...is that I have a hard time making a post about the awesome, apparently.
I'm back from GenCon! Also, I'm back from the second Deeplight 2-day event, because I started writing this post like a week and a half ago, and made very little progress content-wise. So I resolved that short post is better than no post, which apparently cured my writer's block... WTF, brain?
It was quite the adventure bringing Here At The End to GenCon... 15 people, 5 days, 3 hotel rooms, and one little post-apocalyptic LARP demo running 12 times a day. Our one-hour demo event, called "One Man's Trash," went well. Like, REALLY well. We were far more popular than we could have ever reasonably expected of a first-year event. We hit the "Evil Genius Overlord will dance naked on the roof as an expression of joy" around dinnertime Saturday, with the rest of the night and the Sunday demos still to come.
Sadly, although there was dancing, the Overlord reneged on his vow and neither nudity nor roofs were involved.
Overall, it was one of the funnest most harrowing experiences I've had in a long while, possibly surpassing the 24 Hour Project I did in college (in which a collection short plays were written, rehearsed, designed, and performed in a single day). On the first day we realized that one of our tables was just the right size for a human to take a nap under, and we took advantage of that regularly, because otherwise we would implode one by by one.
People loved us... even the staff! (Con AND hotel staff... we got hooked up with a sound system partway through Friday because some of the hotel staff loved what we were doing and thought we needed to take it up to 11.) Several folks said they would be willing to travel from out of state to play with us if we ever did a multi-day event, a few approached us about volunteering to help run the demos next year, and one largish group from Philadelphia(?) emailed the Overlord a week later about starting H.A.T.E. franchise of their own. Note: this is not to imply that said franchise will actually happen, that's up to the Overlord, but it's just so awesome that they WANT to start one. Note 2: we all loved this group, they were loud and sarcastic and having an infectious amount of fun with life, and, oh yeah, they came to the demo because they were looking for an event that would sweat-test their Drow makeup and garb (which was just lovely, and held up to the workout rather well), and it makes me so sad that I was not able to play with them because I was about to implode and needed to take a turn under the table instead.
Here's some footage from the Costume Parade, to which we sent a representative from each PC faction and one NPC faction...also a Minecraft Creeper (the daughter of the NPC faction rep). Creeper shows up at about 6:10, and forward progress got held up while the PC reps were RIGHT in front of the camera shortly afterward, so you get a great look at us.
I'll try to curate some of the many amazing photos, as well as find some good YouTube footage of our mascot, Buttons, and post that fairly soon, as well as do a post-Deeplight roundup after that... But for now, I have stuff to sew!
Friday, August 29, 2014
Thursday, August 7, 2014
This week...
...is progressing much more quickly than I would prefer. Darn TIME, advancing without asking my permission...
GenCon prep is shaping up... or, more to the point, it looks like I won't need to bring much more than I would for any other H.A.T.E. event & 5-night hotel stay. Probably won't be able to get any new props built/decorated in time, though, which is sad. We'll see how things look come Monday, I might be able to do some last-minute painting...
Most of what I've been up to has been what I tend to call "invisible work" - research, paperwork, organizational fiddling, etcetera - which can be a lot less satisfying than building a new Thing, but is nevertheless important. And sometimes pretty cool!
For instance, I should be able to accept credit cards when I vend now! Much of Friday and Monday were spent researching mobile card readers, which was... rather circular. The main contenders, PayPal Here and Square, are VERY comparable, so trying to find a clear winner was pretty fruitless. Overall, I think that PayPal might be the better choice for me, partly because I already use PayPal for online orders, but there are a few more identity-proving hoops to jump through to get it, so I'm going with Square for now, just to make sure I get the required gadget in time for Deeplight. Plus, it has an offline mode, which is pretty handy, and it never hurts to have a backup, especially when you're talking free gadgets!
Also on Monday, I ordered some really cool new business cards! Which, since I want them for GenCon (to hand out to folks who ask about my garb), qualifies as some fairly major procrastination, but hopefully they get here in time. They're just UPS-printed cards (one day I'll be successful enough to commission a custom die from Raky Press, the printers of my first set of cards), but I did a ground-up design on them and I'm really proud of it - one side is just the tentacle-face-me logo, business name, and a one-sentence blurb about what I'm about on a plain white background, and the other is teal with a neat list of ALL my websites and my email. They're pretty darn sweet, hope they look half as good in person!
Also also Monday, I picked up a new commission! Okay, so I'll admit that the fact that said commission will be delivered at the next Deeplight event all of two weeks and a very large gaming convention from now is a little intimidating (especially since I couldn't get the fabric I need until last night and won't be able to get the trim until this weekend at earliest), but I've got this. That I'm guaranteed to pass at least ONE piece of merchandise into the hands of a customer at that event is enough of a stress reliever to counteract the intimidation. Plus, it's for a Viking-style tunic, which is an innately awesome-looking project that's also a really easy build - I'll probably be able to knock out all the structural stuff on it this afternoon, which will be a nice change.
In other news, it looks like the blog has reached a point where a I get a tiny trickle of pageviews during the week or so between new posts, which gives me some warm fuzzies. This is a thing that is going rightly, albeit in a tiny way.
GenCon prep is shaping up... or, more to the point, it looks like I won't need to bring much more than I would for any other H.A.T.E. event & 5-night hotel stay. Probably won't be able to get any new props built/decorated in time, though, which is sad. We'll see how things look come Monday, I might be able to do some last-minute painting...
Most of what I've been up to has been what I tend to call "invisible work" - research, paperwork, organizational fiddling, etcetera - which can be a lot less satisfying than building a new Thing, but is nevertheless important. And sometimes pretty cool!
For instance, I should be able to accept credit cards when I vend now! Much of Friday and Monday were spent researching mobile card readers, which was... rather circular. The main contenders, PayPal Here and Square, are VERY comparable, so trying to find a clear winner was pretty fruitless. Overall, I think that PayPal might be the better choice for me, partly because I already use PayPal for online orders, but there are a few more identity-proving hoops to jump through to get it, so I'm going with Square for now, just to make sure I get the required gadget in time for Deeplight. Plus, it has an offline mode, which is pretty handy, and it never hurts to have a backup, especially when you're talking free gadgets!
Also on Monday, I ordered some really cool new business cards! Which, since I want them for GenCon (to hand out to folks who ask about my garb), qualifies as some fairly major procrastination, but hopefully they get here in time. They're just UPS-printed cards (one day I'll be successful enough to commission a custom die from Raky Press, the printers of my first set of cards), but I did a ground-up design on them and I'm really proud of it - one side is just the tentacle-face-me logo, business name, and a one-sentence blurb about what I'm about on a plain white background, and the other is teal with a neat list of ALL my websites and my email. They're pretty darn sweet, hope they look half as good in person!
Also also Monday, I picked up a new commission! Okay, so I'll admit that the fact that said commission will be delivered at the next Deeplight event all of two weeks and a very large gaming convention from now is a little intimidating (especially since I couldn't get the fabric I need until last night and won't be able to get the trim until this weekend at earliest), but I've got this. That I'm guaranteed to pass at least ONE piece of merchandise into the hands of a customer at that event is enough of a stress reliever to counteract the intimidation. Plus, it's for a Viking-style tunic, which is an innately awesome-looking project that's also a really easy build - I'll probably be able to knock out all the structural stuff on it this afternoon, which will be a nice change.
In other news, it looks like the blog has reached a point where a I get a tiny trickle of pageviews during the week or so between new posts, which gives me some warm fuzzies. This is a thing that is going rightly, albeit in a tiny way.
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