The Real MAGFest 2019 Reflections Post

Magfest was a lot of fun this year. That's pretty standard. I was a lot more tired going into the convention this year because of an intense vacation near the end of December--you know, one of those vacations where you come home more exhausted than before you left and you want a real vacation from the vacation.

Anyways, I think I spent most of this convention in panels. I'm going to go off on a bit of a "Magfest is the best" thing here. I really feel that Magfest goes out of its way to have outstanding programming. Their events are good. Their panels are great, and cover a wide variety of topics. There is always something interesting going on. This year I attended a mix of cosplay makerspace panels, tabletop panels, and MAGES panels. I gave a panel in MAGES on tabletop roleplaying and relationships with Shaun as a follow-up to last year's panel on gaming in general as a couple. We got a bunch of questions related to roleplaying games after that panel, so we put together one on that topic. He gave two other panels that went over well. I think the only thing I've ever been super meh about was the Marketplace. There were many years where the vendor space was too small. This year, there just wasn't much that I wanted to see. I think my favorite vendor was the leather vendor in the very back of the room, who sadly does not have a website to share with everyone. They had some really cool binders and DM screens in tooled leather, and I really need to get one of the leather tunics they have... one of these years, when I have more money.

Anyways, most of the panels and events I attended this year were fantastic. They were either interesting or informative, and bonus if they were both. I came home super motivated to get back into cosplaying, which I've wanted to do for awhile now. I have ideas for several original cosplay designs, plus I have a long list of characters I want to cosplay. I'm also really excited about pushing forward on several of our larger (and smaller) projects. I'm not going to say a lot about them right now, since they've technically been on the board for a couple of years now, and although close to completion now (relatively), I don't have a clear idea of when exactly they will be done. Assuming I can stay out of the hospital this year and have no more major issues, then I'm pretty sure we'll start seeing some of these things wrap up early this year, but I've been saying that for a couple years now, and so far it hasn't worked. =P Anyways, I'll post when things actually happen. 

All in all, Magfest was the best way to start 2019.

The Post That Was Going to be MAGFest Musings

I meant to publish a post reflecting on Magfest, which was this past weekend. So, this post is just going to be a quick summary of my last couple of days. 

To provide some context, we broke our van while we were in vacation in Florida, Orlando area, in December, and we had to leave it in Florida for repairs. And that's all the backstory we need for this post. =P

Fast forward to last Sunday. We packed up to leave Magfest mid-morning and drove to North Carolina -- we live in the south central part of the state. This was about 6 hours give or take. Once we reached NC, I changed cars and people I was riding with and left again. From NC, we drove to the north part of Orlando, FL. I did this because I had received word while at Magfest that our van would be fixed and ready to pick up Monday. Monday morning, we drove to the car place where we dropped the van off, because I had been repeatedly told to pick up the van where we dropped it off. We got there and the receptionist gave me an odd look and said, "Ooh, I'm sorry, but your vehicle is in another castle [location]." I knew that they had sent the van to another location to complete repairs because they had an earlier opening to start the repairs. They were supposed to have sent it back to the original location. Communication clearly broke down because the van was not returned, and I was not informed of the change in pick-up location. This was mostly a nuisance and a lot of extra driving. Moving on, I finally got the van yesterday around lunch time, and I spent the rest of my Monday driving back to North Carolina.

Needless to say, I am very tired of being in the car. I did not get time to put together a post for Magfest, because I'm pretty sure driving and typing are incompatible activities. XD Anyways, I'll put up a reflection on Magfest in a week or so.

MAGFest Panels

Shaun and I will be at MAGFest this year as attendees and panelists. We have two panels this year!

Shaun will be on a panel this morning at 10:30 on Heroes. This is a group discussion on how video game heroes have changed over the years. Many of the tropes that characterized the heroes of our childhood no longer apply to the game heroes of today. Why? What makes a hero now? He and his fellow panelists will be addressing these and other questions.

Tomorrow (Saturday) at 11:30, Shaun and I will be giving a panel together on relationships and tabletop RPG gaming. We've been married for almost 19 years, and playing RPG games like Dungeons and Dragons has been a big part of our relationship. We're going to address topics like playing together as a couple and how that might affect game dynamics. We're going to look at how other players might perceive the impact of the relationship, especially if one involved is the GM. We're also going to look at how to handle couples when they are inattentive and distracted or when things are going south in the relationship and the toxicity is spreading into the game. This is a more focused version of the panel we gave last year. I'm looking forward to it. Yay! My second panel. 

If you're going to be at MAGFest, please stop by our panels! Of course, if these topics don't interest you, don't come. =P We won't be offended. Both panels will be in the MAGES section.

Developers Notes - 1

It's 2018. It's a new year. It's a time for new things, right?

Well there are new things coming to my blog here. The biggest change is what I'm posting here and how often I'm posting. This is going to turn more into a journal of what we're doing that will be posted in weekly digests on Mondays (ideally). For more WIP pictures and slice of life randomness then find me on either Instagram or Facebook under the name GothicPandaArt. I will be sharing the writing for this with Ekoja (my husband). Most posts will be either one of us or the other, but some may be both.

On that note, onward to our first post in 2018...
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If you don't already know me, I am Gothic Panda and the artist behind most everything you see in Gothic Panda Studios. I currently work full time at a 911 emergency call center at night and attempt to homeschool my 4 kids by day, and sometimes everything works, but usually it's chaos. Right now, true to my normal style, I'm working on all the projects. This includes some games, lots of prints, some buttons, some bookmarks, lots of badges, some plushies... you get the idea. I tend to be slow finishing things because I have trouble keeping my attention on any one project for any length of time. I have so many ideas and things I want to work on and I'm not good at simply picking one project and finishing it...or even picking 10 projects and finishing them. It's not too bad, though, as long as I work on things consistently. That's going to be my personal goal/resolution/thing for this year. 

Anyways...(I wasn't going to post an intro like that, but since Ekoja did, I feel like I have to too. XD And, yeah, we totally did not coordinate writing this joint post very well.)

2018 has started out with a bang. We attended MAGFest in National Harbor, MD over the first weekend in January. I gave my first ever panel with Ekoja. It was good experience. Giving a panel was definitely way outside my comfort zone. It didn't help that Ekoja teaches public speaking is pretty good at it, so next to him I feel like I must have looked extra... inexperienced. However, everyone we spoke to said they liked it and said I did fine (although I still have my doubts). Anyways. If anyone reading this happened to have attended MAGFest, then it was the panel on Thursday afternoon on Relationships and Gaming on playing together with your significant other. Otherwise, Ekoja participated in a couple of other MAGES panels there on Saturday. I attended a lot of panels throughout the weekend. I played lots of games. I bought stuff, including 2 more sets of dice. Did I really need more? Yes, yes I did. This should never be a question. I got some adorable chibi stickers that are now adorning my computer. Overall, I had an amazing time, and I cannot wait for next year. Secretly, I hope to be waitlisted again for this convention. =P

MAGFest has definitely taken up a big part of our attention over the last 2 weeks, but there's nothing like a convention for a motivational boost to really start digging into things for the new year. More on some of our in progress projects will be coming next week. ^_^
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Hi. I go by the nickname “Ekoja” or “Eko” for short because it is such a long name. I’m married to Gothic Panda. This is my side of the blog. I teach for a living, love to write and I’m a fan of most things geeky. Lately, I’ve been working on scripts for a podcast mystery series. I’ll talk more about that some other time. The topic for today is our recent trip to the gaming convention, Magfest.

I was invited to speak at the convention about seven years ago by a former student and I’m a regular panelist in their MAGES group, which is a bunch of academic and professional speakers who talk about games from game design and study perspectives. This year I was part of three panels.

The first panel was with Gothic Panda called “Gaming Together: Do Couples that Play Together Stay Together?” It was an interesting discussion that boiled down to it can and there are ways to help it. The panel went well for a Thursday event, which are usually quite small. In fact, I would say there were more people at that panel than any of the others I gave and I received more comments and questions from it too. Overall, a successful presentation. I laughed. I cried. I didn’t stick my foot too far in my mouth, and Gothic Panda was still speaking to me afterwards. I consider that an incredible success. If you get to know me, I tend to speak before thinking a lot and it gets me in trouble.

The second panel was about the mechanics of love and the third involved encouraging kinder interactions from players. This was the feel-good year of panels. They were both fun and I enjoyed the conversations with the other panelists. We attended a few fun events too including one-man performance of “Empire Strikes Back” and some Tabletop gameplay.

Gothic Panda and I also listened to a number of panels on game design and running a successful Kickstarter. They were very motivating for us to really push forward on more of our creative projects. I really want to make stuff this year. This blog is just the first step. We’ve got some great projects in the works. Hope you enjoyed our first post. Talk to you later.

Magfest 2017

Magfest was my first 2017 convention. I went as an attendee--no table. I have to say I had an absolute blast. I'm not super sad that I didn't have a table either. I can't remember if I even applied for this year or not, but if I did, I'm glad I didn't get in. Things went so crazy last fall that there is no way I would have been prepared for it. I look forward to tabling there again. =D

I think I had more fun at this year's Magfest than I have at a convention in years--closest comparisons were Animazement 2008 (I think, it could have been 2009) and Anime Weekend Atlanta 2011 (I'm pretty sure on this one). Animazement 2008 was fun because we cosplayed Avatar: the Last Air Bender (I was Mae and my husband was Zuko <3 <3 <3), and there was a really fun photoshoot. This was the year I discovered that I really liked doing group photoshoots. Ok... thinking back that was actually Animazement 2011 not 2008. I remember now because that was the year I left my friend's Azula cosplay on our couch. Oops--she was super forgiving of me (best friend ever). But, that was the only year we lived at the house where that happened. Yep, clearly my memory has some issues. My excuse: age, plus I've been attending conventions since 2000, so it makes sense that a few of them might run together, right? AWA 2011 was fun for similar reasons. My cousin and I cosplayed Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. Again, I took a break from the table to go to a My Little Pony photoshoot. It was great, and included an unplanned sing-along of season 1-2 pony songs. It was awesome. I remember getting asked to leave the hotel because there were too many of us, and we were clogging up the lobby area. Fun times. 

I loved this year's Magfest for entirely different reasons though. There were no cosplays. I don't think I could have put one together even if I had the means. I'd only just been cleared by my doctor to even attend without a wheelchair or anything (severe activity restrictions). It was a little stressful because I did have to monitor my heart rate, and I could not go outside for the most part (this probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but I promise I'll explain; that needs to be its own blog post though). I did hurt a lot by the end of the convention because I probably pushed my limits a little too far. All's well that ends well, right though? I did not re-hospitalize myself or kill myself or otherwise cause any serious damage (as far as I can tell, so far). 

Now on to the fun stuff: I played all the board games. Ok, maybe not all--that's a bit unrealistic, but I did play a lot. I also joined a one-shot 5th edition D&D game. I had an absolute blast. Not only did I have a lot of fun, but this also revitalized my flagging motivation to finish some of the game projects we have had sitting on the table for a couple of years now. This includes a 5th edition version of the Anime D20 book. We are super hyped about that now. We're even thinking about trying to pull off another print run of the book. With the rise of crowdfunding options, it makes this possible. It took a heavy investment for the 4th edition version we printed, and we felt it was beyond our means to print the Pathfinder version, which has only been available for digital purchase. We'll see where this goes, but I see fun times ahead. There are also a couple of other tabletop games in progress that I look forward to finishing too. 

Magfest 2017 highlight: By far this was the Escape Room we participated in. It took sitting in 3 lines for over 5 hours spread over the 3 lines to get a spot--first 2 times waiting we missed the cut off, and the room events filled up before they got to us. Got in for Saturday evening. I have no words for how much I enjoyed this experience. The room's theme was Portal. There were 7 of us in there (5 from my group and 2 others). It was very well put together. Everyone was able to contribute. There were all kinds of different puzzles, some that would appeal more to 1-2 of us, while others would be better for say me, but stumped the others. We beat the room with less than a minute left on the timer, and we even found the cake (optional bonus thing). The cake was fake, so yeah, there was a cake, but it was still a lie. Loved it. On so many levels. 

We did some other things. I bought a bunch of prints, a t-shirt, and new dice. I always buy new dice. I have more dice than I could ever use. I probably have a dice problem. There could be worse things though, right? (I do use my dice--I design my characters to fit one of my sets based on the feelings evoked by the colors.) Maybe I'll put up a post featuring all the awesome stuff I got. Anyways, great time. Very motivating: for finishing games, ideas making new cosplays, and even some art stuff (although that was more the drive home). 

Update!

It's about time I posted one of these. With the holidays over, we're settling into a routine. I think I might be able to fit in some writing during this time, but it's going to be hit or miss for now. On a positive note though, right before Christmas, we found a house that would be nearly perfect for our family. It has enough bedrooms for everyone to have their own room--even the new one coming. On top of that it has a huge bonus room that I can use as a craft room. =D There's even space in the formal dining room--since we don't really need one of those--to put all the kids' homeschool stuff. The garage is also large enough to put a workbench for projects that need ventilation. The best part is it is a short sale, which means it's in our price range for what we can afford. We put an offer on it, and the sellers have accepted it. Now, we're just waiting to see if the seller's bank will accept our offer. I really hope they do because this house would be great for our family. If we get a positive back from the bank, we'll close 30 days after they approve it, and then we get to move again (for the last time I hope). If not, then we'll have to start looking again, but I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for a positive for this house. =)

So, that's how the house hunt and homelessness is going. We were at Magfest last weekend, which was fun. One of the neatest parts was Wednesday evening I got to drive my little car into the vendor area right up to my table to unload. That was just plain fun. The weekend went well. My husband participated in 4 panels, which he claims went well. =P I won't be posting a full con report on this one for lack of time--I'm going to have to get off the computer soon now. I will be updating my website and DA accounts with the new Sailor bookmarks and the new What Woulds I finished for Magfest soon (I hope). Right now, I'm working on the most awesome commission ever (it involves Final Fantasy VI), a new set of original designs similar to the Zodiacs but based off of birthstones, new What Woulds--the 6 I didn't finish before Magfest + 4 others--and the bookmark set based off of The Guild, which I started December 2010 and was supposed to have been finished for Magfest 2011 (clearly it wasn't). XD As we've been settling into a routine of sorts, I have been able to work on art a little more consistently, and if I can get some writing time in for my blog here, then I should be able to put up some work-in-progress stuff here and there. ^_^

Wednesday WIP - Sort of

I'd taken a break from posting WIP stuff on Wednesdays so I thought today might be a good time to get back to those. I thought it might be nice to post pictures of some of the stuff I talked about working on last week--like my mini-amigurumi and the new set of Zodiacs... Well, that's not going to happen as planned. We left early this morning to go to Raleigh to pick up my husband's dissertation (the big hard-bound print copy of it) from NC State. On the way, I stopped by the closest printer to my house (about an hour away) to drop off files so they can get me a quote for the anime tarot deck. Hopefully they can handle it and it won't be horrible and expensive. We also ran some errands around Raleigh. On the way home the air conditioning in the car broke, and after a long and exceptionally warm trip, I'm exhausted. So, I will not be finding my camera, taking pictures, and posting anything super detailed here tonight. =P

Don't worry. I'm still going to post something. =D I'm going to post stuff for upcoming cosplay projects. I know I told myself I was going to take a good long break from cosplay after Animazement. Apparently that meant I was going to be inspired to work on even more cosplay. =P First up: AWA is holding a formal ball with a mecha pilot theme. This got me to thinking. I know it's been fairly obvious that I'm obsessed with Full Metal Alchemist, but it is a lesser know fact that I am also obsessed with Code Geass, which happens to feature lots of ornate costumes and mecha. I've been wanting to cosplay C.C. (make my husband cosplay Lelouch), but given the theme of the ball, I thought Suzaku would be more appropriate for this event, and if my husband goes as Suzaku, then I could go as Euphemia. As if I'm not enough of a glutton for punishment just for trying to cosplay anything designed by Clamp, I found a really gorgeous art book picture while looking for references (see the bottom of this blog). The end result is, I'm going to try and make the art book version of the costumes for Suzaku and Euphemia (I actually really want C.C.'s dress too from this picture).

AWA is the end of September; I've got some time, so it just might happen. Now, come mid-October, a pair of good friends of ours is getting married at the NC Renaissance Festival in Charlotte, NC, and we're required to come in costume if we wish to attend the wedding (no problem right, I love dressing up). This means that I need to make costumes for myself and my husband, and I promised my good friend Melissa (yes, the same good friend whose Azula costume I forgot on our living room couch for Animazement) I'd make her a costume too. XD Costume count's up to 5 now.

Alright, so I've also decided that not only am I going to break my vow to never ever make a dress (fancy or otherwise) that was all (or even mostly) white with Euphemia, I'm going to remake my Twilight Princess Zelda costume for Magfest. Thankfully Magfest is not until early January 2012. I'm not sure how sane I'll be by then considering I have a lot to prepare with my art tables for Otakon, AWA, AUSA, and Magfest. I am wondering if making these costumes is really a great idea, but I really really want to, especially for the Code Geass ones--it's so perfect for the theme, and I've always wanted to attend one of the formal events at one of the conventions I go to. So, anyways. Look forward to updates on how these projects are going--I'm really psyched about them right now. =D I'm going to close with the art book picture that I'm basing the Code Geass costume set on.

Yes I know the pic is a little big for the blog here, but aren't the costumes gorgeous? 
I'm making Euphemia's, but I'd love to have a dress like C.C.'s as well.

What Would ____ Do?

The concept idea for this set came while driving up to Anime USA last fall with my husband and a couple of friends. We were brainstorming ideas for things I could make for Magfest, a gaming convention that takes place in early January. We spent most of the trip trying to come up with a variety of character types from a variety of different gaming platforms. I had decided from the beginning that there would be 12 characters in the set... Anyone familiar with my gallery will see a theme there. I can't honestly say where that came from but I like to do sets of 12.

Since I play primarily Play Station games personally, and older ones at that, coming up with characters for Nintendo and X-Box (in particular) were somewhat difficult. Coming up with some characters from newer games was also a challenge since I'm stuck in the gaming world of the mid to late 1990s. This is why I'm always posting that I'm open to suggestions, and why I listen to what everyone who stops by my art tables has to say. There's a lot of stuff out there that I'm not familiar with in both video games and anime. It's worth noting that I don't always follow everyone's advice, but most the time I'll give a series or game a chance. In most cases, I've been glad I did: I can thank con-goers who stopped to chat at my table for introducing me to both Soul Eater and Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) and a fellow artist for recommending Gurren Lagan.

So, the current What Would ____ Do? set includes: Black Mage, Etna, Felicia, GlaDOS, Kratos, Lara Croft, Leon, Mario, Master Chief, Sam & Max, Solid Snake, and Yuna. I'm considering adding 4 new ones for Animazement or Otakon, maybe the guy from Assassin's Creed or Megaman. I've considered Link, but I'm not sure I honestly want to draw him again--he's in the Nintendo Noir set and in the Anime Tarot set, plus I've made 4 cosplay versions of him and I've got a stand-alone print (o.O yes I do things that aren't part of sets every once in a while) with Link and Navi. To reiterate my point from above, I'm always looking for ideas and suggestions; feel free to comment or message me on Twitter or Etsy if you have any game characters you'd like to see in this set.