NPC Comic

It’s also the one-year anniversary of Do You Wanna Date My Avatar! And my birthday, which a recent age-anxious comic foreshadowed.

I loved oil painting in college, but I didn’t start until my junior year so I didn’t have much time with it. Then I moved to New York City, and the small apartments here aren’t exactly conducive to the fumey mess of mineral spirits and cadmium red paint.

So I finally took my first crack at digital painting this week, and this desktop wallpaper is the result. I am pleased, and it made me remember how much fun painting is, even if it’s with a Cintiq in Photoshop instead of a brush on canvas.

If you’d like this or any other NPC image to spruce up your monitor or digital device, head over to the Wallpaper page, pay a buck, and get whatever size you need. Thanks!

I can’t not post these, especially after seeing their panel at GenCon! Episode 4 is my favorite so far.

I’m home from the exhaustingly fun GenCon. So exhausting in fact, that I neglected to post about the last two days on their respective evenings as I had originally planned.

So here goes: the last two days!

Day 3 (Saturday):

We got up bright and early to wait in line for Hickman’s Killer Breakfast, an event in which Tracy Hickman and his wife Laura entertain us with song and DnD theater. Volunteers, called “victims,” are called up to the DnD table to be killed by Tracy, their merciless DM. Each victim must state how they got there, and if their answer is entertaining, Tracy lets them live…for the time being. If they ramble on or aren’t interesting enough, he declares “YOU DIE,” banishing them from the table. Then he presents a quick scenario and asks each player/victim what they do. This is generally where the rest of the people die, to be quickly replaced by new victims.

It’s fun DnD theater, made better by Tracy’s quick wit, banter with Laura, and the victim’s funny characters. Oh, but there is no actual breakfast.

After running around the dealer room and eating lunch, we demoed Killer Bunnies: Quest for the Magic Carrot. It was a fun card game, though a little complicated for something so light and fluffy and fast. The game’s graphic designer, Jonathan Young, ran us through it and the game designer, Jeffrey Neil Bellinger, was also in the demo room and gave us some signed cards. Both guys were really fun and nice, and I’m interested to see more from them.

On to BattleTech Bootcamp! My boyfriend John plays BattleTech and he had run me through a game once before. But there’s a lot of info and it was good to have a refresher.

Then we went straight to Flight School for a quick intro game of AeroTech, the flight version of BattleTech. Same thing, but flying, and some small rule variations.

Then The Guild panel! Felicia Day was there with some of the Guild actors: Sandeep Parikh (Zaboo), Jeff Lewis (Vork), and Robin Thorsen (Clara). They filled the one hour with a Q&A from the audience, and spoke a lot about the spirit and nitty-gritty of independent web video. As you can probably surmise, their back and forth banter was very funny, and Felicia is even more beautiful in person.

The last event of the night was learning how to play the card game Citadels, a game by Fantasy Flight. I loved it. There will be a separate blog post on it alone for sure! I’m surprised it’s not rated higher on BGG.

Day 4 (Sunday):

Our teacher, David Dresh, made this. Sadly, we didn't get this far in the 2 hour class.

We learned about making terrain for miniature gaming from David Dresh. Fun and interesting, though I’m not sure I’ll ever get around doing it.

The last game I played at GenCon was Thunderstone. The graphic designer and AEG staffer, Jim Pinto, taught it to us and was a really nice guy. We loved it and bought it on the spot when he offered a discount. Thunderstone is like Dominion with dungeon crawling. That’s all I’ll say for now…until I do a separate blog post on it!

Then we ran around the dealer room before heading out. Saw Settlers of Catan being played on a Microsoft Surface!

Before going to the airport, we actually had to stop at TJ Maxx to get a cart to haul our loot back. The newly heavy duffel bag was otherwise threatening to break John’s back, and I could barely lift it.

I’m usually pretty conservative when it comes to buying stuff. But the GenCon dealer hall cast a powerful over this game geek. Pretty steampunk dice I don’t need? Yes, please! A rubber dragon pet I can wear around my neck? MUST HAVE!! Halfing minis? Gotta buy ‘em all!

We started day 2 of “the best four days in gaming” with a workshop on making a chainmail dice bag. I’m not a super crafty person, and I’ve never made chainmail before, but I really enjoyed this. It was very zen to sit there making a little pattern of rings. But hard enough to not be boring. I can’t imagine making entire tunics of this – it must take forever! Since I don’t LARP or cosplay, I’ll happily stick to making dice bags and any other small useful thing I can think of. I didn’t finish mine, but look forward to finding some time during tv shows when I can.

The beginnings of my chainmail dice bag.

By the way, when I say “we,” I’m referring to my boyfriend John, our good friends and DnD cohorts Steve and Stacey, and myself. John and I had a great time just the two of us last year, but it’s double the fun having our friends along. Gaming is best shared with friends and family!

After the dicebag workshop, Stacey and I booked it over to the Wil Wheaton panel while the boys did something-or-other. My only exposure to Wil Wheaton has been Star Trek, his twitter feed, and his small parts in The Guild. (I know, I know, I don’t watch Big Bang Theory! I should.) But I’m definitely going to start following his blog and possibly getting some of his books. His panel was funny and touching. He read a few of his short stories that were memoirs of his experiences with gaming, especially as they related to his wife and kids. He received a lot of well-deserved laughter, applause, and I suspect a few tears. I recorded the audio on my iPhone – maybe I’ll post it next week.

I painted a mini!

Our next event was beginning miniature painting. Another great little class, especially since I’ve never tried it at all. Pictured above is my first attempt.

Since we were worried about the dealer hall being swamped tomorrow, Saturday, we spent the late afternoon getting loot. I got a female halfling mini I plan on painting and using for our DnD runs, some awesome Steampunk dice from the Q-Workshop.com booth, and this crazy rubber dragon I can wear on my arm or shoulder (RToriginals.com). And John has us very well covered in the game department. I’m not even sure of everything he picked up yet. Oh, and the WoW TCG is letting everyone get free loot cards! Just spin a wheel and see what you get. I spun well and landed on the “rare cards!” So I got to blindly choose from 9 cards – and I got the Red Bearon mount! Some guy was telling me to sell it, but I’m totally gonna use it.

I might have to go back to this booth for more awesome dice. BECAUSE I NEED THEM.

So it’s weird, but we only did one game today! And it was a great one: Pitch Car! Pitch Car is a dexterity racing game in which you flick your car, a small wooden disk, along a track. We had about 8 people playing on a few fairly large track. It’s fast paced and really fun, especially thanks to the gerat guys running it.. Lots of laughter and groans and clapping and cheering for each other. A great way to end day 2!

John, Steve, and me playing Pitch Car