WonderCon 2014 Days Two and Three Coverage

Happy Easter readers!


I'll start you off on WonderCon Coverage days two & three with the little number above. I have seen this Wolverine Cosplayer at many conventions, and he is always great, but his celebration of Easter today was particularly awesome. Yes those are carrot claws, and yes, he had a poofy bunny tail on the side you can't see. Yes, my husband is the one that pointed out the bunny tail, inadvertently telling me to look at Wolverine's backside.


But I digress, I must backtrack a little bit. Warning, you are in for another long post, but I do promise lots of shiny pictures! Yesterday was day two and my poor addled brain just couldn't manage to stay up long enough to get out the blog post, so here it is, a tad late.




The day started in the arena for the big network panels. WB was up first and we saw teasers for 'Edge of Tomorrow”, “Into the Storm” and “Godzilla” Then Fox had “How to Train your Dragon II” (which I sadly missed trying to get into the “Once Upon a Time” panel. (FAIL) but I got back for “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.” “Maze Runners” “Secret Service” and “X-Men: Days of Future Past”


It was great because, well, at ComicCon you would have to get in line about 3 AM the previous night and camp there just to get in the door. (No thank you!) I won't talk about ALL these in great detail, because one, you don't really want to sit here all night, do you? And two, it's my blog, and I'll review what I want to :P There may be ******SPOILERS ****** So be warned.










Edge of Tomorrow is a New Tom Cruise Action/Apocalypse/Ground Hog Day movie in which he discovers he is dying over and over again, only to wake up and repeat the same day, while humanity is on the precipice of annihilation. He learns that through this process they are training him as a soldier to defeat the aliens. No offense, not my thing. Did I ever mention I actually HATE LOATHE AND DESPISE the ground hog day mechanic? Blah. I do, I really really do. I know I know Groundhogs Day is a classic. I HATE it. No matter how much you pack it full of action, or add changes, I just can't...take.. the repetition. I also almost universally hate all amnesia plots. I know, I'm crazy. Anyway, the husband thought it looked good.


Into the storm is a natural disaster film featuring a town going through a record number of tornadoes in one day. (Like 20? 30?) Anyway. I'm from the Midwest. Tornadoes don't do that. No thanks.


BUT there are a number of cool actors in these films! Look below, I saw famous people!

Godzilla was great. They showed the trailer, and premiered the first full shot of the monster himself, as well as showed a NEW monster that will be in the film interacting with Godzilla. It's an original monster, but definitely influenced by previous monsters in the universe. Sorry, no pictures. They made me promise not to. (Plus they would kinda kick me out.) They new creature is definitely some sort of insect. Maybe praying mantis like? It had wings, it was enormous. Godzilla looked awesome, and well...like Godzilla?They talked a lot about standing up to the legacy and having Godzilla being motivated by the natural world, and having everything being organic.

Aka Thorin from "The Hobbit"...and many squees were had

"Maze Runners" and "Secret Service" looked really great. Maze Runners is based off a a young adult fiction book, and Secret Service is based of of the comics. I am unfamiliar with both, but they both looked good
.
Secret service has Colin Firth as a lead, and Samuel L Jackson as the antagonist. Yes, I will be seeing it. It's about a international independent agency that works separate from all governments (those spies are too soft and spoiled, of course.)




Planet of the Apes isn't really my thing either. The new one deals with the Apes as they begin to evolve a culture. It does have Gary Oldman and Andy Serkis in it though, so I got to see them, which was great.

FINALLY after thinking they were just going to pass it by, Fox talked about X-Men Days of Future Past.


****SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER********










They showed us an extended clip of the opening fight scene, which showed great footage of the battle with the sentinels, and then part they hadn't shown yet, the sentinels kicking their asses. Severely. The sentinels started taking on the powers of the mutants fighting them. Iceman was shown taking on a sentinel that was using fire. The scene ended with the sentinel crushing he head clean off (in ice form) and then stepping on it. Yikes! And he certainly wasn't the only mutant to die in the clip. Guess that's why they'll be needing to go back in time! They also mentioned that because of the movie's time period when in the past, it will be featuring President Nixon. It will be interesting to see how they play that.


I have to say, even though they have changed the time traveler from Kitty Pride to Wolverine, it looks like they are attempting to be smart about their decisions, and their rules for time travel. They mentioned that they set their rules for time travel early on and stick to them rigorously throughout the film. We will have to wait and see how everything comes out!! I am SOOO excited for this one!

That ended the panels for awhile, so we hit the expo floor for awhile, spent more money, and then headed over to Adventure Time. It was an hour wait to get in, and then we just barely did. To be honest, the panels are always hit or miss for me. They always seem a little unorganized, and there are always weird awkward quiet moments. The creator and writers don't like to discuss the technical aspects of the show because they are “boring” but sometimes seem to have little else to say. They do have fun little bits though, like writing scripts for the voice actors to preform live on the panel. This years was about LSP and Flame Princess at a sleepover at LSP's place. It was pretty funny, and they drew little flip-book like illustrations to go with it.



We stayed on for Bob's Burgers, which is fantastic, because we have been watching an episode of that show practically every day in my house, and I think the show is hysterical. Plus who doesn't love Kristen Schaal? I adore the character Linda, and my husband often tried to mimic her voice (as the character is voiced by a male) for my amusement. “All riiiight!” I then proceeded to have the song from their Thanksgiving special stuck in my head for the rest of the day. “Pass....the cranberry sauce, we're having mashed potatoes!”. They played the theme song live and then forced each of their cast members to improvise lyrics. Also, the voice actor for Tina doesn't modify his voice for the character....like at all.. An amazing panel. Tons of fun.

Bob's Burgers Cast and Crew

Kristen Schaal

Then more shopping. Boy does the money tend to fly out of hand during a convention..As I mentioned there were definitely less comic book vendors than ComicCon, and as I learn Thor I am starting to definitely see patterns in prices. Unfortunately, I did think a lot of the vendors that had JIM Thors were pushing it a bit as far as quality to price ratio. By the end of today I did end up getting one more Thor (#107) a car decal (A Miyazaki coal puff) and a chain chomp plushie, because,well, I obsessively collect plushies.

The last event of the night was the masquerade, which was a lot of fun. As a cosplayer I love to see all the outfits. This alien was badass!! It's hard to see the detail in the picture, but it was amazing!! There are always some costumes that leave me the rest of the night pondering “How did they make that?!?”










Day 3: Sunday
Day three was pretty relaxed We mostly just hit the dealer hall, but we did also go watch the new animated movie “Son of Batman.” which focuses on Batman and his newly acquired son, whose mother is Talia Al'Ghoul.


It was pretty good.. It's always me “Day off” from cosplay so I wore a wonderfully amazingly comfy Captain America shirt my sis got me for my birthday (tomorrow, yay!!) and some jeans. Oh jeans, I love you so. After a full con, sometimes you just have to put down the corset. As always after a con, I am physically exhausted, but wonderfully inspired to make my next cosplay and to get to work on a number of new art projects! Oh, and on the drive home, we saw this.

Best use of a decommissioned cop car ever! 

I do so hope you my coverage of my time at WonderCon 2014! If you did enjoy my little ramblings, I will be back with coverage for San Diego Comic Con this summer!  Pleas stay tuned as for other geeky topics, reviews of my latest projects and more! As always, thank you for reading, see you next time!

If you missed day one it can be found Here

~ By GoblinGal









#WonderCon #WCA #WCA2014 #Thor #MazeRunners #TheSecretService #Godzilla #Bob'sBurgers #AdventureTime #PlanetoftheApes #X-men #DaysofFuturePast #Masquerade #WeepingAngel #Alien #Cosplay #SonOfBatman #Batman #EdgeofTomorrow  

WonderCon 2014 Day One Coverage!

Alright folks, as promised here is my coverage of WonderCon Day 1! It is now 12:30 AM and I have just gotten home and settled back in, so please bear with me. My bedtime these days is usually around 11:30 at the latest, and that's without all the running around. Exercise, whaaaat?? I shall try my best to remain cogent and have as few spelling errors as possible. (I may need to come back and do some editing later.)


I did manage to pull of the Aurin Costume. It went pretty well, except for the part where I am wearing a corset at a con (because THAT is a a brilliant idea.) Here's a picture of it below. I am definitely planning on doing more WildStar cosplay after the game releases. There is a character in the game my husband designed after me, so I want to cosplay her and in that way I will really be cosplaying myself. How meta...

ANYWHO. The first panel I saw was the screening of the new series 'Salem' for WGN America followed by a Q&A. It is essentially a horror/suspense series, in which they look at the Salem witch trials as if there actually were witches. It was pretty interesting. It was definitely for mature audiences, which makes it an interesting choice for WGN which is currently known for hosting a lot a of re-runs. I believe they said this was their first scripted show. A bold choice. There were two scenes that they had to black out during the screening due to mature content. (One for violence, one for adult content.) The special effects were pretty cool, the 'hag' was pretty darn creepy, and I thought the concept was pretty interesting. Although it used the names of actual historical figures, it is definitely alternate reality.


Second we went to the Teen Titans GO panel. They showed the season finale for season one.
****SPOILERS****












It was puppets. It was hilarious. It was kind of disturbing. This episode was a little look at Robin's psyche and how he deals with the stress of being the leader of the group. Turns out it's puppets. Yep, he keeps a puppet stage and a copy of each titan in his room and play acts scenes. AND the episode was partially filmed with REAL wooden puppets, and a puppet master (which was a sock puppet) who was the villain. I really thought the show was a a pretty maxed out already on a zany level. Apparently I was wrong, they are very determined to push the edges of sanity. It was great.


****END SPOILER****




The Q&A was great and Khary Payton, the voice of Cyborg, was hilarious, and very very talkative.  They also revealed many cross over episodes in the future with the rest of the DC universe, such as with Young Justice.




Man, these posts are going to be long aren't they? Boy I do a lot of crap at these cons!


Well next I hit the dealer hall to work on my Thor collection. I had three old Journey Into Mystery Thors, but as I mentioned, my half of the comic book shelf looked pretty pathetic. Thing is, I am just getting started collecting comics, and frankly I can't afford the high grade stuff. You know the, “If I take this out of the sleeve, I will destroy it's 9.5 rating.” ones? Plus, it's a comic book, I want to read it damnit!! WonderCon does definitely have less comic booths than ComicCon, and less silver age, so I shopped around for awhile before I found some options. Then I found a small-ish booth with a few boxes of comics and TOO MANY options. He had many reader copies of Thor half off in the $5-7 range. I still hadn't wanted to spend $40 on comics, so I was agonizing over which ones to pick. As I turned to my husband for help, he said “How about this? I'll take these 3, you take those, and we will buy them all, happy birthday!” (It's my birthday Monday, yay Con for a birthday!!) Awesome husband is awesome. Turns out he wanted to by me some Thor for my b-day anyway, he just thought it would be not right in front of me :P Anyway, now I have 7 new JIM Thors. WOOOO!!!

We went outside, chilled for awhile, then tried and failed to get into a Whedon panel, because we can't keep time, then went to a panel for me to teach me things about self-promotion.


Finally we went to the Geek and Sundry panel with Felicia Day and Will Wheaton. Will talked mostly about his series Table Top, which I must admit, I have not watched yet. It's essentially a review show. Basically you watch awesome and funny people sit together and play a board game. (They go through a lot of guests and a lot of board games.) I am definitely interested in checking it out. Then Felicia Day talked about the new Geek and Sundry show “Spooked” with the new cast. They premiered the trailer, which was cool. The show is a comedy about a group of paranormal investigators (not very good ones) in their misadventures. “They may not be the best ghost hunting team, but you can afford them.” It looked pretty amusing and I will definitely check it out. I admittedly will watch ghost hunting shows on occasion, so I know I will love a comedy version of one.

Felicia and Will

That pretty much ended day one! We hit Bubba Gumps for some seafood. (It IS Good Friday after all) and hit the hay. Tomorrow I will be trying to get there nice and early to hit up the WB panel. (The husband is all psyched for Godzilla.)


And if you managed to get through all that, congratulations! I applaud your fortitude, sir or madam! Only two more exhausted rambling rants to go! God I hope this post makes sense in the morning! Until tomorrow!


~ By GoblinGal









#WonderCon #WCA #WCA2014 #Geek&Sundry #Thor #Salem #TeenTitans #TeenTiransGo #Aurin #WildStar #CarbineStudios #Spellslinger #Cosplay #Marvel #ComicBooks #TableTop #Spooked #WhilWheaton #FeliciaDay

WonderCon 2014 Coverage

Hey folks! Starting Friday I will be headed over to WonderCon in Anaheim for a wonderful weekend of geekery and fun! There is always so much to do at these cons, screening of new shows and comics, great cosplay, and of course a chance for me to buy more old Thor comics. (Yes!! My comic book rail looks pathetic next to my husbands, I need to catch up!)

(And those are only a few of his..)

I will hopefully be cosplaying. I am going to attempt to revamp my Aurin Spellslinger from Carbine Studios upcoming game WildStar. (Aka that place my husband works.) Previously I only wore it to one of Carbine’s Halloween parties, so it hasn’t really had a “public” debut yet.  I am still debating if I should stick with the purple fur color or switch over to black and use my better wig, ah choices. (Plus I want to re-sculpt the shoulder armor.) We will see if I can find all the pieces (since I just moved) and pull it all off in time.

I will keep you all updated with the latest and what I am up to at con! See you all there!

~ By GoblinGal

#WonderCon #CarbineStudios #Aurin #SpellSlinger #Cosplay #Geekery #WildStar #WCA #Thor #Comics #ComicBooks

Playful Dragons

Recently I decided I wanted try to sculpt something new that I could make and reproduce in a few variations to sell on my Etsy.  My hubby suggested small dragons in cat-like poses, which is adorable, so I gave it a try. We both loved "How to Train Your Dragon."  and own two cats, so the idea of dragons acting like giant house cats greatly amuses me.


Here are the head and body still in early formation

I really like using the glass beads for eyes. It adds a sense of realism.  You can still sculpt the eye shape, give it ridges, brows and plenty of character, but you don't have to worry about sculpting pupils and little finicky bits or having to paint intricate eye details later. (My hand sculpted eyeballs still end up a bit cartoony.)







The idea was for these to be small, but of course the first one turned out larger than anticipated. Getting small takes work and experience!

Here he is all done!






Afterwards I tried to make a second one, to see if I could accurately repeat the style and get it more into the size range that I wanted. The results were this pretty girl below. I have to admit it was hard to list her on my Etsy, but I can't keep them all. I hope she will go to a good home. She is actually significantly smaller, only about 2 inches high!

I will be making new poses and colors to add to my Etsy soon, as well as (hopefully) a few goblins. It's going to be a busy month! Check out all the new stuff on my Etsy at http://www.etsy.com/shop/shroudedgrove and  Thanks for reading!

By GoblinGal





#Dragon #FantasyArt #PolymerClay #PolymerClayDragon # Etsy #Shroudedgrove #HowtoTrainYourDragon #DragonCat #DragonYarn