Steampunk Sunday: Evolving

Things are getting kind of scary around the Black Flame Creations workshop these days. Chris finds himself slowly evolving into another genre known as Dieselpunk which is explained here in this article about the movie Mad Max Fury Road. This latest round of masks could even slide into the horror category. In either case, it's what he's been doing and he finds himself liking this new style.

All but two of the masks he brought with him to CoastCon* last month sold which are the two over his shoulder in the photo below. And yes, the trumpet gun sold!

Below is a customer trying on one of those masks. He looked great in it, but didn't end up making a purchase. This particular style is super creepy.

And here is another cool customer checking out merchandise in the booth.

Megan had an adjoining booth where she sold her prints and did commissions.

She was busy drawing during the entire convention. I think young people find her more approachable than some of the other more well known artists.

*Many thanks to CoastCon for taking and posting the convention photos of Chris and Megan on their Facebook page.

If you have a minute and 46 seconds, you can watch Megan's speedpaint video of this Boba Fett.

Have a great Sunday!

A quiet simple Christmas.

It's been so nice having this time off from work. It's very quiet and peaceful in our home and I love it that way. I'm not a party girl, not someone who has the need to go out and be with lots of people or find adventure. Even when I do go out, I seek a peaceful environment. For instance, we recently discovered a park on the Mobile Delta that is beautiful and we love to take Zoey there for walks. It's actually closer to us than the dog park and we really enjoy the serenity. We went just before the holiday.

On Festivus Day, I spent a few hours baking in the kitchen listening to some old Motown sounds like The Temptations and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles on Pandora.

I made pistachio raspberry bars, apricot coconut bars, pumpkin squares and ginger snaps. I gave an assortment to the lady two doors down who took care of Zoey when we went to NY last summer. She lives alone and had to work a 15 hour shift Christmas Eve waitressing at the Grand Hotel, poor thing bless her heart.

On Christmas Eve, we were excited to finally see the new Star Wars movie.

I didn't realize this, but it was the first time Megan got to see a Star Wars movie in a theater.

She was incredibly excited and had a goofy grin from ear to ear throughout the entire film.

After the movie, (which was fantastic by the way), we went out for a nice Japanese dinner and left our waitress a generous tip. It was a really great day and it was also our Christmas gift to each other. We plan to take Megan to see the movie for a second time on her 21st birthday which is coming up shortly.

On Christmas morning, I went outside in my jammies to take a photo of the full moon. It was beautiful, but my poor photography skills only allowed me to capture this blurry white light shining through the pines.

On Christmas Day we got a visit from our neighbor and his two kids. I had little gifts for them and they gave us a bag of some potpourri that made the house smell like a Christmas tree.

The little girl sat with me in the kitchen and watched me make an apple pie while her little brother pretty much ran all through the house getting Zoey a bit over-excited. His hands were all over the walls as he went around corners asking a million questions. "What's in here? What's this? What's that?" 

A few hours later, some family came to visit and we enjoyed the apple pie I had made earlier. Again, we had another young'n running around the house touching the walls with not just hands, but with feet too. I wondered if we had any extra wall paint. Zoey again was over stimulated.

After they left, Zoey conked out on the sofa, I scrubbed the prints off the walls and got started making sauce and meatballs for our Christmas spaghetti dinner. While it simmered on the stove, we watched a movie and snacked on cheese and crackers. 

I hope everyone had a nice holiday without too much stress or drama. We won't be hitting the stores for all the sales and madness that today brings. Instead we'll be working in the yard removing some very prickly holly bushes. Peace out.

Wonderful Wizard World

Hubby is back from the Wizard World Comic Con that was held this past weekend at the convention center in New Orleans. He had an artist table there and did really really well! He sold almost 70 pair of goggles, plus hats, guns and lights.

The venue was huge! The artist area and dealer's space were
combined in a room that was the size of a football field. 

Hubby got all set up on Thursday night. He had a corner spot which meant
he had two 6 foot tables that went around the corner which was super! He didn't have his usual background setup because he was not there as a dealer, but as an artist which meant he
could only sell things he actually made. No retail items are allowed to be sold in the artists area.

This was the line of people waiting to get in and there
 was still an hour to go before the con opened!

Hubby said it was the most organized convention he's ever been a part of.
They had a meeting with all the artists and vendors in the morning and told them that they 

expected 30 thousand attendees, which was 5 thousand more than last year!
And they served them beignets! How awesome is that?

Finally the con opened and the crowds came pouring in.

Hubby was able to get some photos over the course of the 3 day event and since he

 now knows how to use instagram, he was posting photos the whole time. 

This was a booth where you could make your own light saber!

And check out all these cool leather bags!

Some really incredible Star Wars art!

And of course there were cosplayers!! 

Here's Mario and Luigi!

And the Predator. Hey, that's a girl in that costume!



This Groot cosplayer won Best In Show in the costume contest.



These cool Harry Potter masks were made by Box Heroes. 

They're 3D cardboard masks!

Even Walter White made an appearance. 

Hey yo, Mr. White, where's Jesse?

And they say if you wear a red shirt on Star Trek, you're doomed to die. 

This guy managed to get out alive somehow.



This was only one of two hats hubby had left when the con was over.
He was tired when he got home and now he has to gear up for Pensacon at the
end of February. I don't think they'll be getting the same turnout, but it will be big.


If you think cons are just for kids or teenagers, you're wrong. There's something for
everyone and they're usually G rated so everyone in the family can go and have fun!

Back from Orlando Part 1: Megacon

Yes, we're back from sunny and warm Orlando! We had a great trip with no nightmare stories to tell. The flight and everything went perfect. The hotel was less than stellar, but it was adequate. We were right across from the convention center, or so we thought. There is a west concourse which was 1/2 mile away and that's where the convention was, but the weather was nice and we walked every day which was good because most of the rest of the time we spent standing in line or shuffling an inch at a time through walls of people.

Cons are where you can find lots of merch that you can't get anywhere else. 

Let me tell you, we saw tons of it.

Anime figures

Manga and anime art books

Tower of T shirts!

Hats and costumes

And then there's the cosplayers (people that dress in costume)

Megan with two Storm Troopers

Chris and Megan with a Boba Fett

Cat woman and The Hulk

A Klingon on stilts

People of all ages were there:

Even this senior citizen was there.

Senior citizen Steampunk chic!
This cool woman made this costume.
I loved it!

And then there's all the cool displays:

A Lego city.

Megan got to sit in the DeLorean from Back To The future. For $20 she got
a photo and a cool blinkie Flux Capacitor pin. Proceeds benefit Parkinson's research.

A Rancor monster from Star Wars.

More Star Wars stuff.

And then there was the main event, The all star cast from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Megan got to meet Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher). He drew
a huge crowd on his own and had a packed house for his Q & A.

She also met Brent Spiner (Mr. Data).
 He was very nice and quite funny.

Happy

Megan totally got her Star Trek geek on.
She bought this engineer shirt for $60.

We saw the entire cast on stage including Patrick Stewart.

Even though we were in the 7th row, we had to watch it on these big

screens because these people were in front of us like a wall.

Overall, it was a good con, but it was packed shoulder to shoulder on Saturday.

It was worth it though to see this goofy grin

Live long, prosper and may the force be with your DeLorean.