Aniventure Comic Con 2025

I thought about taking the bus a couple of kilometers to Comic Con, but I saw a notice that the stop near the venue was closed, it was faster to walk, I arrived just at 9:30, when they started letting people into the building - the line moves fast

#AniventureComicCon 2025 has begun

Even the creator of the look of Darth Vader and the stormtroopers is at #AniventureComicCon

Star Wars mask sculptor

A decent panel with the Star Wars sculptor who created the masks of Darth Vader and the stormtroopers. With an interesting point that in the original trilogy Vader's look was not symmetrical and had personality, while for Revenge of the Sith others already made symmetrical armor.

On Thor 2 they unexpectedly had to compete with a 3D printer, when part of the work was commissioned to the sculptor and part was printed out, although it had to be aged anyway.

The arrival of computer graphics helped directors better understand their vision and commission sculptures, but it also took work away from sculptors.

The worst job was on Superman, because the filming locations kept being moved, they changed the director three times, changed the artists and canceled 6 months of the sculptor's work, and then the physical climate conditions were also difficult.

The actors of "Gundi"

A decent interview with the actors of the film Gundi, in cinemas in Bulgaria it has already broken all records, now this month it's coming out further around the world - a little promotion before that)

Content creators

A panel with popular content creators. There are interesting points that you can always find time for something you really need to do. Also a point that after 4 years of vlogging in English he switched to Bulgarian and through video 15 found a working format and also became popular, it's more pleasant to make content in your native language and it engages fellow countrymen.

Usually it takes 40 videos to hook an audience

Overall, you need to find something original and something you enjoy doing, and make content out of it

Local content is usually 4 years behind global, on the domestic market you can make popular content that was popular globally a few years ago

Sometimes the preview for a video takes more time than editing the video, you need an image that grabs viewers' attention, so a lot of work goes into creating the image, going through many ideas. If they don't know what the preview will be, they don't start working on the video.

Animated previews work badly for some and well for others)

The preview for the most popular video took 15 minutes, the video gathered 6.4 million views, which is a lot even for global English-language content

If you repeat something for a long time, you'll hit the target, you might get lucky and get it on the first try, but if you repeat it many times, then the probability kicks in and you'll hit it

Standard advice, not to chase perfectionism at the start, because even professional popular videos have a bunch of mistakes

And the standard thing, that you shouldn't start making content for the money, the creation of content itself should be enjoyable, you won't always be in the mood to do it

But you have to constantly change and test things to hit the mark and find what works for you

The idea is everything, think about the idea before creating content. An interesting thought, but in my opinion, this becomes the main thing for those who have already mastered the basics of content creation on a technical level and are using them

Anthony Daniels

Anthony Daniels' interaction with the hall is very good - he doesn't sit on the stage, but is among the audience and answers questions.

The only actor who appeared in all 9 episodes of Star Wars. These films are about how a golden droid is bullied and persecuted)

He constantly mentions his book and refers to it. Interestingly, when he was filming the first movie, A New Hope, nobody cared about anyone, it was even embarrassing to say you were starring in something like that, there was no secrecy, but when they were already filming The Empire, everything was very secret, the plot was confidential.

20 actors tried out for the role of voicing C-3PO, but couldn't surpass the one who physically played him, because he was not only the physical representation, but also the voice at the same time - wholeness?

Anthony Daniels played out an improvised scene from the film with a chair in the hall, to show how he had to act on set, because R2-D2 made no sounds, he had to act with silence, the sounds were added in post-production.

On the third day it dawned on Daniels who created 3PO, when George Lucas said that Anakin created him. Just don't tell C-3PO that Vader created him, because he doesn't know this and he's nervous enough as it is)

Interestingly, when Anthony Daniels was polling the hall on which Star Wars episode is the most favorite, he started with the first one and asked people to raise their hands, finished at episode 6 and said that's enough)

From the hall they corrected him that 3PO was bullied not only in the films, but also in the series and a special. Daniels recently voiced more episodes of Lego Star Wars - he likes that you can do the job without putting on the costume

When filming the Ahsoka series, Anthony flew to California, put on the costume and acted all day on a sunny set, and at the end of the day the staff turned off the sun and only then did everyone realize that he had been acting all day indoors in a room with a volumetric screen

A boy asked why in Episode 3 they don't mention Ahsoka, that Anakin has a padawan. Anthony Daniels didn't know the answer to the question - they kept asking the hall who knows the answer)

Anthony got offended by this one and stopped listening when this jedi said that Anthony Daniels was his second favorite Anthony after a talk-show host. He then went on to ask people who looked like sith.

Toward the end you could see he was tired and didn't answer or didn't understand questions that weren't obvious, although he gave an interesting account of how he searched for 3PO's voice, looked at the mask like Hamlet and realized that it was beautiful and humane thanks to its asymmetry.

Manu Bennett

He landed straight into the role of Slade Wilson - he was afraid to go to Comic Con afterwards, after he killed Oliver's mother, the main heroine of the series, that people would hate him. One woman really did come up and ask how he could do that, while others praised his strong acting in the dramatic scene.

Manu doesn't consider Azog a villain, from the orcs' point of view he's a hero, and in general he's animalistic, like an animal, so he based his playing of the role on a great white shark. Azog is popular in Germany, because it echoes the fact that the Germans had similar leaders in reality.

Manu talked to the hall in the orc language. When he got the role of Slade Wilson, there were a bunch of script pages, but he didn't know who he would be playing, he found out who he would play only from a magazine, when he was going through customs into Canada and the customs officer told him what a badass character)

Manu didn't say who he would like to play in the new DC universe, but he would like to play Slade Wilson in a crossover with Wade Wilson, Deadpool, so that on screen they could settle who came first and who is a copy of whom)

The favorite scene in Arrow that Bennett played is the killing of Oliver's mother. He expected he wouldn't be in the series for long after he killed the main character's mother. He had to block his feelings when the other actors in the scene were crying. He played in the flow.

Manu Bennett highlighted how much the world is divided and polarized by social media and politicians. He himself wants to move away from fantasy and play realistic roles that have impact and meaning.

CGI can distract from the human story. Screens can help immerse you in reality, when the scene's surroundings are displayed around you on screen. You have to lean toward technology. Right now the film industry is a balance between machines and humans.

Manu looked like an idiot when he played Azog and was in the mocap suit. On screen he saw a simplified computer model of Azog, he had to change his movements so that the model would move normally for itself.

Manu Bennett was partly inspired by Darth Vader when he played Azog and changed his voice according to the role.

They asked Manu Bennett to act out Slade's opinion of Oliver in Slade's voice) An interesting thought that peace between Slade and Oliver was established in order to save the children.

Manu Bennett and Stephen Amell worked together a lot every day, they had to maintain a certain authority. He didn't say anything specific about the relationship)

Star Wars model exhibition

I wasn't at the Star Wars model exhibition last year, this year at the end of Comic Con I visited it - it's good when there aren't many visitors, you can get a better look at the models)

Cosplay awards

To close out #AniventureComicCon 2025 I attended the awards for the best film and series cosplays - I don't remember whether I caught it in previous years, probably not. It's the first time I've seen so many awards in different categories. And yes - the Robotniks got 300 leva for the best performance - that was the most interesting one, they brought the house down.

There were separate awards from other clubs and countries, so different winners will go to Hungary, France, Japan in upcoming tours or other cosplayer competitions. I still didn't understand how this system works. Do representatives of each country's club just pick a winner, or is it among those who submitted applications to compete from those clubs? I'll have to read up on the system, because it's interesting.