Wondrous Apparitions, Provided by Magicians.

Herein are contained links to cool things I saw at Dragon*Con, as the title says. I do this because 1) I think you might like to see cool stuff, and 2) I get business cards and fliers from people at Con, but I don't have a good place to keep them, so they tend to get lost. Here, then, I have a digital record. Anyway, onwards, to the cool stuff!

ART

• Studio Hibernacula shop and site with gallery. Illustration, comics, mixed media, jewelry, &c. featuring keys, monsters, and Rasputin, among other things.
  
• The Foundation of Arcane Enquiries - pinned faeries and the occasional other creature.
  
• Dream Muse Designs - fused glass beads and jewelry.
  
• Peter Mohrbacher - paints strange angels.
  
• Green Dragon - Fantasy seed beads. Not really my thing, but impressively well-made and worth a look.
  
• Echo Chernik - Aw, you know who Echo Chernik is, right?
  
• Rough Canvas - Dirty gay fanart pencil sketches.

MUSIC

• Urizen - video game space metal band whose performances include guys dressed like robots, mutants, etc.
  
• Attention System - these guys have a sort of prog rock meets early Nine Inch Nails feel.

CLOTHING/COSTUMES

• Delicious Boutique - Gorgeous leatherwork, clothing, and corsetry that I totally can't afford.
  
• Passional - corsetry and fetish wear, allegedly running up to size 8x.
  
• SighCo - tee-shirts and sundry. I am still a fan.

GAMING

• Third Eye Games - Publisher of Apocalypse Prevention Inc., a monster-hunter RPG that I'd like to get my hands on.
  
• Evil Hat - Publisher of several delicious RPGs, including the new Dresden Files RPG that I'd really really like to get my hands on. (I almost bought it at the convention, but the books weigh like 40 lbs apiece, and there was no way I was going to carry them around all day. I still have the $$ I was going to spend on them, though...)

... That doesn't seem like nearly enough. I may be missing some cards. Hrm. I wonder where they went.

DragonCon pictures are up, and mostly tagged. Also, they are awesome. But you knew that.

Okay - two questions.

1) Who's going?

2) Anybody want to be in the parade with me? The fearless and imaginative rbrav is heading a marching group representing the Periodic Table of Elements. Yours truly will be prometheum. triadruid is marching as his favorite element, molybdenum. We're missing a few elements, though. If we snag 20 more people or so, we'll have an entire table. All you gotta do (minimally) is walk the route wearing a printed sign with the name of the element, the abbreviation, the atomic number, and the atomic weight pinned to your clothes. If'n you wanna make something more elaborate, that's cool too.

EDIT: I lie. Three questions.

3) Does anybody local (to me) have any liquid latex (for theatrical makeup, you dirty birdies) that they'd be willing to share? I need to be able to give triadruid a convincing scar, and I don't think he wants me to do it the old-fashioned way. *grin* Also, I don't really want to buy a ton of latex for just this one thing. Thanks!

You know, every year, when we go to the conventions, I pick up a ton of cards from artists, dealers, and suchlike, who have stuff I really like. And then, I get home, and put the cards somewhere Clever and Safe, where they are never seen again. This year, I figured I'd do a little better. So here, for your edification and my later retail use (in many cases), are some links I picked up around DragonCon.

MUSIC:

• The Seed & Feed Marching Abominable - These guys were the first ever marching band in the DragonCon Parade. They are ... amazing. If I lived in Atlanta, I would want to join the band. Hell, I would consider moving to Atlanta, just to join this band. To date, it has never occurred to me to say "I'd go to bed with that marching band", but seeing this, I'd go to bed with that marching band.
  
• Arc Attack. Arc Attack is a band made up of two Tesla Coils and a robotic drum machine. I do not need to tell you how cool that is.

ART:

• Prism Studios. I covet their dragon and griffon dolls. I don't know what I would do with a dragon doll if I had one, but still.
  
• C.J. Bloomer Fine Art and Illustration. They have some lovely deity art, as well as extremely fun and engaging art about Japanese mythology.
  
• Alain Viesca Arts. Illustrator who does fairies based in various types of liquor. These are much more engaging than one might think. He also has a piece in which a train turns into an iron dragon and menaces a geisha. I am, as one might imagine, immensely fond of that one.
  
• Marrus. Lovely paintings with wonderful stories (I bought one this year instead of just looking at them!).
  
• Emblems from the Runes of Magnus. The Codex Seraphinianus, it ain't, but this guy does a lovely little book of woodcuts with a cypher to solve. Sadly, hints are given, so it's not as compelling as it might be, but still, nice to look at.
  
• Meatspider Studios. Ever wanted to own a polyresin sculpture of an Elder God?
  
• Lee "Fev" Camara. Fantasy illustration, including an ass-kicking Anubis. I really dig on ass-kicking Anubis.

COSTUMING:

• Dragon Maker. Feather and foliage masks and headpieces. These guys have the distinction of making the most comfortable costume masks I have ever put on.
  
• The Crafty Celts. Lovely brass and silver torcs, cloak clasps, and other jewelry and metalwork.
  
• Brian Gibney. Jewelry cast on circuit boards, odd copper sigils, and other fascinating metal bits.
  
• Kristi Smart. Overcoats to die for.
  
• Paw Star. Odd combo of furry, goth, and cyber bits. triadruid tried on one of their fox hats. Fucking adorable. Don't you wish you'd been there?

MISCELLANEOUS COOL SHIT:

• Playing Gods. Board game in which you play a deity, who is trying to take control of the planet from other deities, through conversion, evangelism, plague, natural disasters, and perhaps the occasional tommy gun.

For such a crap week last week, the weekend went pretty damned well. Friday we visited our Liberal Neighbors™, who were hosting a party for the Obama campaign. We stayed just long enough to note a campaign principle (Organize!, which I think is a fine principle) and nick a yard sign. Apparently, somebody came round and fucked up the only other Obama sign in the neighborhood (on the lawn of said Liberal Neighbors™), but nobody's messed with ours yet. We also went to Blue Koi for dumplings with zylch, crookedface, and curlysquirrel. We stayed there a bit longer, because, you know, they have extremely tasty dumplings.

Saturday night we hosted a Convention of Time Travelers, to which virtually everyone came in costume, and a lot of good friends sat around in my living room discussing competing theories of the nature of time and getting sodding drunk. This sort of party is definitely one of my sorts of parties. triadruid emerged from the costume closet dressed in an old military uniform (Marines) and introduced himself as Lt. Reynolds, attached to the USS Eldridge. He earns points for saying so, practically everyone else loses points for not getting the joke. Several of the time-travelers were researchers, and spent some portion of the evening studying each other. By the time we'd been at it for a couple of hours, we took a vote and decided that the space-time continuum was already fucked, and we might as well have another beer.

rampantfox brought a game called 'Time's Up!', in which you pair off into teams and try to get your partner to guess a historical or fictional character, at first with as many words as you like, then with one word, and then by means of charade. This is, in practice, a lot funnier than it sounds. I learned that some of my friends don't know the difference between Rasputin and Rumplestiltskin, that you can evoke the memory of Woodrow Wilson by yelling "Erection Man!", and that when triadruid describes John Dillinger, the first thing he'll say is "He was the gangster with the big cock", which is enough to make me think of John Dillinger, but apparently not anybody else. Discussion of the possible locations of Rasputin's and Dillinger's penises ensued.

Somehow, everyone got home all right, except for co-celebrant kaymyth, who crashed on the couch and went home in the morning. Also, after I went to bed, other people cleaned up! It barely looked like there was a party there at all. This is nothing short of miraculous. We were richer by a few left-behind items, but I think most of them have been returned, and we just have adammaker's goggles and kaymyth's fog machine.

Con prep continues; it looks like neither triadruid nor I will be forced to go to Con and wander around naked for lack of costume. I'm putting the finishing touches on Agatha Heterodyne and Her BFG, and he's got a few Green Arrow issues to work out, but other than that, we're good. Which is good, because we're leaving in two days.
( Still to do: )

Let's just add naked Green Arrow fan-art to the list of things I don't ever need to see again.

Thanks, Google Image Search.

(Actually, I kid. I've never had the Con Crud. I've also never been ghost-dosed with anything. Considering the number of people I share drinks with at Con, these statements are sort of amazing. But anyway...)

As previously mentioned, Dragon*Con was apparently the recipient of approximately eleventy billion cases of Freek energy drink in various flavors, some sugar-free. Although I have not historically been an energy drink fan, this was tasty enough to make me decide that consuming vast quantities of it was a good idea. Now, apparently, I'm an addict. Alas, it doesn't seem to be available in Kansas City, so I've been trying to fill this previously unnoticed void with other sugar-free energy drinks.

So far, I've tried:
- Red Jak's sugar-free version (which is confusing, because it seems to come in two different species - one is a silver can, and the liquid inside is red, and the other is a blue and black can, and the liquid inside is amber colored -- both taste the same, though), which tastes like strawberry soda that somebody dropped a ground-up Flintstones vitamin in.
- Rockstar Sugar-free, which tastes like bubble gum flavoring. Not like bubble gum, mind you, but the sort of fake bubble gum flavoring that goes in children's toothpaste. It has an aftertaste of Flintstones vitamin, but it's not so prominent.

Either of those are acceptable, and both are suitable in the stimulant properties division, but neither is as good as either of the Freek sugar-frees. So I'm still looking. Apparently, there are enough products on the market that whole blogs are devoted to them. Who knew?

We survived, once again proving that the human body can withstand vast quantities of party on very little sleep, if the proper amount of caffeine is also applied. I'm not really coherent enough for full narrative, though, so I'm breaking it down into categories, with bullet points.

Highlights of Con( Read more... )
What we learned( Read more... )
Pissing and Moaning( Read more... )
Stuff we acquired( Read more... )
Thinking about next year( Read more... )

I've fallen down on my good intentions to not injure myself before going to Dragon*Con. Possibly literally. I seem to have a big bruise on my right knee from... something? I don't know what. I like to think that I notice when I injure myself, but... er... no.

Also, for extra bonus points, I burned the hell out of a couple fingers last night while making swag for kittenpants' art show panels. Note to self: Next time you say you'll do a florals project more complicated than standing some silk flowers in a vase, check to see if there's floral wire and green tape in the house. Fortunately, the thing has some gold in it, so the thin brass wire doesn't look terribly out of place, and a lot of it is covered with hot-glued on leaves (hence the burning). Looks pretty good, though. I think. It looked pretty good last night late, when I was really tired, anyway.

I'm really looking forward to the trip. In addition to all the usual Con goodness, I'll be extra excited to sleep in a place where there are no crickets. Yesterday, I killed two in the laundry room, and captured one in my bedroom and ejected it from the house, and still had one in the bathroom this morning singing its little fucking cricket legs off. triadruid tried to kill it, but it wriggled up under the toilet stool, and continued to sing just as loud, except now with a little more reverb. Crickets are rapidly rising to the status of most hated many-legged creature ever. Centipedes are really really gross, and spiders bite you on the ass, but neither of those things steals your sleep, as a general rule. I'm going to have to spray the wall between my bathroom and the laundry room. Perils of living next to the garage, I suppose.

Still to do:( Read more... )

Last night, triadruid and I put together the fabric-y bits for my Promethea costume. I still need to dye them, but the cutting and sewing bits are pretty much done. I hung them over the railing to keep the cat off them overnight.

This morning, when I stumbled up the stairs to take a shower, I saw the costume hanging there, and thought, "Where's the other piece?". I picked up the costume, and horror! It *was* both pieces hanging together. There's not a lot of costume in that costume. Yarr.

It'll be great, though. I still need to finish the caduceus wand. So far, making that portion has involved taking apart my ritual wand to use the center pipe as a sanding block, abusing the Dremel's cutoff wheel (we have the base of a Dremel, we just lack any relevant bits or heads of any kind, really), and boiling rubber snakes. More-or-less actual conversation:
kittenpants: What are you doing?
Me: Boiling some snakes. Later, I'm going to nail them to a pole.
Kittenpants: Great. So far today, we've coded a website, made jambalaya from scratch, and now you're going to boil snakes and nail them to a pole. Just another Saturday night at EHQ.
Me: Yeah, well. It keeps us off the streets.
Kittenpants: It's just a lot different from the wild orgies that people apparently think we have.
Me: Hell, we don't have time for orgies! We gotta boil snakes, and nail them to poles! That stuff doesn't happen by itself, you know!
...

Our house is ... special.

Still to do for Dragon*Con:( Read more... )