Tag Archives: Costume

Costuming in Advance!

Posted by on September 24, 2012 No comments

DragonCon is coming!

Well, sort of.

DragonCon, one of the big conventions we like to attend, usually takes place over labor day weekend in September.  Since it’s still September now, you may be wondering while I mention that it’s “Coming”.  That is because THIS time, we are planning in advance!  Both Sarah and I are working on costumes for NEXT DragonCon, and we are getting the jump on them so we don’t end up scrambling at the end of the year trying to get them done.

The big costume I have planned for D*C is Harry Dresden.  He is a character from the books “The Dresden Files” which is a Mystery series set in a supernatural world.  I had enough friends get on me for not reading the books that I finally broke down and dove into them.  I love the series and realized that I had most of what I needed already and just needed to assemble.  The results are as follows:

The Book Cover shot, thus the hat.

Important elements: Black leather duster, shield bracelet, power rings on each finger, leather glove on left (burned) hand, Pentacle amulet, Runed Staff, Bob the Spirit skull.
Still needing work: Blasting Rod, more solid electronics for Bob the skull, and potentially a new Shield Bracelet.

Our goal is to have a group of Dresden costumers at the 2013 DragonCon, Sarah is going to be Elaine, and we have a Thomas and Lara as well.

PAXEast 2012

Posted by on April 12, 2012 1 comment

I am back from PAXEast 2012 and I have a few days of recoup before I have to head out on another business trip! (oh the life of a jetsetter #notreally).  I wanted to throw out some thoughts on PAXEast before I had to run off again, and I am finally awake enough to do so!

First of all, PAXEast has gotten HUGE!!!!!!! (Seriously, it could use some more exclamation marks, it’s that huge.)  They expanded this year to include more of the convention center.  So much so that I didn’t even find some of the show floor until Sunday, because it was hidden behind some of the crazy big displays.  I followed my basic rule of “No standing in a line for 2 hours to see a demo/trailer that I can just watch on Monday”. Which means, or course, I hardly got to see any of the good demos on the show floor.  Seriously, if I can’t see the demo from outside your booth, I am not going to waste 2 hours of my con to watch 5 min of footage!

Aside from all of that, there were some great things to see there!  Borderlands 2 looks amazing as usual.  Assassin’s Creed 3 was there, but the only thing they had on the outside of the booth was the same trailers we have already seen.  Those were my two big finds.  Lots of small booths and little games to see, but I think it was a bit overwhelming due to the glut of booths and the overpowering of some of the big names.  Farcry actually has a bus!  A FULL BUS!

I attended the show with a friend and Podcast Co-Host, RetroNick, so there was lots of visits to the Retro Gaming rooms.  After all these years I learned that if you have a second controller hooked up while playing Duck Hunt, you can control the duck!  Also, I apparently can identify the sound of the atari 2600 game Surround from across the room.  You guys remember how hard Space Ace was?

The Table Top area was also kind of screwed up.  Last year there were tables everywhere and you could pop down and play whatever you liked.  This year the Magic folks and the D&D folks had ½ the room reserved for their games.  So you would go in and see tons of tables open, but couldn’t sit unless you were playing an “Authorized” game.  The open gaming area was very small and always packed.

The main theme of the con, at least from our point of view would have to be Mass Effect.  Tons of great Cosplayers from ME there. The panel was great with awesome information, and the chance to sit and talk with some of the writers was outstanding.  I swung by one of the rooms and just asked about the time of their signing and the person I asked was the lead writer for Mordin.  We talked about the script and choices.  Big highlight to my trip.

Overall, great trip.  Looking forward to next year!

If you want to see some of the various media I took at PAX, check out these links!
Walkthrough of the PAX East floor

Mass Effect Photo Set
PAX East Photo set

3 Years

Posted by on February 13, 2012 5 comments

My life is pretty wacky.  I am a pretty huge geek on a number of levels.  At 37 I still love to play video games, I love comic books (Batman > Superman), I own and have worn many different costumes from Superhero Spandex to StormTrooper Armor.  I sometimes collect various toys and still love to play with Legos.  I can discuss the inner workings of the Star Trek Holodeck and have seen the entire run’s of shows from Firefly to Doctor Who.

Just 10-15 years ago I would have been considered an Outcast to society, (some may still think that) but, I love who I am, and I love what I do.  I have many friends that think/act/enjoy like I do and those are my family.  Some people may look at me and think the typically “Bro” thing of “How do you ever date?”

Well, here is the secret.  Almost 5 years ago I met someone perfect.  She worked at a comic book store and we had so many of the same interests.  She loved to play her Super Nintendo on a tiny CRT screen and would stay up late nights playing Fallout 2.  She had assembled a Teen Titans Raven costume to wear and has a Batman tattoo.  It was a match made in Gotham.

3 years ago today we escaped out to Las Vegas to get hitched.  Family and friends were still there and it wasn’t weird.  I wore a suit, she wore a dress (which for us was still like wearing a costume).  Ever since that time, I am constantly amazed that we managed to find each other and still wonder/fear that this amazing dream will end.

I hope it never does.

Happy Anniversary Sarah!

These Times they are a’changin

Posted by on August 25, 2011 No comments

So in the last month or so a huge shake up happened here, and I am not just talking about the earthquake that it VA a few days ago, although that was just weird.  For the last few months I have been growing increasingly dis-satisfied with my job.  It was supposed to be my dream job and gateway to bigger better things.  Turns out it was kind of a bait and switch, (Not the fault of those who got me the job, it just changed drastically after I got there.) and was not what I wanted.  Add on that the horrible commute time and we have what My wife and I like to call, “Not paying enough to put up with the crap”.  A friend of me saw some of my lamenting tweets and asked if I would be interested in hopping ship.  Long story made short, I am now working back in Chantilly/Herndon area!  

This also means that I am not in the DC proper area which means that I need to find some other things to take pictures of.  Since I am working right next to Dulles, I may try and get over for some airport/plane pictures so keep an eye out for that.

And, of course, we are in the midst of getting ready for DragonCon, so there has been a ton or prep work going on to get costumes and such ready.  This year I will only be doing Two costumes! (I know, crazy eh?).

The first is my pride and joy of the year, Giovani Auditori from Assassin’s creed II.  Giovani is Ezio’s father.  The reason I say it’s a Giovani costume and not an Ezio is that I purchased it from Museum Replicas and they based their design off the Lineage prequel that Ubisoft created before the game.  There are quite a few differences between the in game costume and the movie one.

The Second is a very low key costume.  Matty Roth, the amature photo-journalist.  It’s from the comic DMZ and is a way for me to be in costume and still have the camera on me to take pictures of folks.

We leave for DC on Wed. of next week.  Expect lots of pictures and lots of twitter activity!

Sarah and I dressed up as Clara Clayton and Doc Brown from Back…

Posted by on March 27, 2011 No comments

Sarah and I dressed up as Clara Clayton and Doc Brown from Back to the Future III for a friends birthday party.

Post Con Report

Posted by on September 10, 2010 No comments

Well, I am back from DragonCon and getting back into the swing of things.  The Con was great but I didn’t do some of the more Blog type stuff that I had wanted to.  That’s not to say that I didn’t do more than enough to cover the whole con but I had planned on getting an interview about games with a few of the the folks there, and there just wasn’t time.  The biggest takeaway is of course that there were a bazillion people there!  Ok, not really, but there were certainly more people than I had ever seen before at a Con.  One thing that kind of bugged me a bit was the in-accessibility of some of the stars.  Now, don’t read that the wrong way, I am certainly not expecting some big name stars to be at our beck and call, but when I read that certain names are on the guest list, only to find out that they are only doing limited appearances, ala, 1 panel, maybe a private autograph session, it’s a little sad.  I had really wanted to meet Paul Dini, but when I went to the Artist’s area he was nowhere to be found.  Apparently the Info desk there was well versed in the answer to “Where’s Paul Dini?”  From what we learned, Paul was only doing a few panels and had no table.

Such was also the case with one of my Favorite Mythbusters!  Adam Savage was at the con but only did limited Autograph sessions (and with so many people there, the lines were impossible) and even my favorite part of any Savage sighting is the #adamincognito game he plays.  Adam is an avid costumer so DragonCon is a great place for him.  He will sometimes dress up in Costume and encourage people to find him.  Unfortunately, the con was 5 hotels large with between 30-50,000 people there.  With no location tweeted it was nigh on impossible to change encounter him.  For this one though I blame the lack of Signal that happens when you get that many people in a small area all with smart phones.

(Deep Breath) Ok, now that all my bitching and moaning is over.  What I did get to do at the con was great.  Sarah and I took about 6 costumes each and got to wear most all of them.  I got to meet a lot of the stars I planned on seeing, and of course the visiting with friends and drinking.  All in all, a great con.  Pictures can be found in my gallery.

Now, to get back into my rigorous gaming habit!  Reach comes out next week so I have only a few more days to finish up with Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions.  All I can say so far is that it’s apparent that there will never be a Spider-Man game where the camera isn’t completely hosed while wall crawling.

Picard never Hit me!

Posted by on March 10, 2010 1 comment

Some new Star Trek news real quick for today.  I am, of course, still playing Star Trek Online which has been going good with one small exception that I will go into in a moment, but I want to discuss a few other Trek related things first.  DragonCon is coming and quite a few new guests have been announced and many of them are Trek related.  I don’t know if Shatner and Nimoy got back and passed the word about how much fun they had but there is a HUGE guest list of Trek people:

I am eagerly awaiting the chance to find and get signed a picture of Q and Sisko in their boxing gear from DS9.  This list, no doubt, will be growing as we get closer to the time of the Con, which is Sept.

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3-6 of this year.  I will in attendance and, if I can manage it (without ending up with a restraining order), I will get as many interviews as I can with some of these folks.  I would love to hear what they think about some of the more modern versions of Trek either in Game or other new media.

Also on the radar is a new project that some friends and I are working on….the creation of the “Maroon Monster” costume, which I understand is the nickname for the Wrath of Khan style uniform from Star Trek.  The patterns have been ordered and work will start soon.  I will be more than happy to post progress pics and eventually a full production blog on the process.

Ok, lastly, my progress in STO has slowed only slightly because of a problem I am having.  I made it to Deep Space 9 in the game and noticed that you can purchase a Danube class Runabout from one of the vendors.  This is a small Shuttle that you can fly and outfit with weapons.  It’s purely a luxury item and fun to fly.  The problem lies in that when you buy it, all of your stats on your equipment get cut in half, or at least they display that way.  No one has determined exactly what happens.  I put in a ticket about the issue and was brushed off with a “Yeah we know about it, we’ll fix it soon”.  Normally I would be ok with that except that, from what I have read about this bug from others, No one is sure if it’s a display issue or a real game effecting issue and no GM has stated one way or the other.  Players also claim if you decommishion the shuttle, your stats get resolved, and that’s great but I paid 149k credits for the shuttle and I would hate to waste that.

So I mentioned all this to the GM’s in the ticket I submitted hoping to get an answer on if it was a display issue or real issue, and if they would take the item from me and refund the amount.  Neither of which happened.  I was told again “Yeah we know about it and the devs will get to it” with a side glancing “we don’t give refunds”.  So as of now, you can still purchase the Danube class ship from DS9, it WILL break your stats, and there is NO WAY to get a refund even if you put in multiple tickets.  How hard is it to get a ticket, remove the item, refund the credits?  it has no effect on the economy because the goods are removed.  It would remove the headaches of dealing with players afflicted with this bug, and if you remove the item from sale and implement it when it’s fixed, all the better!  My ticket is still open and there is a thread open on the STO forums.

Sigh.