Punished Pixels

Holy monkey, it has been MONTHS since my last blog entry! I can promise you that I have a very good reason for that. I have been busy; busier than I have ever been in my entire life and I couldn’t be happier.

Please allow me to elaborate. Ever since Dragon*Con, some really amazing things have happened to spark my passion for my replica prop building hobby. I met some really incredible people in the field, namely Harrison Krix of Volpin Props. He’s a really fantastic guy and amazing prop maker from Atlanta Georgia. If you’ve hear of me, you’ve probably heard of him. I met him at Dragon*Con and when I told him that I was considering making my prop crafting hobby into a career he said something along the lines of “dude, do it.” Boom, that easy.

Another huge inspiration for me has been the Frogpants network of podcasts. I have been a huge fan of Scott Johnson and his amazing group of podcasting friends for the better part of the last 4 years. He has been building up this network of shows for nearly a decade. A year ago he started a 4 times weekly morning show called the Morning Stream. A few months back, I approached Scott about me doing a fitness segment on the show. He agreed that it was a good idea and ever since then, I join them on Tuesday mornings to share and talk about fitness!

Being a part of that large, nurturing and creative community has been hugely inspirational to my pursuit of my prop building passion. The feedback and support that I get from the community has been nothing short of amazing. Thanks guys. Frogpants represent! =D

My friends and family (especially my amazing wife Brittany) have probably been the biggest influence of all. I’m a part of a local group of costuming friends here in Seattle. We did a big group costume project for this year’s Steam Con that went over a storm. They’ve kept me on my game and very busy!

Soooo, yes, I’ve been busy. Mostly in my garage making replica props. My latest accomplishment is a replica of the N7 Eagle pistol from the upcoming video game Mass Effect 3. I built it for the Child’s Play Charity auction dinner back in December and it took in a cool $500 for the children. Since then I’ve been getting a steady flow of prop commission requests in my inbox that I’m trying to stay on top of. It is keeping me busier and happier than ever!

That’s all for now folks. I’ll try to get back to you more frequently than every 4 months. Until then, if you need me, I’ll be in my shop!

Has it really been a month and a half since my last update? I guess that means I’ve been busy! I figured a blog post was well overdue, so here it goes. What the crap have I been up to in the last couple of months?

NY Trip
Back in my home town of Oswego, NY, we have a little thing we like to call Harborfest. It is an annual event that celebrates the Oswego harbor with festivals, music, drink and merriment. I hadn’t been to Harborfest in a couple of years, so I took some time off of work to fly home, see my friends and family, and enjoy the wonderful summer weather of upstate New York.

I spent much the weekend sailing (and winning) in the Sail Oswego regatta with my dad, brother and brother’s fiance. Being on the open water again was a real treat (so was winning). The rest of my time was spent eating pizza, getting caught up with old friends and family, drinking beer, watching amazing fireworks, and drinking more beer. Words cannot express the joy and nostalgia that this trip brought to me. Living so far away from home is tough, but returning to see all of those wonderful people so happy to have me back is a splendid thing indeed.

PAX Prime
After my trip I had to get started on my costume project for PAX Prime. Last year my costuming buddies and I did a pretty sharp set of characters from StarCraft II, so this year I had to do something special, for sure. My posse wasn’t feeling the group costumes this year, so I settled on Hawke from Dragon Age 2. The character is customizable in-game, but I already look a lot like the character from the cinematic intro, so I went with that. I spent a couple of solid weeks building armor, tailoring the clothing, and assembling them into a usable costume. I ended up scrambling to get it all done (and I didn’t get the weapon made) before PAX, but I was pretty happy with how it turned out. Also, my amazing wife Brittany made a Chell costume with associated Wheatley prop.

Dragon*Con
The weekend directly after PAX is Dragon*Con this year! My wife and I decided that we NEEDED to go this year. We’ll be packing up our costumes and flying out to Atlanta shortly. I am unbelievably stoked to meet so many of the folks out there!

The Universe
Finally, I wanted to touch on what I’ve been watching. The History Channel has a show called The Universe that is really dorky and awesome. Yaaay science! If you want an unique perspective on how amazing the universe is, queue this show up on your Netflix streaming post-haste!

That just about does it. I have some photos from PAX that I’ll try and get posted soon. I’ll also have plenty of shots from Dragon*Con in the coming week, so stay tuned!