Ok so I realise this is all a little late...collectormania being back in may, but I’ve been busy (best excuse I could think up) and well as I’m currently without an internet connection I felt now is the best time to write this up, as there was nothing to take my attention while being at the computer. Ok so Collectormania XI was back on the 4th to the 7th of May, everything was planned so well, and I didn’t have to skip any lectures or anything so we could catch a train which was very good!

Firstly this time round we decided to go on the Friday this time, so we were able to look around from Saturday morning, and also so that we could settle down, so after my Barry lecture I headed to get the uni bus and then rushed to the train station, where I met up with charlotte who had been carrying around the suitcase and buying the newest issue of the Buffy comic.

When then this time took a train that had a wait at Birmingham which was oh so much better than faffing about at London, was also the first time I’d been to the station and my god was it massive, and so many different platforms, but we found it in the end and waited about half an hour or something, but that was better than changing tubes and getting to a station and then cramming on a London train with a suitcase, as in my opinion London and suitcases aren’t too much fun.

I was quite sleepy after my lectures since half 9 so I closed my eyes for a bit, but didn’t really get much of any sleep. But anyways we got into Milton Keynes at just before 6pm (I love that pictures record when you took then ^__^) I then took a picture of the train station wondering why it seemed more Shibuya from Jet Set Radio...it may have been the rain clouding my vision before, but it doesn’t look so much like it now, I wonder why.

So we made our way to the hotel after that, and met up with Stevie and Ruth as we were sharing a room with them, and they were also accompanied by Raine.
We then took some pictures of Ruth’s bear (did he have a name?) along with Moo ^__^.

After a lot of attempting to touch my picture and draw more of it, we decided we should go eat...

Now myself and Charlotte wanted to eat at the amazing Wagamama, but also wanted to see Spiderman 3 as it had come out on the same day, the plan was originally to eat first, we popped to the cinema to buy our tickets but with how late it actually was we ended up playing a little Leathal Enforcers 3 at the Odeon and then seeing Spiderman 3, our dinner then being popcorn and some reeces cups...healthy, it was also annoying at this point though as it buggered up my wisdom tooth which then made it hurt for the duration of the convention.

Ok so after Spiderman 3 (best part hands down was Bruce Campbell btw) we went back to the hotel and after attempting a bit more drawing we ended up falling asleep if I remember correctly.
Now onto Saturday, now we didn’t go check out the convention on the Friday so we weren’t sure what was there, but what we did know was that we wanted to get James Masters VTs so we all popped down to the MK centre earlish...not as early as we did for Amber previously though, we then had the fun of queuing for a while, I passed the time by trying to finish off more of my picture and talk at the same time while holding Moo as you can see.

After at least an hour of waiting (maybe?) we got our VTs...Not very happily though as the people right behind us were given much lower numbers than we got, WASN’T VERY HAPPY ABOUT THAT. But there was nothing we could do but moan so we split up and had a little walk about.
I found a Police Call Box thingy which Moo wanted to go in.

Along with an Alien and some soldiers guarding him, who very nicely posed for us, as I’m sure they were asked more about pictures with the Alien.

The Alien was extremely hot; I can’t presume it was a nice experience being inside there for the guy.

It’s a real shame that one of the guys was blinking, and hey I guess the alien was jealous of a picture without him, as you can see him popping his head in the picture on the right.

We also of course had to get a posed picture with Moo which I thought was rather cute .
There were yet more pictures with other cosplayers.

And more...one of these guys was called Paul I think if I remember right, he’d seen Moo on the showmasters forums .

More cosplayers this time including Ruth, and the lady who we had a picture of from last year ^__^.

We then felt it was time for lunch so we had lunch at Lets Eat where we had a yummy Panini each along with wedges and a coke was yummy, not the best food though, was a bit pricey as well.

After lunch I did a bit more drawing.

And then there were yet more cosplayers, including an Illyria.

A V

The amazing Link

An awesome Jack Sparrow

A whole host of harry potter/pirate people (sorry I don’t know who you are).

At that point we decided that we’d start getting my picture signed, well I call it my picture but I was drawing it for Charlotte. The first thing we picked up on when going over to Mark and George’s table was their map of the UK, including Caerleon which we had them add....except it’s spelt KHERRLIEN ^__^

We had Mark pose with Moo, as well as sign the picture, which we felt he didn’t want to do that much...I think he thought it had gotten a little old .

But we also got a picture with us two, although my head kind of got in the way of Charlotte’s.

As we then waited we got a picture with their crew member ^__^ Moo likes being cuddled you see.

We then met George and got the picture signed and asked him to do something with Moo, which was very cute.

After that we got a picture with us.

And then probably annoyed Mark a bit by getting a picture with the both of them and Moo.

We then did a bit more wandering about, and ended up queuing up for Ray Park, and while waiting I sneakily got a picture of Odo...Rene Auberjonois...who didn’t look too happy...or maybe just was giving us a bit of a cheeky look.

When we got to meet Ray Park we got the picture signed.

A picture with Moo.

And a picture with us.

Ok so after Ray Park we found this person.

And this mean guy.

And this very cool doctor.

And then David, and after a lot of Moo appreciation we moved on.

And met a European (I'm guessing) Superman

We then headed off to get James Masters to sign my picture, although we didn’t get a picture of him signing it we did get a picture of Shabs? And Moo instead.

Along with our picture signed.

This also then led to a picture of Moo with TooTall

We also saw our new friends from the browncoats stall and got a picture of the two of them with Moo, showing off his lovely Equality now bracelets.

We then ventured off and took another picture of George & Mark’s map as it had a large amount of places on it now.

And gained a picture with another crew member .

Then it was time for Anthony Stewart Head, where we got him to sign the picture.

And pose with Moo, which was lovely of him, shame we couldn’t get a picture with us as well though.

We then went to see Grace Park (OMG) and while we waited the crew member was having fun with Moo, as he was oh so soft ^__^.

And before we got to see Grace we nabbed this picture as well , lots of fun.

We were just getting Charlotte’s picture signed for now, as I planned on getting my C&C3 signed the next day. Had to point out the drawing of her though ^__^.

But it was cool cos we got such a lovely picture of her with Moo, but like Anthony we couldn’t get a photo with ourselves and Grace.

We then went for the Brandon queue, it now being about half five (so most of the day gone by now)
And I got him to sign my picture which he said was really good .

And then the big picture as well ^__^ but we couldn’t get a photo of him at this point as it was pretty much impossible for him to pose, due to the massive queue.

After this we decided to call it a day, meaning we’d have a quick pop around the shops then back to the hotel, and I was very jealous of Virgin Megastore’s Solid Snake...so I had to get a picture with Moo.

It was then a case of looking at what we’d bought, I must say I honestly can’t remember when we bought stuff so I’ll just pop it all at the end .
We got pretty much all the picture signed bar Charisma which we planned to get the next day.

It can all pretty much be seen from the picture there really, bought myself C&C3 and Final Fantasy III from the GAME, where the guy I can swear didn’t believe I worked in GAME, quizzing me on where my store was and the store number, now I understand I was quite a distance from my store, but he shouldn’t be rude like that.

And two of my favourite things are the two tops in the top right, and in case you can’t see them very well, here they are again, I must say I just love Retro GT as they are now doing women’s size game related clothes which is great, I just love the asteroids one, although it’s a shame they didn’t have all their designs in skinny fit tops .

After watching the episode of Dr Who that was on (it was a Saturday ^__^) Stevie and Ruth headed off to the party and myself and Charlotte decided to go out and eat at Wagamama (yay) just to point out to anyone unaware of the place, they serve Japanese food, which ranges from Ramen to rice dishes and is delicious filling and not too expensive, and is the best way to end an evening, I would post pictures but I didn’t take any, but the food is lovely and well presented and you can green tea with your meal, free of charge, and as much as you want , but the peach ice tea is lovely too.
After the lovely meal we went back to our hotel room and watched the out-takes and extras on the C&C3 disc, mainly to see if Grace had said anything funny, and also just to have something fun to watch.

Ok so on to Sunday we left nearly as early as we did the day before, and queued up for James again as Charlotte wanted a picture she drew signed (as I couldn’t draw it, she did on Saturday)
So I played my lovely new FF3 while sitting down in the queue

After getting the tickets (may I point out we were diddled out of good numbers again, and the people directly behind us had really low numbers, is there something wrong with us?) we then popped off and had a little walk about, where Charlotte then spotted a lady with a Life on Mars top, Charlotte commented on it and was given the designs for it, cute .

We then met an array of cosplayers, from Jedi

To some weird Darlek thing and a Darlek at the SFX stall

To Ruth as Herr Flick

To a Peacekeeper

To Ichabod Crane

And ending with a rather ravenous lot of Klingons

Also just to add one of the days we ate at Absolutely Souper which do amazing croutons, and another day we ate at Brunches who make the best sandwiches so eat there at some point as I had the most amazingly awesome sandwich from there, was a club which was absolutely chocked with insides.

We then got James to sign the newly drawn picture.

And then we saw Grace again , Charlotte took a picture but I must say she didn’t take a very good one . But you can also see my lovely C&C3 inlay be jealous people!

Just a thing to point out while we were in the Grace queue we saw the most amazing cosplayer who was a great looking Picard!

There was then Charisma, who we couldn’t get a picture with, which was a darn shame but here she is signing the picture.

Last thing we then did was meet Terry Jones and get him to sign a copy of Flying Circus for Charlotte, he was a nice guy, and we got a picture with him and a lovely picture of him with Moo .

After that we took all our stuff back to the hotel and went off to the James Masters talk at the hockey stadium, which may I say was amazing, you can see a lovely little flash file I’ve put together with the images I took, enjoy

After all that fun we had a nice relaxing sleep and stuff

Here is what we got on the Sunday/had gotten signed.

And the amazingness of our James Masters photo(s).

I was going to put up the picture we got of James and moo but I won’t just yet

It was then the last day of the convention where we didn’t do too much more than buy a few things, and make sure we didn’t regret not buying anything.
Although we did meet a very cool man, who had bought a Headcrab hat.

We spent a while at the Browncoats stall where pictures were taken with Moo, and Charlotte spent more money (all for a good cause of course)

We also managed to get a picture with Moo and the crew member (don’t know her name myself) but I know she was with Nathan at LFCC last year ^__^

Other than that we picked up our Brandon photos...although we don’t look as happy as we could of as he didn’t want his picture taken with Moo but it’s his choice so ja.

After walking around a bit we decided to go get our train back home, which also included getting an amazing milkshake from Millie’s cookies, as they will put any ice-cream in a milkshake, and I had some kind of blue raspberry sherbet thing, and OMG it was amazing...although it turned my mouth, teeth and lips blue, but it was yum. So we caught a train home...well to our old home back on campus, as you can see from the photos.
Here is the stuff Charlotte bought from the Browncoats stall.

Along with the final picture for Charlotte to hang somewhere...or whatever she wishes to do with it .

As you can see my wardrobe is covered ^__^

So another convention gone by can’t wait for the next one, and to see what guests end up going, I’d love to see another BSG guest though I shall have to get some drawing done for future guests. I hope you enjoyed reading my blog entry on Collectormania XI, sorry it’s a little late but I have been busy and well yeah...sorry, but hey at least I got it done in the end.