If you still don’t get a sense of how different things can be check this clip out:

It was seriously like that all the time.