This past month has been an absolute blur.  After Gen Con we dove head first into getting ready for Dragon Con, and before I could even blink, it’s only three days away.  Unbelievable I tell ya!

So, we have lots planned for Dragon Con:

ODST Trainees – We’ll be making the rounds as a trainee dressed Buck and Dare from Halo 3: ODST.  Outfit includes a simple pair of city camoflauge pants, as well as custom made ODST shirts.  We’ll also each have a sidearm; Grace will have a SOCOM Pistol, and I’ll have an M6G from Halo 3.  We were going to have SOCOMs for each of us, but, well, time just got away from me.  Heh.

Cortana and a Spartan – We’ll be heading around, Grace in her amazing Cortana cosplay, and me in a borrowed Mark VI armor suit.  I hope to have my own ready for next year.

Samus - Grace will also be debuting her Zero Suit Samus outfit as well, which I’m looking forward to.

So, I’ll be putting up an article in the near future about all my plans for next year’s conventions.  See you all around, and thanks for reading!

Grace is car modeling!

Whew!  That was some trip, Gen Con this year was an absolute blast!  Though now I need a vacation to recover from my vacation…

In any case, the con kept us more than busy for all four days, not to mention hanging out with some of the coolest people, and taking plenty of photos to share with you all!  And, after a long 2 day wait, here we are.

First of all, we’ll talk about the trip out, which ended up being a lot more eventful than me and Grace had hoped.  First of all, after a few minor setbacks stacked up to completely trash her carefully outlined schedule, Grace ended up having to leave behind not only her Samus cosplay, but Lee’s blankets as well.  She was an absolute wreck with stress, and didn’t get a wink of sleep the entire night before we left.  I wasn’t much better in that department, having only gotten 4 hours of sleep, but we left, mostly on time, at a barely lit 7:30 am.

Since Grace still isn’t licensed, I drove the 7 hours to Indy.  Normally that’s no issue at all, but only on four hours of sleep and Starbucks based energy, it was definitely more of a trial than I was used to.  In the end we arrived safe and sound, and a little ahead on money.  Good so far.

Then we get a text from our roommates, that they’ll be a little late, coming in at around 6:30.  Mind you, that was at around 3 in the afternoon.  Yeah, not good news, especially when you have a Saturn that needs a parking space in a downtown area of a major city (yeah, anyone who has dealt with parking in a city knows what kind of hell that is.)  We ended up ducking our car in the mall parking ramp and walking around the mall till they all showed up, at which point we checked into the hotel, got a Steak n Shake, and crashed for the evening.

After we did, we found out, oh, the parking was actually going to cost us $28.  A NIGHT.  Freaking-a-wonderful.  So we reluctantly park our car in the hotel lot, and hit the pool for the night before anything else can go wrong.  In a lightning storm.  Don’t worry, indoor pool.  I certainly wasn’t going to temp fate like that.

Day One

I have no idea what this is.

So, we hit the convention floor.  Just in streetclothes though, we hadn’t planned on getting into costume until Friday.  We checked out the exhibition hall, had lunch with Caitlin, and checked out the room we got for the 405th workshop.  Oh yeah, that was fun, since it turned out to be an EIGHTH the size of the room we got the previous year.  And we were supposed to fit twice as many people in it.  Now granted, last year’s event was pretty slow, but seriously?  The Westin Senate was barely enough room to comfortably seat 20 people, much less fifty.  That was tons of fun for awhile, until we started going over numbers.

The big event though was getting to head to Lee Calhoun’s place to check out his workshop.  That’s LeeKegan on the 405th, fyi.  It was an amazing experience, that man is a walking miracle when it comes to fashioning guns from wood, not to mention just being an all around awesome person to hang out with.  And, graciously enough, even though Grace hadn’t been able to finish his blankets that we were trading him for them, he let us take our pistols with us along with the stuff he had loaned us for the 405th Workshop.  Which we then proceeded to play with the entire night back at the hotel.

Day Two

One sexy AI.

Day two, we started costuming, or rather, Grace did.  Having nothing really to wear with her Cortana cosplay, I simply decided to follow around with our Camera, half photographer, half bodyguard.   Despite being the unofficial mule, I actually had a lot of fun doing it, and plan to again at least one day next Gen Con.  Not to mention, Cortana’s makeup is a rather high maintinance setup, and I’d imagine having someone around to hand it to you, and of course carry all your things as well, is a big help to Grace. 

Around one, we made our way to the Westin Senate number 3, to start preparing for the 405th workshop, which happened to coincide well with Grace’s costume, for obvious reasons.  It took us a full 35 minutes to make the otherwise 5 minute walk, due to everyone stopping us for pictures.  It’s no biggie though, that’s kinda something you expect when you’re wearing such an outfit.  Not that it mattered anyway, since the workshop in there before us managed to take 15 minutes longer than planned, and we ended up with only barely 10 minutes to get everything ready.

The workshop itself, despite my fears, went off largely without issue.  Certainly cramming 41 people into a room barely enough for fifty wasn’t easy, but we explained what happened and everyone seemed pretty cool about it.  We had a lot of fun, made some new friends, and hung out with a few people from the 405th I hadn’t met before. My shotgun seemed to go over especially well, along with one of Adam’s assault rifles.  (Personally I like my shotgun more.  But I’m biased. )

After the workshop was over, we headed back into the gauntlet of fans, for more pictures and chatting, before heading back to the hotel.  Before that though, we managed to do a small photoshoot in the area of the Westin we were in.  You can see those pictures here, if you’re interested.

Day Three

Rosalina and Mario

Todday, I got to have my first day as an actual cosplayer, debuting with Mario.  Easy enough costume, though that mustache turned out to be rather annoying.  Next time, I’ll definitely just grow my own.

Still though, this pairing went over massively, both with the newer gamers who enjoyed galaxy, and the older ones, who of course could recognize Mario with anyone. Unfortunately that also meant Grace got called Peach more than once….heh.  Just nod and giggle.

We also carried around a couple of Grace’s Luma plushies with us, to complete the Galaxy pairing.  I had an orange one, after the orange “assist Luma” that accompanies you during co-op mode in Galaxy 2, and Grace had the little yellow one there, which happens to be the first one we ever made, notable by the incorrectly stuffed feet.  Ah well, learn as you go.  I love the little thing though, and claimed it as my own after we made it.

After we walked around a bit, Grace was getting uncomfortable in her dress, so we headed back to the hotel room to get back into street clothes.  Right after that we then saw a Peach and Daisy couple…dammitall.  Win some and lose some I guess.

Before heading back to the hotel though, Grace requested a shoot in the Artsgarden, connected to the mall, connected to the Convention Center.  That shoot is also available for viewing, here.  Enjoy!

That afternoon was pretty easy going.  Grace once again donned Cortana, and I attempted to follow likewise with my Agent 47 costume from Hitman.  While Grace assures me it wasn’t bad, I personally think it was such a disaster that I’m not posting pictures of it.  Seriously, it fell apart within a short while of us reaching the exhibition hall, and after some minor walking, the bald cap I had was practically flooding.  It eventually got so bad I had to abandon ship and hit the hotel, leaving Grace behind.  Fortunately, she wasn’t mauled by Halo fanboys, and managed to come back in one piece.  She then headed off to hang out with one of her friends; I was pretty bummed so I just stayed at the hotel, playing with my laptop.

After that we hit the pool once again, mostly the hot tub this time.  Amazing how well those things work on removing crappy hair gel. 

Day Four

Dan, defender of our car. And the free world.

The last day came way too fast.  While it’s nice to stay through till Monday, Sunday at Gen Con is damn depressing.  Most people only show up for a few hours in the morning to grab what they want from the Exhibition Hall, and to attend various awards ceremonies.  In fact, aside from the Exhibition Hall, the entire center is pretty cleared out.  Not to mention they start packing everything up and…God, it’s just sad.

The day was mostly uneventful.  We hit the Exhibition Hall to do a little shopping, ended up picking up some shirts, a Lego metroid, and three Lego Spartans, along with a little dragon for Grace.  Had lunch with Caitlin again, and then headed over to Dan’s to pick up our car.  We ended up dropping it at his place to avoid the insane fees the hotel wanted to charge us, thanks Dan!  We said our goodbye’s to him, since we wouldn’t see him for the rest of the trip.

Then it was off to Lee’s once more to return the props he had lent us for the Workshop.  Once again had a blast there, and actually had the time to stay and chat like we wanted before.  After a couple hours there, we returned to Indy, and had dinner at the most incredible Italian place with our whole group.  We ate so much, we barely managed to stumble back to the hotel and crash.

On Our Way Home

Back to real life then.  We packed up pretty early in the morning, and of course said our goodbyes to everyone we had lived with for the past week.  I can say with perfect honesty it would’ve only been half the trip without all of those guys, and I’d like to say thanks again for making this Gen Con the best Gen Con evar. 

The ride home wasn’t bad, much easier on a full nights sleep for sure.  Got home to the first home cooked meal we’d had in a week, unpacked (well, half anyway) and then passed out for the night.

That was our Gen Con 2010, in a nutshell.  We made a ton of new friends, and got to sample the Indianapolis night life.    Thanks for reading everyone!

I made some minor changes to it, mostly creating a seperate category for posting to the headline area up there, and to create seperate little spots down here for my and Grace’s private blogs.  Now if I could just get her to use it…love ya baby!

Moving on, I’m so pumped for Gen Con it’s not even funny.  We had one last glitch come up this evening, but it’s been worked out, so we should be all green from here.  God willing, anyway.

I also finished up the Silverballer pistols for my Hitman cosplay, which I’ll be putting an article up on shortly.

Thanks for reading, I hope with these changes, I can have this site a lot more active for you all!

Overall

Hey everyone, just checking in to show off my new work bench.  And because I haven’t posted here in almost a month…but mostly for the work bench.

Workstation

I decided to move what was my secondary desk rig into the work room, so I could have a permanent workstation there.  At the moment though it’s running Windows Vista, so, not perfect.  Need to grab a copy of 7 for it.

In either case, the monitor, as you can see, is mounted nicely on the arm I formerly used on my desk.  The desk was ill suited to the arm though, being made of glass and all- however, it took nicely to this work bench, built out of half inch laminated particle board.

Light and Speakers

Up here, on top of the small shelving unit that holds stuff for me, I have a desk lamp set up, along with a couple cheapo speakers.

Oddly enough, since the sound card in this computers motherboard was damaged, I ended up hooking in and older amplifier I had lying around to mono the sound output.  In the end, this proved to be beneficial anyway, since I’m able to boost the signal volume in that device, instead of the speakers, which do it in a crappy, probably Taiwanese way.

Tools and Storage

And finally, a whole crapload of drawers and tools for me to create the cool things I do.  Quite honestly, these were already a major part of my work, the problem was always getting to them.  Here, not only are they keeping that shelving unit stable, they are also elevated a few inches, meaning even when my work bench is messy, I can still get to them easily.  Hopefully, that means I’ll be better about putting my tools away.  But I’m not holding my breath.

So yeah, that’s my new workbench.  I’m looking forward to using it.  Also, be sure to check out updates on my M45 Tactical Shotgun project.  I just put up a picture of the fully primed gun.

Thanks for reading!

Hey everyone, just dropping in to let you all know on what we’re working on.  For starters, I’ve been working on the theme you’re now looking at, what I call, Third Pillar.  This one I’m definitely sticking with for awhile, I really am proud of it.  Especially that pretty banner.

Note for IE users: The drop down navigation is kinda twitchy on Internet Explorer.  I don’t know why, I’m trying to track it down.  Until then, you guys might just have to put up with the bug.

Rosalina is awesome!

Anyhoo, let’s get started with an awesome Rosalina costume!

Yeah, that joke was horrible.  But it’s mine and I made it.   Though, the costume itself, that’s Grace’s.  And she’s doing an incredible job.  This picture is actually a little out of date, since her crown is now very far into fabrication.  She’s already built the overall structure and started painting it, and will probably be mounting the jewelry in the next couple days.

Rosalina's Dress

Her dress is also extremely far along.  It’s bright blue, it’s poofy, and it looks just damn gorgeous on her.  Unfortunately we didn’t have any pics handy of her wearing it, so, you’ll just have to wait a little longer.

In addition to all that, I’ve started planning out my own costumes for the cons.  I know it seems late, but the two I’m doing myself are relatively simple, mostly just involing certain combinations of clothing.

Namely, I’m planning on doing Agent 47 from the Hitman series, and Tony Stark, from Iron Man.  Obviously not Iron Man himself, just how Tony usually dresses, with the blue striped suit and sunglasses.  Just a little fun one I thought up one day for no particular reason, and I think it would be a lot of fun to try and go through an entire day flexing my sarcasm muscle as much as he does.  I just hope I don’t sprain it.  Hehe.

I love to Reach for my weapons.

I’m also planning on getting my Halo: Reach shotgun finished up by Gen Con, so I can (hopefully) bring it to the 405th workshop to show it off.  I’ll probably bring it even if it isn’t finished, but obviously, finished is better to bring.  Hehe.

Past that, we’re also going to have our Magnums by then, complete with the silencer, as it appeared in Halo 3: ODST, courtesy of LeeKegan from the 405th.com.

So, that about wraps things up for now.  Check back for updates!

Hello everyone, welcome to my 360 mod project!

Core. Useful. Boring.

Here I’ve chronicled the various stages of me turning my XBox from a plain white boring shell to a truly smexy masterpiece that I now am proud to show off.  It started out as a simple core system, didn’t even have the chrome finished eject button and bezel.  See the photo to the right.

After I read a few things on how easy it was to mod a 360 (well, relatively easy) I decided to give my baby a new paintjob.  Start small, you know the old saying.

First attempt. OK, but not great.

The first draft I went through resulted in this, with the orange connect/eject buttons.  At the time I was thinking of going for a Cerberus theme for my XBox, but after a while, between the painting I was having to do not working out at all, I decided on a more neutral theme that I thought would look better in the long run anyway.

At this point, the faceplate was so mucked up with paint that it was unsalvagable, so instead I purchased a fresh clean one from Ebay for $0.99, plus $5 shipping, and while I was on there, found a set of Chrome drive pieces, the eject button and bezel, for a few dollars as well, so I grabbed them.

Eventually I settled on a silver/black faceplate, with the sides still being black.  At the time, I had only planned on painting the connect button and memory card doors silver, but after learning some better tecniques on masking pieces, I decided to go for broke and keep the power button and USB door silver as well.

I started with a coat of silver, skillfully applied by my baby, Grace.  Thankies! *hugs*  After she had that done for me, I masked off the ring of light and power button, the connection button, and the USB door (the memory card doors were simply detached.)  After that, I applied the coat of gloss black to match the sides.  And after that all had time to cure, I assembled it all together to come up with this:

The final product. Hold applause please.

Even though it’s not a lot just yet, I’m quite pleased with the results.  My further wish list with this project is to:

• Switch out the blue LEDs on the Ring of Light for blue ones.
• Fill in the “XBox 360″ engraving on the sides with silver paint/clay/something.
• Paint some type of digital-esque decal work onto the faceplate and sides of the XBox.
• Switch out my current cooling kit with red LEDs to blue, to match the Ring of Light.

So yeah, that’s that.  Thanks for reading!

Hello everyone, been awhile since I’ve posted up here.  Things got pretty whacked for awhile in our household, so, I haven’t really had much of anything to post.

First off, I’d like to request prayers and thoughts for my Grandfather who was recently hospitalized twice following a minor stroke.  He’s currently residing in an assisted living facility on a temporary basis, so he can be rehabilitated.  The stroke left a blood clot somewhere in his brain that has killed a small amount of brain tissue; this didn’t harm him directly, but it means his brain now has to build new neural pathways for common tasks, such as eating, walking, etc.  His left side, originally paralyzed, is now slowly coming back to life, as is he.  Even so, all the positive thoughts he’s received and continue to receive from friends and family are not hurting him by any means.  Thank you to everyone who has extended support so far, you have my thanks.

Encounters of the Seventh Kind

Moving along, in the time since his  original hospitalization I haven’t been able to get much done, save for a single posting on Deviant Art, mirrored here of course.  Remember that you can always find full-size, watermarked versions of my works here on our site, so please check out our galleries if you haven’t already.

In addition, I received a large commission that landed me a new character to add to my collection, which I shall be debuting in the next couple days, depending on how a few other things turn out.  You can all keep yourselves posted for it, I guarantee it will be something you won’t want to miss out on.

Other than that, I’ve spent what little time I can find alone playing through Mass Effect and Fallout 3 for a second time, going different directions this time (female Shepard, and I blew up Megaton).  Having a good time with that, and it’s keeping me sane while my creative drive rides out the dry spell.

So, with that all said and done, I hope you continue to check regularly both here, and on DeviantArt.  I have a slew of projects in the works that will be released soon, I promise you will not be disappointed.

So, as most of you know, I’m a confessed Halo addict, and also as most of you know, Bungie, about 2 weeks ago, put the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta up for us all to enjoy.  And boy am I enjoying it.  In the short time it’s been out, I think I’ve already played more than would be considered healthy. 

The first impressions you I got were excellent.  The menu is completely different from any other Halo game, and it’s quite interesting.  It’s a lot more responsive, first of all, not so laggy as Halo menus have been in the past.  The matchmaking and party system has recieved a complete revamp, though a lot of classic elements are still there.  The whole thing just functions and flows a lot easier.

This game of Headhunter went extremely well.

My first game of Reach was a shining success, we crushed our opposition, 50 to 34.  Even so, my play was…well, embarrassing, considering how long I’d been playing Halo.  To be blunt, though Bungie said they had rebuilt everything, I had underestimated just how much they had torn up.  There isn’t hardly anything that matches up with Halo 3, other than the look.

For starters, the controls have received a big set of changes, setting them back to more how they behaved in Halo 1 and 2.  Dual wielding has been lost, and while that seemed kinda crappy at first, the sheer number of weapons vastly compensates for it immensely well.  The total roster of weapons is quite vast; Magnum, Assault Rifle, , Spartan Laser, DMR, Sniper Rifle, Rocket Launcher, Grenade Launcher, Shotgun, Plasma Launcher, Energy Sword, Needler, Needler Rifle, Plasma Pistol, Plasma Repeater, Focus Rifle, and Gravity Hammer. Here’s the lowdown on the newcomers:

The almighty Plasma Launcher. Ph33r.

Plasma Launcher – A charging covenant weapon that fires seeking plasma grenades up to four at a time, which lock onto a target and seek to stick them.  Incredibly powerful.

DMR – A multi-purpose high powered scoped rifle.  This is basically a single-shot battle rifle, though each shot carries considerably more punch.  Excellent to have in any scenario.

Needler Rifle – A rifle version of the Needler.  The needles fired from this weapon travel miles faster than its cousin, though due to it being a rifle, it’s now single shot action, meaning you have to be hot on the trigger.  However, it does share its cousin’s explosive nature, so feel free to forget headshots.

Plasma Repeater – A more “assault rifle” type version of the Plasma Rifle.  It’s larger to carry, and carries a little more oomph than it’s predecessor.

Focus Rifle – A much more powerful distant relative of the sentinel beam.  Extremely similar actually, only much larger visually.  At a distance it’s a real nuisance, able to down a target with sustained fire in about 3-4 seconds.

Grenade Launcher – The new UNSC explosive weapon.  This weapon combines the bouncy usefulness of the classic grenade with the accuracy of a rocket launcher.  Pull the trigger, and it lobs a frag in the direction of your choosing on proximity detonation.  Hold it, and it lobs a grenade on triggered detonation; when released, the explosive does its thing on command.  This thing is crazy powerful in the right hands.

And in addition to all the firepower, Bungie has traded in the equipment pickups of Halo 3 for loadout based powers, ranging from armor-lock to jetpacks.  These things take the already intense combat in Reach, and elevate it to an outright insane level.  The powers include:

Armor Lock – Your spartan kneels down and activates an invulnerable sheild which lasts for up to about 10 seconds.  Useful for returning flags.

Run Spartan. Run your ass off.

Run – Pretty simple, you can dash across the battlefield for a brief time.  Useful for getting out of sticky situations, and dodging sniper fire.

Jetpack – Your spartan is equiped with a short range jetpack, capable of lifting you to the next level of almost any level.  My personal favorite.

Stalker – Cloaking system that deteriorates with speed.  Excellent for sneaking up on your enemies.  Also comes in a covenant variant called Assassin.

Roll – Covenant version of run, it’s a fairly long-ranged roll executed by elites.  Two per charge.

So, my thoughts so far are amazingly good.  The multiplayer is well-balanced, and the game itself is extremely responsive, not to mention the new engine is miles ahead of the one behind Halo 3.  My complaints are few, but pretty prominant:

Invasion Balancing – The Invasion gametype, I think, is a little too tipped to the UNSC team.  The first two rounds are pretty good, but the third one, there is way too much firepower available to the UNSC.  With loadouts comprising of a grenadier and a shotgunner, combined with the objective being in an enclosed structure, it just seems to be a little much.  I would say simply removing a few of the weapons available to the spartans would do the trick nicely.

Warthog Speed – While I enjoy the new “heavy” feel to the hog, it’s now really too slow.  The Warthog, IMO, is supposed to be much quicker, being a military vehicle and whatnot.  Also, the turret now overheats, which I just plain don’t like.  No weapons in Halo have ever done that, it just doesn’t fit the game very well.

Headhunter – This game is fun, but the fact that you have to capture the skulls in a moving goal, to me, just makes it based way too much on luck and not enough on skill.  Though, this isn’t a big deal to me really.  I’m adjusting to it.

Halo: Reach MP Beta - Boneyard

That about wraps it up for my thoughts so far on the Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta.  Good stuff Bungie, let’s hope you can catch all the glitches in time to fix ‘em.

And I’ll leave you with this gorgeous snapshot a friend of mine got, after a little editing.  Enjoy.

Hey everyone, just checking in.

Haven’t posted much artwork this last week.  I’ve been absolutely embroiled in modding my XBox.  As you may or may not remember, I had attempted it before.  While acceptable at the time, it continued to bug me that, well, my XBox looked like total and utter shit.  So, I decided to attempt a round two at it, with some actual concepted out designs.  I’ll be posting a much more in depth entry about that at a slightly later date, I should have the remaining parts I need today or tomorrow.

Avalon

In other news, I have a few big projects in the works, one of which was Avalon, my last big original 3D release.  It’s mostly recycled Forerunner style assets, but I have to say, it turned out very lovely.  Been getting a lot of good feedback on it too.

The site here has also come along quite nicely.  I’m not sure exactly what happened, but whatever it is seems to have passed on to bother some other web administrator.  The VPS is back up to its normal speed, and I’m enjoying working on the thing again.  Not that I’m changing the theme or anything.  I plan on sticking with this one for a good while yet.

I do have a few ideas for new front page elements though…

Anyway, I’m starting to ramble so, I’ll leave you all back to your day. Check back soon for updates, or better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed and let me bug you in your inbox.   Have a good one!

Those who follow me on DeviantArt have already seen most of this new set, titled “Twilight Siren,” featuring the ever gorgeous Midna.   However, if you’re here, that means you probably want to see something more.

Well today is your lucky day.  Featured in the Series and Projects gallery, you can find the two new ones I’ve put together, a canon and topless version without the cloak.   Hope you like em!

Canonical	Topless	Full Nude
Cloakless - Topless	Cloakless - Canon