Neopets Singapore Event 2003
Thankfully, it wasn't raining on Saturday, 22th November when I reached Isetan Singapore.
In fact, the weather was perfect as I sat down at about 8.30 am to queue up for the entry into the Neopets event.
I spent a total of about 8hrs that day at the event-most of the time queuing up-and honestly, it was worth it.
Here's some stuff that I got from the event.
For the blow-by-blow account of that day,
click here.
But for now this will have to do.
The lady carrying the microphone is giving interviews to some young boys playing TCG cards while waiting to go into the complex.
It was around 9.30 am. Her name is Stephanie [if I remember correctly..lol] and she is a Neopets staff in charge of Linking and the Legal Department.
Throughout the day, she helped Donna take some questions and even checked up on several wrongly frozen accounts.
A nice lady indeed.
Sketches by Anthony and Keith.
Cute huh? Zzc got this one from Keith.
The bunny is a little wrong but still looks good.
Oooh...Deke's favorite Chias.
This is the first picture I got and I only had to wait 35 minutes.
Anthony is, in my opinion, the better of the two artists.
Hehe...myyyyy will love this fella.
This was the second picture I got after queuing for 4 hours! Grrr...
It's well worth the wait though since they custom draw each picture.
In the past, they just only drew non-painted pets.
However, now they do ANYTHING, even if they aren't familiar with the character they will try to draw it.
As you can see from the bunny, still looks dang good to me!
I feel that Anthony and Keith have different styles of drawing.
Anthony draws with confident quick strokes and is slightly faster than Keith.
He first lightly draws the outlines then added the main details/features and finishes up by darkening the outlines again and adding more
specific details like clothes..etc.
Keith on the other hand is more careful and draws section by section-he drew the bunny from head first, complete with details, to body.
He used smaller stokes than Anthony and pays attention to small details-he also peers much closer to the paper than Anthony.
Both artists are great and really really good.
Anthony is the one in the bottom picture while Keith is in the top picture.
Some of the other art I saw them draw include:
Jhudora
Balthzar holding a bottled faerie
Pirate Shoyru
Doglefox
Faerie Kacheek
Baby Shoyru
Werelupe
and many more...GREAT WORK GUYS!
They drew non-stop from 10-4pm then I left but I'm sure they stayed at least 3 more hours after that as the queue never got shorter...hehe.
Their poor arms must be tired and they are really nice and polite too..;)
This picture is not custom-drawn.
It is a photocopied picture that was hand-drawn by Anthony.
They were giving this out to people who didn't want to queue 4 hours for a drawing.
As you can see, Donna was nice enough to sign it for Deke.
Merchandise
These are notebooks signed by the ever patient Donna.
The Scorchio one is for Susan and the other is for yyong.
I was quite disappointed in the small variety in merchandise available.
Although they were new stuff like TCG and collectable tin boxes-
I am not sure what's inside but I think it is TCG.
The boxes cost nearly SG$30 so I couldn't buy and find out.
Their wasn't any of the key rings or voice activated plushies that I wanted either.
They only had a purple Shoyru voice activated plushie-which btw is MUCH bigger than I expected.
They also had smaller petpet voice activated plushies like Noils, Babaas..etc.
But I wanted the Disco Aisha one...sighz.
As you can see there are lots of notebooks, plushies and stickers though.
I took some photos of the plushie merchandise that will be up soon.
All the notebooks and stickers have rare item codes in them but the plushies don't.
Free Stuff
This TCG card was given to me before I even stepped into the building.
The Neopet event only started at 10 am but I started queuing at 8.30.
This card was given to be at about 9.30.
Another thing that is great about the staff this time around was that they were
exceptionally early.
Donna must have dragged them out of bed coz they arrived at about 9am- nearly an hour early!
The yellow Chia came by around 9.30 too and went down the queue to take pictures and entertain us.
A teenage fan beside me, was making fun of it by asking the poor fella to touch its hair...it was soooo cute.
I loved cuddling it and took lots of close up pictures.
Before they let us in, the queue stretched around the whole mall so they decided to give
early comers priority and chopped our hand with a Neopets logo.
Only people with the logo was allowed into the promotion area to get pictures/autographs/drawings..etc.
However, after about 2-3 hrs people left as unfortunately this was also the releasing day of exam results for 12 yr olds.
As the crowd thinned, anyone was let into the area, even without the chop.
I washed off the chop but I was a Chia surrounded by a ring of words that stated Neopets.
I got this card as I was queuing for my second and third drawings and later got
it signed for myyyyy.
The Neopets staff took pity on us poor cramped people and gave out cards to us.
The yellow Chia even went down the queue to entertain us with its funny antics-
One time, it even tried to go into a
restaurant.
lol
This is the pamphlet for the list of TCG cards.
It is free for customers to take and know more about TCG.
The pamphlet is really big once opened and is fully coloured and glossy too.
Lots of nice pictures of TCG cards are inside.
The event had a whole counter for TCG and was offering a special price for a 2 Person Starter Deck.
They even gave out the mat to play on with purchase and booster packs were for sale.
Another thing that was amazing was that they had staff members, local I presume from their looks, to teach you on the spot how to play TCG.
This card is just a card with a rare item code on the back.
They gave this out to people in the queue and I managed to get two.
It looks really good and I'm gonna send one to Paddy.
The picture is slightly less than life-sized- this card is about the same size as the notebooks.
One thing I really feel that I have to say is that the Neopets team was extremely nice and helpful.
As mentioned, Anthony and Keith were helping us draw non-stop for more than 8 hours and Donna?
She was the perfect Neopets representative as she patiently took questions from even kids and answered them as best she could.
She was very nice when answering questions from an interview and noted down suggestions from everyone who gave them.
By the time I had to leave, around 4pm, her notebook was more than half-full and I feel that she gave everyone special attention-
whether it is signing autographs, taking pictures or answering questions.
The rest of the staff was really cool too.
Stephanie, whom I never knew except when Donna referred me to her regarding linking, was as nice as Donna and even noted down about peoples wrongly frozen accounts..etc.
Just as Donna did.
She also answered questions from fans and helped Donna buy drinks..etc.
I am embarrassed to say that I do not know the name of the staff that was in charge of the merchandise.
She is a nice woman with short blond hair who kindly gave out the free stuff to those
queuing up and also answered questions regarding the merchandise.
Donna giving an interview to a fan site-can you find her?
Well, I hope this gives you an insight to the Neopet 2003 event that happened
at Isetan.
Thank you.
Other Pictures.
Babyoys and the Yellow Chia plushie.
Yyong and his new Donna signed notebook.
Curtis looks vexed at having the aisha plushie near her.
Lily: what scorchio plushie?
Tiger: help?
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