RavenCon 2013! Tied for best Con this year so far!

Wow!  I thought MysticCon was amazing!  RavenCon was just as awesome!  Lots of Steampunk, GREAT DEALER'S ROOM, amazing writers...

And I got to meet one of my favorite authors of all time, Kevin J. Anderson!  He is so down to earth and great to talk to.  He signed 4 of my favorite Star Wars books (including the Jedi Academy trilogy, one for each of the boys)!  I have never been so in awe...  Geek out does not begin to describe it.  Although next time I might rethink the statement "I started reading your books when I was 9..."  Yeah, that tends to make people feel a little old I think.  But he took it in stride!


We even got a surprise visit from my cousin, Gina, who is not normally a "Steampunk".  I managed to tackle her and get her into costuming though and then we hung out at the 1984 party and Baen Barflies parties that evening into the wee morning hours.  It was a blast!

We even had some serious fun at the Klingon party Saturday night.  Met another chainmailer and traded tips too.  Didn't get to do any gaming at this Con, mostly because the panels we wanted to go to were scheduled during the same times as the games.  There were so many Steampunk panels!  We didn't even make it to all of them...  David Lee and Hatten Cross were there too and so we got to hang out with them for a little while Saturday evening. 

The 501st was there and they had a Star Wars trivia contest!  I had to throw it because the boys entered, but I've taught my padawans well because they won!  :)  So proud of their knowledge of the Force...  ;)

And of course they had a Masquerade!  The boys entered as Han Solo & Luke Skywalker and received participation awards (they don't judge the kids costumes at RavenCon).  Shade and I entered as Steampunk Dorothy and Oz The Great And Powerful Steampunk.  I won Best Costume, but only because I designed Shade's costume too.  That's 3 wins at 3 Con Masquerades in 3 months with 3 different costumes!  I must be doing something right...  Speaking of...

There were two debuts for us at RavenCon. The first was the Steampunk Cheshire Cat, a costume I'm working on for DragonCon...  and the second was a big surprise.  RavenCon attendees got a sneak peek of the big project and it was very well received!  We're so excited to debut it on 4/12/2013.  Not telling...  very hush hush...  ;)  And of course, Daniel Silverman was there and shot pictures of us and the boys!  Daniel does awesome work, doesn't he?  If you'd like him to shoot your pictures (and he's got some great original graphic art for the backdrops) you can email him at TheArtcanist@artcanist.com.

The only negative to RavenCon was my boys' complaint:  No video game room.  But they did have an anime room so the boys hung out in there for awhile and seemed content.

There are so many pictures from RavenCon and I'm so ridiculously exhausted from the trip home that I think I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story...  So here they are!

~Shimmer~

Roanoke Valley ComicCon! Another awesome event for the Star City!

I love the fact that we have a ComicCon here in our little town that wishes it was a big city!  Roanoke Valley ComicCon was a great way to spend the afternoon.  In fact, we even took our oldest and youngest sons (the middle one wasn't feeling well), and loaded them up on comics from B&D's booth.  We got to meet CJ Henderson and bought a couple of his books.  I am an avid reader, and a speed reader, so I actually read through Steam-Powered Love last night and it was wonderful!  Really a great read. 

Did you know they had a costume contest?  We didn't either, but since everyday is a steampunk day in our house, we were already dressed for the occasion!  We entered the contest and I won Best Costume!  The prize was a photo by a really amazing local photographer, Daniel Silverman, who we keep running into at the Cons!  He photographed a couple of our friends at MysticCon and did a great job, so we were very excited.  Here's the photo he shot of us...

Daniel does awesome work, doesn't he?  If you'd like him to shoot your pictures (and he's got some great original graphic art for the backdrops) you can email him at TheArtcanist@artcanist.com.

So, we're heavy about 75 comics or so right now...  Lots of reading to do! 

Until next time...

~Shimmer~

MystiCon 2013 was incredible! But oh the Con CRUD!!

So as I type I am hacking up green death and unable to breathe... But even with the Con Crud that was passed around at MysticCon, it was so worth it!

So you've probably guessed by now that Shade and I are old-school goths turned Steampunks, right? We also love costuming and all things gaming, sci-fi, fantasy, and geek. There's a project in the works that revolves around all of this, but for the meantime we've been enjoying Con season quite a bit in our costuming and finery.

We even got our older two boys involved this time! In the pictures below you'll see a Tardis and the 11th doctor; those are our boys! They won Best Kids Costume at MysticCon (which is awesome!) Both of our boys are high functioning autistic, so getting them up on a stage is nothing short of a miracle anyway, but accommodating their anxiety once there was quite a concern. My oldest likes to hide, so Shade and I constructed a full-proof plan to let him hide on stage. We built him a Tardis out of foam project board that he could hide inside! He did a great job getting around in it too. And his next youngest brother turned out to be quite a ham onstage as the 11th Doctor! He even made a friend in a little girl who was dressed as the Weeping Angel!
As for Shade and I, I dressed up as Adria Kelenoire, The Steampunk Alchemist, who is a character that I'm writing a book about to be released sometime in 2014. Shade entered as a Steampunk Gentleman (isn't he always? ;) I have never been so shocked as I was when Podcasting's Rich Sigfrit announced me as the winner for Best in Show!  Costuming has always been a passion of mine, and so there will be a lot of costuming posts on this blog with ideas to help other make costumes as well.



Aside from the costuming, we had the absolute pleasure of meeting David Lee, creator of the Steampunk Daelek, and Hatten Cross Steampunk at MysticCon. It was really a thrill to see all of their creations and gadgets. My favorite was the modified Gatling Gun.

And speaking of gadgets, trust my children to find the robotics people!  Roanoke Robotics was there and got my oldest completely addicted to wires and gadgets.  He's talked about nothing else since we left...  I guess we're going to have to build that R2 unit after all.  LOL.
 
We also played in our first (I know, a shock to be sure as we're such die-hard gamers) Pathfinder game. It was waaaaaay late on Saturday night, around 4am when we wrapped up, which is why I look like I'm half asleep in the photos.


And if all of that wasn't enough, we got to meet the 5th Doctor himself, Peter Davison! The boys were looking forward to meeting him for weeks, but there were so many people in the Dealer's Room that they were terrified by the prospect of going in. They were hanging out in the video game room when who should appear (courtesy of the AMAZING Carla Brindle!) but Peter Davison himself! He hung out with them for quite a while talking about video games and his own children. It was quite an experience and Shade and I were definitely geeking out for awhile afterwards too...


As for the Dealer's Room, I wasn't as thrilled with it as with ShevaCon. It was good to see B&D Comics there, and the Crystal Cottage too of course. There was a t-shirt vendor, "Geek Boy Press", that had some pretty nice designs so we bought a few of those. There was also a woman who had made clay horns which the boys loved! Beyond that, not much grabbed our attention this year. But the panels, costume contest/masquerade, gaming, steampunk, writers, and meeting Peter Davison made this Con rock! We had a blast and will definitely be back next year!

~Shimmer~
Here are more photos from our MysticCon album!

SHEVACON 2013! Wow! That was amazing!

Matt Webb and his crew run an amazing World of Darkness LARP to be sure! That was easily the most fun I've had LARPing since the days of the Eccentric Wizard in the mid-90's. I wasn't sure how I was going to handle playing a Brujah (it was a pre-gen), since I've always enjoyed my Setites, Toreadors, and other conniving little characters (and of course my truly disturbed Malkavians), but I have to say that throwing Brian Zedney's character out of a window was a little cathartic after all the years of having my characters be the physical equivalent of a mouse with degenerative scoliosis.

I couldn't turn down the request to bring the Steampunk Violinist to ShevaCon after all! I roamed the hallways in full Steampunk ball finery (ok, no corsets this time, just a heavily modified semi-formal) and serenaded the Con guests Friday and Saturday evenings for about 2 hours at a time. I was asked to sit in with the drum circle, then played a bit with a Goth band that had crashed into a room for the night. It was a blast!

And we're always excited to see the Dealer's Room! We get some of our best costuming ideas seeing the various eccentricities... This time was no different. Lost Saints Curiousities and Commodore Lorpricar were there, which was a very unique experience with some awesome finds. B&D Comics never disappoints with its selection and of course, the Crystal Cottage is one of my favorite dealer's ever! He finds some of the most amazing gems and earthy things.

We even sat in on a brief Magic game and got to hang out with the 501st and Mandalorian Mercs while our two oldest boys enjoyed hanging out with the robotics designers. Now they have dreams of building their own R2-D2 (in green of course!)

And, I met a medium named Jenny Stewart who helped me resolve some questions about my grandmother, which was nice and cathartic as well!

All in all, ShevaCon did not disappoint!

~Shimmer~
Here are some pictures from the LARP and around the Con!