International Cosplay Day Singapore 2012

Event Name: International Cosplay Day Singapore 2012
Location: Ngee Ann Polytechnic Convention Centre , map
Date:  26th August 2012
Time: 10am – 8pm
Admission: $5 (available from July 2012 via www.gatecrash.com.sg, various event partners, and at the door).
Website: http://neotokyoproject.com/blog/2012/05/01/icds-a-celebration-of-cosplay-and-pop-culture-diversity/

" The Neo Tokyo Project, Singapore’s premier blog on comic books, cosplay and popculture, confirmed today their first guests-of-honor and partners for Singapore’s inaugural International Cosplay Day (ICDS).

The event, which will take place on 26 August 2012 at Ngee Ann Polytechnic Convention Center, is a fan-driven celebration of cosplay & pop-culture produced by The Neo Tokyo Project – the team behind Singapore’s first ever Cosplay Chess stage show, as well as internationally acclaimed cosplay photographer Jay Tablante’s Geekology 101 exhibition in Singapore.
Co-producing ICDS is Project Zen, a cosplay, prop-making and performance arts circle with an impressive and proven track record.
Guests-of-honor at the event will include cosplay celebrities Ms. Yaya Han and Ms. Jerry
Polence from the U.S., who will be visiting Singapore for the very first time, Mr. Jay Tablante, as well as the cast and crew of popular web drama COSPLAY: The Series. "

The International Cosplay Day Singapore 2012 is brought to us by the team that brought us the Cosplay Chess Stage Show and the Cosplay Photography Exhibition/ Workshop with Jay Tablante (Geekology 101).

Special guest for the event includes ...

Yayahan from the United States of America

Jerry Polence from Philippine

Jay Tablante (Photographer) from Philippine

And the casts of COSPLAY: The Series from Indonesia!

Yup, a very international panel of judges and guests.

Event Attendees can expect the usual Artists’ Alley, myriad Dealers, Sponsor Booths, Cosplay Catwalk, Cosplay Competition and Singapore's 2nd Annual Cosplay Chess Show. Artists interested in registering for a booth can click here.

Yaya Han and Jay Tablante will also be holding signing sessions at their booths at selected time slots so look forward !

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White Dwarf Wednesday #14

We continue our trek through time and space back to England of the late 1970s with White Dwarf #14 from Aug/Sept 1979.

How do you know you are reading White Dwarf and not The Dragon?  The ads have topless women in them. This was not the first time I noticed this, but 6 pages into the issue and already I have seen 4 topless females.  Mind you I am not complaining, but I am pointing out how different the attitudes were between the American game circles and the overseas ones.  This is the same theme (differences between the two groups, not nudity) of the editorial.  Ian Livingstone discusses the differences between British conventions and American ones.  Ian mentions his recent trip to America and we get more of that later.

Andy Slack is back with more expansions to the Traveller Universe. White Dwarf was the reason I picked up Traveller in the first place.  I never quite wrapped my head around it to be honest.   I would love to try it again someday.

Don Turnbull is also back with the fiends of the Fiend Factory.  This seems to be the also-rans of the bunch since non of these made it to the Fiend Folio.  We get a demonic elphant (the Gurgotch), the group entity Mindweb,  an Energy Cyclone, the Gazer (a weird beholder-like creature made of 1000s of eyes) and a frozen naked girl, the Ice Maiden.  But there is something else to note here.  Along with last issue alignments are now presented in AD&D format, so Chaotic Evil, Neutral Good.  But this issue the Monstermark scores are gone.  We knew it was coming, but they are now gone.   Another interesting bit, a note added later (but before publication) mentions "The Folio" for the first time.

Open Box we have reviews of Traveller book 4 (Mercenary) and 1001 Characters.  They get a 9 and 6 respectively from Don Turnbull.    Some Judges Guild books, The Dragon Crown and Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green. Both of these were used as Convention adventures but they were not particularly well liked by Don Turnbull giving them only a 5 and 7 respectively.  Mostly due to spelling and print errors but alos for some odd rule interpretations.

We are treated to a Runequest adventure "Lair of the White Wyrm" by John Bethell which would work for D&D with some tweaks.  But I want to try it with CoC to be honest.

Treasure Chest gives us a one-page dungeon (see, there is nothing new under the sun), The Bath-House of the Pharaoh. Well it's one page, front and back.
The letters page concerns itself with various attacks and defenses of the Monstermark and Fiend Factory.

The big feature of the issue is an interview with Gary Gygax.
A lot of this is stuff we now know and take for granted.  Highlights:  At the time of the interview TSR had 20-25 employees and expected that to grow to over 30 or 40 by August of 1980.  He does credit Dave Arneson's campaign and Dave Megarry's Dungeon board game as influences.  At the time WD estimates there are 30,000 D&D players in the UK and GG estimates that there are 250,000 to 300,000 in the US and Canada.  When asked what extent have other games (RPGs) have had on D&D Gary says "None to speak of."   The World of Greyhawk is planned for the summer of 1980.

We end the magazine with the few pages of ads.

Certainly more ads this time around, but not as strong of issue as the last one was.

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COSPLAY: The Series (New Announcements)

As I have mentioned in my previous entry about COSPLAY: The Series’ first anniversary event, there were some exciting new announcements made during it.

In the upcoming months, COSPLAY: The Series will be launching a series of related side-lines for the Fans to look forward to. They include a Light novel series, Lolita fashion line,  Manga, Visual Novel and an iPad Game .

“ Another performance affiliation confirmed that night is one with The Neo Tokyo Project, a Singaporean cosplay event management entity. During their talkshow, the team announced that they will be doing their first International Chapter in August, working with Singaporean cosplayers to film COSPLAY: The Series Singapore Special. The team will also be guest starring on International Cosplay Day Singapore that weekend, along with other big-names in the cosplay world such as cosplayer Jerry Polence and photographer Jay Tablante.

A few other major affiliations include the adaptation of COSPLAY: The Series saga into a light novel series with Indonesian publisher Plot Point and the conception of Delicious!, a COSPLAY: The Series-branded Lolita clothing line produced in affiliation Chinese garment producer MicCostumes. Nine volumes of the novel and twelve original Lolita dress designs have been confirmed so far, with the first two dresses hitting the stores on June 2012 and the first volume of the novel following closely after.

The team’s affiliations with more independent and emerging artists are also not far behind. Officially announced that night are the creation of COSPLAY: The Series manga with artist (and previous Fanart Contest winner) Ann Maulina, iPad game spin-off with German independent developer eVillain, and a Visual Novel the development team of which are still open for guest writers and coders. Respectively, the manga will tell the story of the series’ mystery trio Nina-Vincent-Sukma’s childhood in the political chaos of May 1998; the game picking up where Bagas left off to tell of his training arc as Arbaceros; and the Visual Novel letting players experience high school life as a new Q-Cosushinkai Cosplay Club member, forging friendships and exploring characters of other members as the story unfolds. ”

Yes, they got my URL wrong *palms*

Also, the casts of COSPLAY: The Series will also be coming to Singapore this August for the International Cosplay Day 2012. More information regarding that to come soon! Stay tune!

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Pop o-Matic d20 Kickstarter. Only 12 hours!!

Remember a bit ago when I posted this:
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/03/i-think-i-need-one-of-these.html

Well I got one and it is great!  It is perfect for that critical roll and there is always a lot of drama around popping a 20!

Now the guy who makes them is running a Kickstarter and there is only 12 hours to go!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2067825909/attacks-of-opportunity

What I like most about this is that he is giving the option for you to donate a Pop-able die to a Veteran's gaming group or to a disabled gamer.

Please have a look at this and support if you can.

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Oh the Places You'll Go!

I love maps. Old maps, new maps, maps that never were.

Here are few that catch my fancies, and fantasies.

I'd love to plan a game sometime for the far future of Earth.  Maybe something along the lines of Dying Earth or Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique cycle.

(image from here, http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm)

Given my love for the roots of D&D, Victorian adventure and weird SciFi I have also had a desire to play on a Mars that Never Was, a Mars with oceans.

Likely using some of the Warriors of Mars ideas from Jason Vey's site.

The Places I Could Go, indeed.

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Random Cosplay Tips #9: Ready to run hair stuffs

I don't know about you but I'm really quite the OCD. But despite that, I'm still very capable at forgetting parts of my costume in the midst of all the rush.

To prevent that however, I've put together a special 'for cosplay' tin box. In this tin box, is everything I need for my hair ( except my wig cap) when I cosplay.

That includes hair pins and hair clips of miscellaneous shapes and sizes, elastic bands and safety pins.
Of course i don't use safety pins on my head, I'm just placing them in the case for easy storage.
So whenever I pack my bags for cosplay, this is the case I will always bring and be assured that everything I need for my hair is inside.

Hope this was helpful !

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What a Fiasco

Lots of things to discuss this fine day in May.

But lets start with this one.

Has anyone out there played Fiasco?

http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/

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