Animalia's present convention was small and in some ways smaller than it was the year before. There had been hopes of actually attracting more people and more events, partially as parts of ideas for better costumes and attracting more supposed experts and representatives of the major comic book companies. But given all that had gone on with the present pandemic, much of that had been reduced. Some people did show up, but otherwise much of it was rather limited. Some guests showed up because they had made promises after Animalia looked to promote a bigger convention after their first one, but much of that wasn't too different. Most of the guests though were Lyre and Animalia residents who already had interest in the genre of comics, video games, and cartoon superheroes.
Though some where there for reasons other than interest in comics. For Sora and Yuki, the two Velociraptor Dinotopians, were more there to see on how some of the costume contests went and see how well some of their own mask designs went. Yuki's boyfriend Zeke had also come along, which had Sora a bit jealous for the moment as her "date" was still kept busy with things in New York. From what Sora had heard from Francois Proquiet, her steady boyfriend, his boss had apparently moved out of New York and settled somewhere else, though he didn't say where. The company's main headquarters was still in New York and they did their prime shows in New York, but the CEO had moved and now a lot of the business was being done either by phone or video conferencing and that had left him busy with regard to designs and things of that nature.
"I'm still not sure why we're here," Zeke commented as he looked one stand that was there at Kat's Klub that was made look like Spider-Man, "I mean you two don't design superhero costumes... right?"
"No..." Sora answered.
"Though some of the ideas are interesting," Yuki commented, "when one thinks on it... and with all the bright colors, one would think superheroes are trying to be birds... like Parrots."
"We're here more to see on how our mask designs are working," Sora then finished while holding up a hand to gesture to the cloth that covered her nostrils, wrapped and round her muzzle with a set of strings going around the back of her head and pinning down some of her feathers in the process.
Zeke looked to the masks that both wore over their muzzles and in some ways they reflected the difference in personalities between the two sisters. Sora's was a soft shade of blue and had little decoration to it while Yuki's brightly colored and had all sorts of details added to it. There were sewn in stencils of dinosaurs, often in a different color from the main part of the mask while on the sides of the mask, Yuki had sewn in images of herself and her sister in running poses and done this completely with threads that matched their cream, white, gray, tan brown, and orangeish-brown feathers. Zeke really didn't know how much time that Yuki had spent working on it, and felt it had to be worth more than the machine made made mask that had the Jurassic Park logo on it.
"I'm not sure the masks are really a fashion statement," Zeke commented bluntly.
"Of course not," Yuki chuckled, "and once this pandemic finally blows over... whenever THAT is... the use of them will go away... at least to some degree. But we're more concerned on how they function rather than how they look. Keeping germs out and all that."
"The CDC's guidelines for these masks were all made for HUMAN facial features, probably because that was what they had data for and Animalians are still new enough that the full understanding of how an Animalian skull would work is different from a Humans is still rather new," Sora agreed with her sister, "with the exception of some of the monkey and ape Animalians, most of us have long muzzles that go forward in front of our eyes. Masks for humans might not cover that muzzle... or at least not the muzzle and the head."
"Not enough elastic?" Zeke wondered.
"Well that and covering the sides of the mouth too," Sora nodded and then looked around the room and noted Animalia Ambassadoria was set up in some small groups and talking with either guests or with those running some of the booths that were there. A couple were even near the area where the costume contest was to be judged. Sora noted that this also included the Human and Animalian members and she then pointed to one group for Nate to note. "You can see with a Human's mask, the mask covers the entire mouth. Thus the Human won't accidentally breathe anything in through their mouth. We had to calculate a way to do the same for the Animalian mask and still allow the Animalian to talk... and so on."
"So there was all sorts of measurements, hoops, and head arrangements," Yuki added, "that we had to figure out..."
"Head arrangements?" Zeke wondered.
"Such as whether or not the Animalian has outwardly visible ears," Sora explained, "or if they have a beak or soft muzzle. For Bird, Reptile, Amphibian, Fish, Whale, and Dinotopian Animalians have no external ears to hang the mask from. Their ears are either an opening or specialized layer of scales that is thin enough to let sound vibrations through while keeping dirt and dust out... or water... and so on. And those Animalians with beaks... Bird, Turtle, and Pterosaur Animalians... since their beaks can are hardened bone and in some cases will end in a highly sharpened tip, they could essentially saw through the cloth as they talk."
Sora then pointed to a spot where they could see Sophie speaking with a guest that was there with one of the human members beside her as they did their bit. Zeke could note that as Sophie talked he could see her mask move up and down a bit and the point of her beak clearly visible underneath it.
"Sounds like a lot of work," Zeke said slowly as he conceded the points that Yuki and Sora had given him. It made some degree of sense and he could accept that, as while he hadn't gotten bad grades in his first year in college, he would also privately admit that he felt a bit overwhelmed by the course load from the previous school year.
"It was... but let's go look around," Yuki commented, "most of what we're doing with regard to how effective our masks are are more observation anyway. Looking into some of the displays and ideas they have could be fun too."
And the three did make their way through and things went fairly well. There were some comics that Sora and Yuki weren't as familiar with that Zeke knew just enough on to get them through things. The both that showed some of the preview pages for the sponsored "Five Elements" series looked interesting, though much of it looked more like introduction shots for the Five Elements in the series and from what Sora and Yuki could make out, gave them a semi mystical origin in the comics. The biggest thing was where a couple of booths were empty, largely a result of the pandemic and some of the people that were invited to come chose not to because of the small venue.
It was a bit depressing, though it also lead to some small surprises in which when they came to one of those empty booths that had been set up to discuss various comics related to Jurassic Park and video games that had some dinosaur theme to them that some of the guests came to ask questions of Sora and Yuki on them, since they were the only Dinotopians, apart from Sophie and her mate and JC and his mate, that were there. Ultimately Sora and Yuki did get what they felt they needed to observe on their mask designs, as well as a couple of compliments on the designs made. This made some things amusing, and while certain aspects of what they wanted to see couldn't be there... the three agreed that things weren't too bad.