Ohnitsch Cartoons Cartoons, Electronics, Acrobatics and other things.

USA Trip: 27.01.

Got up at 5:30, packed out stuff and went to the airport. The trip was okay, I had my first burgers in the U.S. in Chicago and we were drawing barks stuff at the airport to kill time.

Aerial View of the Doubletree from out plane

Our flight got delayed so we had to wait even longer and we eventually arrived in Orlando at about 8pm. John picked us up and we went to some really awesome Tex-Mex restaurant. It was soooo good and not even expensive. And the store manager made fresh guacamole (in case it's spelled that way) at the Table.
Also I had fried Ice cream for the first time in my life. It was delicious!
Didn't do much that evening and went to bed early.

USA Trip: 26.01

Finally adjusted to the timezone, hence I missed the breakfast.
We went to a Store called Chipotle instead which mainly sells Burritos. They're just 3 times as big as the Burritos you can get in Vienna. Really.. MASSIVE. Even though I was really hungry I just had to give up.

We exchanged some more sketches, as most of the people we were hanging out with were leaving on early afternoon.
As we had quite some time left, we just spent it in the Lobby, saying goodbye to all the people leaving and watching boring Businessman checking in.
Some business people tried their best to ignore the costumes, some were totally excited, it was fun to watch
In the evening there were only about 70 people left and there was a small party in a conference room which was fun. We originally planned to stay up since we had to head out for the airport at 5:30am anyway, but we decided to get at least a few hours of sleep.

USA Trip: 25.01

The breakfast was so goooood!
After It we went to Jeff Pidgeons panel about Storyboard drawing which was really interesting! I knew some of the stuff from books, but its much different hearing it from an industry professional and listening to his experiences.

Jeff Pidgeon holding a panel about storyboarding

We met up with some other artists at his Table and did some Happy Beaver art jam, horray.

Henrieke and me trying to draw happy beavers

At the marketplace they also had a few copies of the Eric Goldberg book. I already got that one for christmas so I didn't look through, but as Henrieke did she discovered that the seller was a relative of Eric, and Eric signed them and drew a Sketch in each of them. Also the books were normal-priced, of course I couldn't resist buying it, it's worth gold!
In the lobby there were also funny things going on:

Photo by Henrieke, watch out for Sarah Palin in the background

Awesome Weasel with a mini-me.

helpdesk

We went to a really nice restaurant with Brian Reynolds in the evening. Restaurants are really different there, most are themed, the portions are huge and the best thing - you get free refills for drinks!
There are so much differences you only notice when you're there, but overall people are totally nice in the U.S. so far.

USA Trip: 24.01

Woke up at 7, again not being able to sleep anymore.
Had another massive breakfast and finally we found Jeff Pidgeon there (Guest of Honor and Pixar Storyboard Artist.
He's a really awesome guy and gave us great sketches of his awesome Character, Happy Beaver.

Jeff Pidgeon drawing stuff

The Cover of the Conbook also features artwork by Jeff:

Too bad I had to try to not spend too much money, because the happy beaver figurines he sold were awesome, but at least I got a nice T-shirt.
We also met Brian Reynolds who is also really cool, he was just a bit busy doing sketches.
For dinner we went to the first and biggest Chuck-E-Cheese Restaurant. We were 7 people in one car, with 5 people on the backseats. It was a *bit* tight, but the other 4 were girls so I didn't mind.
The restaurant was kind of... creepy, and you definately won't find anything like that in Europe.

me + some girls in front of Chuck-E-Cheese (note the CREEPY animatronic thing in the back, that was version 1.0)

We had some more or less good pizza, did some drawings and had alot of fun there.
When we came back there were already alot of parties going on at the Hotel, I think about 20 on one floor with a balcony connecting all the rooms. I thought the music taste of U.S. people was bad but I was proven wrong.
Time passed by way too fast, but I was still a bit jetlagged, so sleep was necessary.

Nighttime at the Hotel

USA Trip: 23.01

Woke up at 6 without being able to sleep anymore, stupid jetlag!
Went downstairs and discovered a HUGE breakfast buffet, so I just went for that with Jill. I must say I could get used to american breakfast, I ate 3 plates of food.. enough to skip lunch.

yummy!

After that I went to Starbucks with Henrieke an a bunch of other cartoon artists, we made an artjam and I noticed that Starbucks in the U.S. lacks couches.

Had Dinner with Stephen, the guy who owns Arend Studios, and a few other people.
There was some dance with good retro music, but thanks to jetlag I was way too tired and went to bed early.