MegaCon 2012

Hello folks,

Sorry I wasn't able to post up anything last weekend. I went to Orlando, FL to attend MegaCon and stayed the whole weekend. It was a lot of fun and hanged out with friends.  Since I drove over there it took me about 3 1/2 hours to get there.  I took the scenic route up on SR 27 and passed through towns such as Lake Placid, Sebring and Winter Haven. Also it was a lot quicker than taking I-75 then go through I-4.  Also thankfully this year the traffic wasn't so bad getting into and getting out of Orlando when I left on Sunday.  I stayed at the same Hotel I stayed at last year, The Rosen Center.  It is a really nice hotel and thankfully I got a great deal and stayed the two nights for the price of one.  I arrived Friday and was able to check in right away which is good since I didn't want to unpack all my stuff later.  Another benefit of staying at the Rosen Center is that it is right across from the Orange County Convention Center where MegaCon was being held. The hotel actually had a bridge to walk into the Con which made it really convenient.  Now for those of you who don't know what MegaCon is it is a convention that showcases comics, anime, games and sci-fi. Various comic artists and stars from Sci-Fi and anime attend for this event.  They also have various vendors and panels, gaming posts and tons of all things that celebrate the geek world. Last year was the first time I ever intended mainly because Stan Lee was the the guest of honor and I had to meet him. Stan was also the Guest of Honor this year which is always exciting to meet him.  Also this year had Tom Felton who played Draco Malfory in the Harry Potter films and various celebrities.  Famous comic artists consisted of people like J. Scott Campbell, David Finch, and many others that would take too long to name.

My main goal for this year's MegaCon was to get various comics autographed by their respected artists. My backpack was filled with comics from George Perez, Arthur Suydam, David Finch and others.  I took with me a sketch pad as well to get autographs from artists who I didn't have comics for them to sign and also get sketches from anybody willing to draw in it. Also I picked up some dice that I needed since I've been playing some RPG table top games with my friends. I've felt weird that I didn't have my own dice and had to be borrowing from them so now I have my own. I also did attempt to cosplay this year at the Arkham Madness After-party and failed somewhat.  My character was to be The Penguin but the nose I had kept falling off since the adhesive didn't work. But as see that as a learning experience and know what to work on in case I want to get more serious about dressing up for next year.

The highlight of my trip would definitely have to be hanging out with Matt Senreich the Co-Creator of Robot Chicken and Zeb Wells who writes for Robot Chicken along with various Spider-Man books and Carnage USA.  I talked with them earlier that day on Saturday at the convention and had Mr. Wells sign my Issue #1 of Carnage USA.  That night I went out to the After-Party with my friends Brand and Mandy, and in the party ran into my friends from home John, Chris, Drake and Rollie (sorry if I spelled your name wrong). As we are hanging out Matt actually was next to us and recognized me from the convention earlier that day.  We got to talking and just hanging out with them which was really cool. Just talking to them and joking was great and I am still currently on that high for right now. The only thing I regret is not taking a photo with them but at least there were numerous witness, although some may not be considered reliable.

The low-point of the weekend would have to be me running about the convention floor trying to get a good photo of Stan Lee.  I was crazed like some sort of teenage groupie crying over the latest pop sensation, it was pretty bad.  But other than that I had a great time, bought some pieces of art and got to talk with some cool artists and celebrities.  Hanged out with friends and had a really good time.  Hopefully I will be able to attend next year but since I will be at Tallahassee next year I'm not sure how it will happen, I'll worry about that when the time comes. I also posted links to the photos I took from my facebook and flickr page.

Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thabmg60/sets/72157629394368035/


http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.223842814378481.48552.100002582929325&type=3&l=c1599cc572

Imagination

Found another one of my burn in photos that I created. This one I exposed the negative of the manufacturing plant, then I had a cut out stencil of a Godzilla sticker I found online and placed it over the photo paper before placing it in the developing solution.  I lowered the exposure light and used some tools so that it would come out lighter than the photo underneath this technique that I used is called dodging and burning.  This plant facility is actually right by where I live and pass by it anytime I head out somewhere. I always imagine in my mind Godzilla smashing though it like in the old movies.  The only draw back was there are water spots from the developing solution that stayed on but sometimes I think that actually adds to the photo and gives it a retro/ classic feel to it.

Burn in Photo I created

Ok I finally found one of my pieces I did for my Photography II class in Edison State College last year.  The project we were working on was to do burn in/ dodging images onto another photo. This piece is part of the work I did, the stencil and graffiti are not part of the original photo. I exposed the negative of the wall onto the photo paper first, then I placed a stencil I created on top of it and then exposed light on top of that stencil. When I put the photo paper into the developer this is the result. I remember working on this and figuring out how I can pull this off with out over exposing the background. Because if I just placed the stencil and leave the rest of the area blank, the light would cause the rest of the photo to go dark. So what I did is place the stencil on top of a blank photo paper then exposed that to light, devloped it and this became my stencil.

This is the stencil that I created so you get an idea of what I'm talking about, I designed it to be backwards so I could just lay it on top of the already exposed photo paper and the letters would come out in the correct order and not backwards. I think it worked our really well since the only part that was exposed whas the white areas and kept the rest of the background photo intact. 

Ever since watching the documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop", I have been infatuated with  Street Art.  I've always like graffiti but the street art shows a side that people don't always get to experience.  Yes I do know that vandalism is a crime and don't reccomend or encourage it.  This is my "safe" version of street art/ graffiti.

The location of the wall is actually at Coconut Point Mall in Estero, FL.  It is behind the store called GQ'z or Men's Palace. If you go there you will see that this stencil isn't there or any signs of being painted over in case you don't believe me.

I have some more photos that I attempted with the burning and dodging techniques that I will attempt to place later on during the month. I found making these type of photos to be rather difficult and exciting to do since I was working with film photography and didn't use photoshop or any other type of editing software to creat the photos. If I could ever get back into a film studio I would do more of things like this.