Splishing and Splashing

It rained on our parade on Saturday. A nice constant drench of big ploppy raindrops. We moved forward with constructing the monster, using an awning to try and shield it a bit. The business opened though so we had to move out from the awning.

We didn't even get a chance to take a picture before it started to melt. Those blue and red pieces on the end of the slinkys were art pieces cut from art books. They melted first. So I took them off. That was about the time the Columbus Museum of Art came over and said their stuff was melting in the rain too. I'm glad at least one of them got to see it though.

Here is us trying to raise the monster after giving him an umbrella hat. This is the closest to a full picture of the monster that we got. Unfortunately.

and here is where the monster ended up before the parade even started. Now, it is common for me to take time building something and then destroy it in the performance. In my experience, life is about building up to something that never happens. About spending time and energy building something that gets destroyed in an instant. So this was made to only last one day. However, watching people throw their garbage into something that I worked on for so long, before it even got to be used for what I needed it for, well that was an experience. I was expecting to be upset but the whole situation was so typical that I just had to improvise and keep going. I tore the slinkys off of the monster and we wore them as we splashed our way through a soaking wet parade. It was an illustration of "Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain" Dance we did. It was magical.

I need to thank Totalie Awesome, Maulie Squee, Meester, Casey Oddfellow Ward, King Sweetbeard, Queen Sweetrack, Serge Le Sinister, and Peach Roulette for joining us in the downpour.

Slow Like Sloth Progress is Slogress

I have the patience of a two year old and I am training myself to take my time on projects even if I am going to destroy them during a performance anyway. Taking things slow makes me angry so I try to think of a sloth so at the very least, I have a cute fuzzy animal in my head while I clench my jaw and sigh heavily every five minutes.

Progress is slow going on the New CMA Building Monster but I'm getting closer to being able to add teeth, eyes, and tentacles.

The front and back of the building has big beautiful windows but I was not sure how I was going to mimic those without spending money. Totalie and I toyed with the idea of plastic, but I went with some artist shots of buildings cut out of a marketing book produced by a retail management company.

Not too bad for a cartoonish imagining of the real thing. Imagine this with sharp teeth and giant eyes.

One of the reasons this is a slothy process, is because I am building a piñata for my friend's daughter. It's a rainbow themed party so I made a rainbow for them to smash into bits. I was thinking I could put chocolate coins into it, but an outdoor party in 90 degree weather and chocolate may not be the best idea. It's not finished yet but here is my first party piñata.

It needs more clouds!

After I get the color right on the New CMA Monster, I will be a happy sloth.

Origins Game Fair 2015

The Trulie Awesome Show had the opportunity to host panels at Origins this year for their Anime Track. We covered a variety of topics over the course of four days, but my favorite was when we got to perform our show.

Bringing a show to a convention is a bit tricky because you have to be able to set up and tear down quickly and you have to create your own backstage area. I learned that the hard way with our first convention, Midoricon. I had not seen the room before the day we were doing the show, and if they hadn't had a giant screen, we would have been changing in front of everyone. Not exactly the show we want to present! Since then, we have put together a mic-stands and bed sheets version of a backstage area, which travels well and can double as a projection screen.

 The staff of the Hyatt were very helpful, letting us use a bell hop cart and letting us pull up to the entrance to unload. (The bell hop cart is one of the most useful inventions) Thank you Hyatt!

We performed a 45 minute set of our original sketch comedy and dance which was a lot of fun. I was surprised we were able to clean up all of the paper, candy, and tech in under five minutes.

Since this was the first year for Anime Track at Origins, it wasn't a heavy traffic area, but we all had a great time! We met some folks from JoyYou Cafe and Anime Punch, two anime loving companies in town you should definitely check out. We hope that Wasabi Anime does this again next year!

Our next stop is Gen Con July 30th-August 2nd and we will be performing at Midoricon 2015 September 25th-27th