TRAVEL: Comic Con

I've had precisely zero hobby time since last Wednesday, so instead of another picture of my Maulerfiend still sitting on the table you get treated to my Comic Con adventures. Check it out!

I don't do Comic Con like those reports you see on your favorite websites. Those people are there for fun. I work Comic Con. It's exhausting, but it definitely has its fun moments.

This year, my Con centered primarily around Halo 5. I don't work on the game itself, but I make products (toys) to go along with it. We partnered with 343 to build a big arena in the XBox lounge so that people could do a 4 v 4 deathmatch game using our BOOMco blasters. I had no idea what they really had planned until we got there. They went all out. Nice to have a blockbuster video game advertising budget in your corner!

Here's the arena, which they had set up with cameras so they could shout cast and do play by play on the main XBox stage from time to time.

We provided lots of blasters and ammo.

The most surprising thing to me was that they'd hired some professional prop guys to build armor for all the contestants and referees in the Halo style. Yeah, these are based on motocross chest guards, but the helmets are all from scratch! All the white areas are targets- if you're not familiar with BOOMco, the darts stick to a special target paper and nothing else. Made counting hits a lot easier!

Here's a couple squads suited up and preparing for battle.

All in all, it was actually a really cool way to spend the weekend. Broke up the monotony of sitting in a booth answering the same questions over and over, to be sure. Dodging (or not dodging) darts and refereeing celebrities is a lot more interesting. Apparently I scolded some dude from Friday Night Lights. Whatever. He was a whiner. 

Coolest part for me was sitting and chatting with the prop guys though, which we did a lot over hours of intermittent down time. Super interesting getting to talk with them about how they build costumes, shaping foam, 3D printing, casting, etc. The Fallen guy up top from Destiny was incredibly detailed. Unfortunately I only took one picture and it's awful. Same with the Spartan below. It looked a lot better than this awkward angle shows. Really hope I've got a reason to engage these guys at some point on one of my own products. 

And that's the completely unromantic side of Comic Con. Get up at 8. On your feet all day doing the same thing over and over. Dinner and drinks with the boss til 11. Lather, rinse, repeat. There's a lot worse ways to make a living to be sure. I actually had a pretty good time this year.

~Deet