Hitoshi Okuda was at Ushicon this past weekend. I 
drooled at his panel in the artshow where they 
were displaying the pieces available for the 
charity auction. There were maybe four or five 
pieces that (I think) had copied lines and he had 
hand-colored; and there were two pieces that he 
had lined himself and then colored. I'm always in 
awe of how great professional markerwork can look.

The turnout for his Q&A session was rather 
pitiful. I ended up missing 45 minutes' worth of 
it because I was stuck in someone else's 
autograph line at the time. But I did catch the 
end, and he was very sweet and drew me a shikishi 
at his autograph session. I was a little saddened 
that there seemed to be relatively little 
interest in his presence, but the enthusiasm at 
the charity auction really helped. I missed the 
first part of it, but I'm sure they must have 
cleared somewhere between $1000-1500, and even 
then, some of the pieces were real bargains.

Usually, I come with art for other people to 
sign... it was nice to come away with someone 
else's art for a change! :o)