Tag Archives: Con

Shore-Leave!

This coming weekend I will be at Shore-leave, a fan run convention up in Hunt Valley Maryland! If you are in the area, come by and say HI! I’ll have a number of pieces from the Nerd Prints up in the art gallery, and I will be all over the floor (not literally, I know where that floor has been.)

Also, keep an eye out for our Lost Trooper! It’s been 10 years since I joined the 501st with this scout trooper armor, so it’s making a special appearance at Shore-Leave.

Click the links to find out more information about the con!

Project Nerd Prints

Posted by Steve on May 19, 2014 No comments

I have attended a lot of conventions. One of the things I love to check out is the Artist Alley. This is where the various comic/fantasy/painter artists hang out and have tables and do sketches. You can walk by and visit with them, browse their artwork and even have them do a sketch for you.

From an photography artist, this made me a little jealous. I love the idea of sitting in a booth or table and doing on the spot artwork for people, or having elaborate mat-boards for people to browse through. But as we all have learned, I am still in the early stages of drawing, and I don’t really have some printed artwork that I can display…….

or do I?

I went through some of my older photos and noticed a theme. I have a lot of nerdy prints that I have taken over the years. Some of these would look cool hung up in a study or in your geeky nerd cave. So I have decided to compile them all into one place, and then offer them up “Project Nerd Prints”.

If I am at a convention I will try and have some of these printed out and available, as well as having the ability to do on the spot portraits. This is coupled with my working on sketching.

If you think of something that would be a good Nerd Print, please pass the suggestion on and I will see what I can do. Please feel free to browse the full gallery over at Flickr and some of the selected works below.

The Un-Official DragonCon Post.

Posted by Steve on September 9, 2011 1 comment

Why is this an Un-official post? Because I am still processing the whole con. Literally. I am working through all the photos I took processing them to improve the shots, doing laundry from the con, cleaning up the house and also taking care of the new Kitties we adopted the day after!

So why post? Well, there are a few things I want to touch on because they were So Awesome! (well, one not so awesome)

I MET WIL WHEATON!
No really, this was the highlight of the Con for me! Anyone who knows me knows that I kind of have a man-crush (Platonic) for Mr. Wheaton. I made the attempt to meet him at PAX east but apparently, his meemaw died/He was washing his hair/he was dead at the time, and he couldn’t attend. So when I heard he was going to be at DragonCon I was super excited! I was dressed in one of the two costumes I brought, Matty Roth from the comic DMZ. I figured that maybe only 2 people would get the costume but I was not prepared for what happened next. As I stepped up in line and greeted Wil with the Iron Guard Salute, this happened:

Wil: Are you fucking Cosplaying as DMZ?? THAT’S Awesome!
Me: YES!!
Wil: Hey Felicia! Check out this DMZ Cosplay! Hold on, I have to get a picture of this and send it to Brian Wood.
Me: That’s AWESOME!

I then handed him two 6-sided dice that I made telling him that I “Got exited and made something” which spawned another round of “That’s Awesome!” I also got the chance to tell him that during his Father Son bonding over brewing beer, I was doing the same while building a Tardis. (That’s Awesome, round 4) He signed a picture of himself collating paper and we went on our way. I was giggling for the rest of the day.

Now, the worst experience of the con, sadly, was my one with William Shatner. On my way through the Walk of Fame area, I stopped at the booth for WS and they had mentioned that he would be back in 30 min. There was no line so I figured “I can wait 30 min!” I Happily bought my photo ticket ($75!!!!), picked out my photo (Only Kirk photos, no S My dad says or Denny Crane), and got in line. 30 min turned into 45, then an hour, then longer and longer. The folks at the booth were trying to assure us that he was on his way down. It was nearing 5pm and we knew he had a panel at 5:30pm. (I got in line at 3:30pm). When he finally showed up, the line herders asked if I would let a woman in a wheelchair in front of me, which I had no problem with. (navigating the con in a wheel chair is tough, trust me on this.) She got her autograph and was working on backing out of the area, the handler reached out for my photo and handed it to WS as I got out of the way. When I got back up to the counter, the Photo was signed and I was being shuttled away without barely a glance from WS. I did manage to eek out a “It was very…er..honor” and got a half hearted fist bump before they moved on to the next guy.

Never in all of my conventions and Autograph collecting have I ever been treated like a sheep. It has always been my experience that I am paying the $20+ not for the autograph or the photo, but for the experience of getting 1-2 minutes of time with an actor/author/artist that I genuinely admire enough that I want to Pay for that moment. I don’t do this to collect signatures. I do this because I LIKE these people and want to express how much I appreciate and support their work. If I wanted just a photo with a signature on it, I could have bought one in the dealers room! (and probably paid less.) I have heard that WS is kind of a dick when it comes to conventions, but I really want to believe that maybe he was just being rushed by con handlers, or was having a bad day and doesn’t normally treat fans this way. I can hope right?

The rest of the con was outstanding. Pictures will be coming along soon as well as maybe a real after action report. I <3 everyone I hung out with there!!

The PAX Post (Finally)

Posted by Steve on March 25, 2011 No comments

I figure I should write down my thoughts about PAXEast, it’s just been a little busy as of late to get around to doing it. I guess that’s the big problem as of late is that I just need to make the time to do these things. (And I should stop making posts that complain about not having the time to make posts). But I digress. Just over a week ago Andrew and I got to attend the Penny Arcade Expo East in lovely Boston MA. I have been yearning to attend a PAX event ever since they started. Last year was the first east coast event and I wasn’t able to go, but forced myself to take the time this year. for those who don’t know, PAX is a gaming convention. Kind of like E3 meets Gencon. Something that draws a lot of the big names and companies get to show off their wares, but it’s run by fans and gamers for other fans and gamers. This year, PAXEAST was the largest PAX event ever with upwards around 70,000 attendees. The downside to this was lines everywhere, but I’ll get to that.

We started the trip a little early, the convention started on Friday but I wanted to get the chance to explore Boston, so we arrived on Thursday. Our hotel was the Midtown Hotel on Harrington, which is not really Mid-Town at all. It was a nice enough hotel, but I would have rather had something closer. We new Thursday was going to be a walking day so we started off early and headed to our first stop, Cheers. It wasn’t until a friend reminded me about Cheers being there that I added it to the list. (and he got a shot glass out of it.) After lunch we went on the Freedom trail and hit almost everything. I have a great gallery of the Boston side of the trip on my site here. I’ll save you the step by step, but some highlights were the Northend of Boston, which I found to be amazing. That area of the city has such history. I could spend a week there just touring things and taking pictures. That night we decided to eat in the Northend. We wanted to try a good Italian place but instead, I think we found the worst one there. I normally wouldn’t out a place but La Famiglia Spagnuolo had to be one of the worst places I have ever eaten. The sauce on the dish I had tasted like it was straight from a can, and not a good can. Seriously, avoid it. Sadly we didn’t get a chance the rest of the trip to go back for a decent Northend dinner. All totalled we walked about 15 miles on Thursday. And this was all before the Con!!

Friday through Sunday was all PAXEast. Some highlights were:

Meeting the infamous Major Nelson, Stepto, E, and Lollipop. We are huge fans of the Podcast and everyone knows how much of an Xbox fan-boy I am, so this was a big one for me. I even got Lollipop to do the Robot at the live Podcast panel. (Thanks again Laura!)
Seeing all the amazing demo’s on the expo floor, including Star Wars Old Republic, Duke Nukem, Portal 2, L.A. Noir, etc. etc. etc.
Spending time with Andrew in the table top game room playing just about anything we could get our hands on. We bought Munchkin Zombies and just popped down a sign that said “come play with us!” and within Minutes we had a full table. I loved that about PAX, just random people saying “I would love to play that!”
Andrew got to meet Steve Jackson (of Steve Jackson Games) while playing Ninja Burger!
I got to meet many of the Developers and Writers for Portal 2 and have them sign my iPad which will be making it’s way to a new good home soon.
The PAXEast concert was, of course, epic. We saw Johnathan Coulton, VGO, and Paul and Storm. This led into the DST switch where we were robbed of an hour of PAX. Went to bed that night at 4am! (worth it!)
Playing in an Arcade room with 80s music blasting took me back to when I was 12 years old and my sister took me to the free play night she won access to from the local radio station.
We tried to learn at least 1 to 2 new games per day of the convention. We got Zombie Dice, Ninja Burger, Munchkin Zombies, MTG cards, and a few other smallish games. We even saw a couple playing rock paper scissors. (in trek costumes!!)

Over all I was just constantly amazed with how friendly everyone was and how awesome it was to be there and surrounded by others who enjoyed games the way I do. If you love games, I highly suggest PAX! Either one! You can view my PAX pictures in my gallery here.

What are you Playing? (When you aren’t getting ready for a CON)

Posted by Steve on August 19, 2010 3 comments

Hey all, it’s time for another rousing round of What are you Playing! The last few weeks have been mostly occupied by me procrastinating getting things ready for DragonCon. In just 2 small weeks I will be living it up in Atlanta rubbing elbows with some of the best costumers and sci-fi geeks on the planet. I am also really excited about the Guest list this year. So excited that I have been trying to think up questions that would be game related that I could ask some of our favorite celebrities. Info that I would bring back and post here on the site. So I put it to you, there is a huge guest list over on the website Http://www.dragoncon.org. If there is anyone in particular that you would like to know what their gaming habits are, or any questions you think I should toss out there. I plan on using my phones voice recorder to grab some sound bites from the folks there. Please feel free to drop questions you want asked into the comments. (P.S. Apparently, Paul Dini, the writer for the Batman Arkham games will be there, you KNOW I am going to be talking to him!)

As for what I am actually playing…. I finished up Crackdown 2, I bought another new Xbox 360S to replace the E-73 Error-ed out one downstairs so the Rock Band setup is back to normal. I am hoping to knock out Alan Wakes “The Signal” here soon, but mostly just getting stuff ready for vacation. What are YOU playing?

Farpoint 2010

Posted by Steve on February 12, 2010 No comments

The snow is starting to melt and I only have a mildly high trench of a driveway to navigate. Most of the time at home was split between Star Trek Online and Bioshock 2. (Rescued my first Little Sister.) Believe it or not I actually reached a point in my cabin fever where I got up and could game no more. Instead I went and watched the Star Trek Reboot on Blu-Ray. Anyways, this is just a quick update to say that I won’t be posting anything this weekend, or even playing as I am off to Farpoint in Baltimore MD. Also it is Sarah and my one year Anniversary! So it’s a nice little get-away after a long internment at the house. Should be some costumes and a few guests to visit with. I’ll probably have an after action report on Monday-ish.