SDCC '11: Udon Panel and Capcom Related Things

Udon Panel, Tekken and Street Fighter signings, Kidrobot Street Fighter vinyls, Minimates, and a couple things from SOTA

Udon Panel: Last year, I found that by not going to panels, I was able to have a better Comic-con and cover more on the actual show floor. I only attended one panel last year, the Udon panel, and did the same this year. I did try to attend other panels, but the lines were already ridiculously long when I got into them. I'm sure the Udon crew would love to have a ton of people in their panel, but for me it's good that there is at least one panel I can attend without having to wait in line for hours. Major announcements were promised for this panel, so I hoped they came through with the major-ness of announcements.

-The panel was moderated by Jim Zubkavich and had Omar Dogan, Long Vo, Jeffery "Chamba" Cruz, Joe Ng, Alvin Lee, and Arnold Tsang.

-So what has the crew been up to during the last year? Omar has been working on an original artbook of his art that includes his own commentary on his work, including mistakes he thinks he made. Chamba had finished RandomVeus Vol. 1 and SDCC was the debut for the graphic novel. Chamba also designed the Kidrobot Street Fighter vinyls. Joe is working on an Akuma Origins graphic novel. Alvin couldn't reveal what he was working on yet. Arnold has been doing some art for Blizzard.

-New books that are now out from Udon include: Legendary Visions: The Art of Genzoman, which is also Udon's 100th retail release. There are also the Valkyria Chronicles artbook and the Ar Tonelico artbook.

-touching on Omar's upcoming Girl Seven book, once a piece is finished, he doesn't allow himself to go back and change anything, even if he thinks of how he should have altered something.

-A Valkyria Chronicles 2 artbook will be coming in 2012.

-Another new upcoming artbook is for Sengoku Basara.

-And now for the major announcement of the panel: Udon is working on a Marvel Vs. Capcom artbook. This is will include art and assets from all three games and will be "jam-packed with the awesome," as stated by Jim Zub. This is very cool, because it's the first time since Udon's very first Burger King X-Men comics that they're working on Marvel characters.

The Marvel VS Capcom art book is guaranteed to be "jam-packed with the awesome."	Jim Zub, Omar Dogan, Long Vo, Chamba, Joe Ng, Alvin Lee, and Arnold Tsang of Udon.

-Speaking of the Burger King X-Men comics, it was a stressful beginning because they had to do 64 pages in just two weeks.

-The Udon crew started out working at Erik Ko's parent's mansion (Erik Ko is Udon's Editor-in-Chief). They all lived and worked there as they got Udon off the ground. Arnold's parents basically dropped him off at the mansion right after graduation.

-How they focus on their work: Omar listens to drum & bass without lyrics so he can think. He drinks lots of coffee and yells, "Focus!" Long doesn't stop until the piece is done. He basically powers through it. Chamba works to distraction. He feels he does better work when he has things to distract him. Jo can't work before Noon. Alvin upped Jo on the time though, as he said he can't work before 3 pm. He also faces a certain direction. For every three hours Arnold works, he plays a half-hour of Street fighter.

-Udon used to have a 30 GB server that they would just upload art onto. However, they didn't know that they reached the limit, so whenever they added something new, something old was automatically deleted. Eventually the realized what was happening and have a new system to file things.

If Udon has another panel next year I'll be sure to go. The 7 p.m. time slot work really well with my schedule, plus it's such an enjoyable panel because everyone on it are good friends that it carries over during the panel.

Tekken and Street Fighter: Katsuhiro Harada, the project director of the Tekken series, and Dai Sato, the director of Tekken: Blood Vengeance were doing a signing at Kotobukiya's booth. Harada was also doing a couple signings with Yoshinoro Ono for Street Fighter X Tekken over at the Capcom booth. There weren't nearly as many signings at the Capcom booth this year compared to last year, but still opportunities for fans to get posters and games signed.

Katsuhiro Harada and Dai Sato at the Tekken: Blood Vengeance signing.	Katsuhiro Harada and Yoshinoro Ono at a Street Fighter X Tekken signing. Also, check out Ono's Darkstalkers shirt.

Kidrobot Street fighter vinyls: Kidrobot's Street Fighter vinyls are very cool, but unfortunately suffer from blind box syndrome. Their SDCC exclusive was an Evil Ryu. He sold out immediately at the Kid Robot booth on the first day. The Capcom booth had some for every day of the 'con, but they sold out right away each morning.

The awesome Kidrobot Street Fighter vinyls.

Enjoy the random Capcom related photos.

Street Fighter X Tekken and Dragon's Dogma at Capcom.	Raccoon City doesn't quite seem to be working right now.
The Mega Man, Roll, and Proto Man figure kits.	Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 Minimates
Sentinel looks like he just go caught doing something he wasn't supposed to.	That pipe.

The Morrigan and Lillith embrace statue is a cool idea, but it just looks terrible. Not SOTA's best work.	This Chun Li is a much better representation of SOTA's usual work.