Free RPG Day!

Hey everybody, don't forget that this Saturday is free RPG day 2011. Basically you can go to gaming shops to demo all sorts of RPGs, if you want some more info then check it out: here 

If you live in Kentucky (specifically the Lexington area) then go play some free demos at Amazing Wonders Gaming and Hobby Center and/or The Rusty Scabbard. It's sure to be lots of fun where you can learn a new game and meet some new people who also like to play RPGs. 

Geeking Out Over the iPad 2

   So maybe I’m a little late to the game considering the iPad 2 came out in March but not everyone had the cash to run out and snatch them up the day they were released. But now that I have mine I’m really happy with it and fully think it was worth the wait. Of course its not a device that everyone needs but it has a lot of practical uses as well as fun ones. As of now I don’t have a functioning laptop, just a desktop, and while its great for everything I need at home there are plenty of times I would like to access the internet or be able to type something up while I’m out.

   My biggest reason for wanting the ipad (aside from how cool it is) was that I’m going back to school in the Fall and I prefer to take notes on a laptop because it’s faster and my handwriting can get pretty sloppy. The ipad seems like it’s going to work really well on that front. The touch screen keyboard is actually a decent size for typing, you can turn on built in auto-correct, and it knows the difference between a keystroke and wiping something off the screen (so if you brush off a piece of dust you don’t get a random stream of characters typed into your document). It takes a bit of getting used to because you can’t actually feel the keys under your fingers but if you already have a touch screen phone then you’ll adapt to it easily. You can also connect a wireless key board to the ipad 2 if you want, I have one but haven’t tried it yet because I simply haven’t felt the need to do so. As of right now I have the Evernote app (bc it’s free) for typing things up, like this blog for example.  It works smoothly and synchronizes across your computers but it’s simplistic. For real word processing power like writing lengthy papers and articles I’m going to buy Pages App ($9.99) and use Dropbox (free) to synch my documents to my home computer.

  The next big thing I use the ipad 2 for is web browsing, and let me just say that its great. Your surfing speed obviously depends on your wifi signal but with a good connection it moves through pages quickly, zoom in and out smoothly, and allows you to have multiple pages open at once.  It had no trouble loading image heavy sites like DeviantArt or any other page I've been to. And personally, I just like the ability to browse and touch links with my fingers instead of having to wiggle a mouse around. The built in Mail app is also handing for checking mail quickly and managing multiple accounts.

   All the games I’ve download have played well and looked great, playing Air Hockey with two people on the touch screen is surprisingly fun. I have a dice roll and a Magic TCG life counter app for my dorky habits, the Nyan Cat app just for giggles, a drawing app, a dictation app, a dictionary app, and of course one for Twitter and Facebook. The Netflix app works great, allowing you to search for new movies and see what’s already in your instant queue, and the ipad’s screen is a great size for watching films on. The ipod app is perfect for listening to your songs or podcasts and it can play in the background for easy multitasking. Multitasking in general works well. You can leave apps running in the background and pick up right where you were last time or double tap the home button and close any apps that you want to switch off. Arranging the apps icons and changing your wallpaper are also easy and fun ways to customize your ipad.

First thing I drew on my ipad 2, my dog with a mustache lol.

Conceptual Cosplay Part 2

   So for this entry I’m going to talk about how I came up with and made my second Pokemon gijinka cosplay. The first one I created was made to be a hoodie for casual wear as well as taking to cons, but for this next outfit I wanted to really look like a Drifloon and show off it’s characteristics.  The first thing I did was sketch out a picture of a Drifloon; you can just pull up an image of the Pokemon you want to use on your computer. This is so you can reference the image while you come up with ideas for your cosplay.  

   Then you have to decide what kind of an outfit you’re going to make: pants and a shirt or maybe a dress? I choose a dress because Drifloon only really has one part of its body, the balloon head, so it makes sense to only have one piece of clothing. Then I decided that since the dress represented Drifloon head that it should have the face on the body of the dress. I decided I’m make the dress hooded and put some white fluffy stuff on the top to represent the poof on Drifloon’s head. Then for the last touch I’d hang two pieces of lace from the bottom of the dress and attach big hearts to them, like Drifloon ‘s little string legs. So I did some more sketching and came up with something that looked like this:

   After I had the idea for the dress all flushed out I had to figure out what fabrics to use. I decided that a poly-cotton blend would be best; it’s stretchy and lightweight. Finding the right colors and right amounts of fabric took a while but I wanted to make sure it all looked good. Then there wasn’t anything left to do but get down to business, after plenty of cutting and sewing I was done:

   And there you have it. I wore it to SugoiCon 2010 for the first time and it was pretty popular there/ I think Pokemon in general is pretty popular with people who go to anime cons so cosplaying as a recognizable gijinka will get you a lot of attention, lol. 

Conceptual Cosplay

*Note: This entry is aimed at people who have a basic knowledge of sewing skills. I’m not going to go over the details of how I actually sewed the cosplays I made so if you’d like more in depth instructions then just feel free to ask.

   There are plenty of times when you decide on a cosplay that the outfit is pretty straightforward and you have lots of reference images for the character you want to play. But there are other times when you don’t have as much to go on or you want to make a conceptual outfit for portraying an animal, inhuman character, or making a more realistic version of a character’s outfit. Many people like to cosplay as Pokemon and making an outfit that resembles a certain Pokemon is called know as making a gijinka. (Here is a Deviant Art Group all about gijinkas http://pokedex.deviantart.com/) Pokemon gijinka are usually very popular at anime conventions and thus the specific topic that I’m going to discuss today.

   Some gijinka outfits are created to make a person look as much like the Pokemon as possible while other outfits are made to look like more realistic versions of how that Pokemon would look as a person.  If your creating a gijinka cosplay then you can lean towards one side of that spectrum or find a place anywhere in the middle that you like. That’s one of my favorite parts about Pokemon cosplay, you can pretty much do whatever you want with it. I have two different (though similar in concept) gijinka cosplays of the same Pokemon, my favorite Pokemon Drifloon!

   So after you pick the Pokemon that you’d like to be you have to decide what kind of outfit you want to create. You can look online for ideas or simply wing it and be as creative as you want to be. The first Pokemon item I made was a Drifloon hoodie.  I wanted to make a hoodie because I could wear it to a con as a cosplay but also wear it around at home like a normal hoodie. So I sketched out a basic idea of how the hoodie should look then cleaned it up in photoshop to get a better picture of how I wanted it to look. But you don’t need any fancy programs to take the extra steps like I did, I suggest just drawing up a picture of what you want and then adding details once you get the basic idea set in stone. So here’s how my sketch turned out:

   The next step was figuring out how much of each fabric and what type of fabric I would use. I picked fleece because its soft, stretchy, and warm. I also decided to use fabric glue to place the eyes and x-mouth onto the hoodie because I din't want any stitching to show around the edges of those details. Then I just had to hope that I could find material that was close enough to the right colors. After several hours of measuring, cutting, and sewing I was done:

   So you can see how my idea transitioned into a real life hoodie. It turned out a tiny bit small (the store I got the fabric from was a little short on the amount of purple fabric I needed but it was the best purple fleece I could find) but it still fits all right. Since this blog is getting a little long I’m going to leave off here and next time I’ll cover my other Drifloon cosplay and why I feel like it’s a better outfit for a Pokemon gijinka.  

Two-Headed Giant

*I’m trying to get my second post on cosplay up, but I want to add some sketches and my scanner is broken at the moment so it will be up later. For now I’d like to make a quick post about my first experience playing a game of Two-Headed Giant  Magic.

On Friday night I was playing Magic like I usually do but I wasn’t playing the standard format. It was my first time playing the Two-Headed Giant format. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the format here are the basic rules:

Two-Headed Giant Constructed decks must contain the minimum of sixty cards. Two-Headed Giant uses the Unified Deck Construction rules. With the exception of basic land cards, a team's combined decks may not contain more than four of any individual card. (For example, if one player is using four Naturalizes in a Multiplayer Constructed event, no other player on that team may have a Naturalize in his or her deck.) Sideboards are not allowed in Constructed Multiplayer tournaments because only one match is played between teams. Each player has control of their own deck but they share one unified turn. Players may communicate their moves and show each other their hands to discuss strategy. The two players share a total of 30 life points and must take 15 poison counters to lose the game.

So for this tournament I was playing a changed up version of my Red Deck and my partner was playing a Green Deck thick with elves. The plan was for me to wipe the opposing team’s field and then my teammate would swarm them with elves. It was a pretty effective strategy and we only lost one match out of four, so we placed 4^th in the tournament. In the match we did lose we were facing a team with Infect creatures. They pulled some combo where they made us discard our whole hands, then wiped our field of creatures, and then hit us for 15 poison counters in two turns. It was pretty intense.

Overall I have to say that playing the Two-Headed Giant format was pretty fun, though fairly confusing. Determining how certain cards and abilities will affect players as individuals and teams as a whole got a bit tricky at times but it just took some careful reading to clear things up. Fortunately Battlecry works for all attacking creatures so my creatures could boost my teammates’ creatures. 

Well, that's all I have to say for now. I've got to be off to work soon. But if you have any questions feel free to post them.