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Steel City Con report
6 December 2009 05:32 pmSaturday was a day at Steel City Con, this time in Monroeville instead of their previous venue in Harmarville. Not only is it more convenient to go to just over the hill into Monroeville rather than driving all the way out to Harmarville, the building is much better. The Harmarville location was a large, hot "warehouse".
As I walked in, one of the two stormtroopers guarding the entrance asked me if I was carrying any firearms. As I had a large LeMat pistol in plain view on my belt I answered. "Why, yes! Yes, I do."
"Then go right ahead."
He didn't stop me from putting Confluence flyers on the table clearly marked that it was only for approved flyers.
At the Arsenal Models booth, I talked with someone about my LeMat, other replicas and costuming. This lead to my mentioning that I had obtained on of Dr. Grordbort's rayguns and that I would need to build an appropriate costume around that. I also mentioned that I wanted to find the glasses/goggles that Claude Rains wore in "The Invisible Man" (1933). It tured out that the guy I was talking to had a hobby of collecting vintage sunglasses and he told me about those glasses. And even though I would still like to have replica glasses of those, from our discussion I learned that they were not quite what I was looking for to complete my pulp costume to go with my raygun.
Later, at his booth, he showed me some of his glasses and a gun that was designed for driving spikes into the ground using a .38 caliber charge. It had an interesting rotating breech and he was thinking of modding it into a steampunk gun. I made some suggestions about a leather wrapped grip and some sort of big coil on the front.
I finally got a chance to meet David Woods in person, a local steampunk I met online. He was working with the stormtroopers on con security, dressed in just a t-shirt and jeans though he said that he and another were thinking of doing the steampunk thing on Sunday. I told him that I hadn't been planning on coming back on Sunday as I had some errands to run but, if I could take care of those things quickly enough, I would try to come out.
David is apparently getting into wet plat photography, which will be neat when he starts taking portraits. Most impressions of what 19th Century photography looks like is based on plates and prints that are a century old. What will they look like when made fresh? It will be interesting to see them the way the Victorians saw them.
One of the artists with a booth there, Jay Fife, asked if he could give me a call and use me as a model, saying that there aren't may people available with all their own steampunk gear. Sure, that would be great.
As usual, a lot of people liked my costume and wanted to take my picture. Again people kept asking what movie I was from or what character I was cosplaying. I suppose there aren't enough steampunks for them to look at is as a broad aesthetic or genre instead of a single specific thing. They wouldn't ask questions like that if I had a steampunk ghostbusters aether pack on my back.
As I walked in, one of the two stormtroopers guarding the entrance asked me if I was carrying any firearms. As I had a large LeMat pistol in plain view on my belt I answered. "Why, yes! Yes, I do."
"Then go right ahead."
He didn't stop me from putting Confluence flyers on the table clearly marked that it was only for approved flyers.
At the Arsenal Models booth, I talked with someone about my LeMat, other replicas and costuming. This lead to my mentioning that I had obtained on of Dr. Grordbort's rayguns and that I would need to build an appropriate costume around that. I also mentioned that I wanted to find the glasses/goggles that Claude Rains wore in "The Invisible Man" (1933). It tured out that the guy I was talking to had a hobby of collecting vintage sunglasses and he told me about those glasses. And even though I would still like to have replica glasses of those, from our discussion I learned that they were not quite what I was looking for to complete my pulp costume to go with my raygun.
Later, at his booth, he showed me some of his glasses and a gun that was designed for driving spikes into the ground using a .38 caliber charge. It had an interesting rotating breech and he was thinking of modding it into a steampunk gun. I made some suggestions about a leather wrapped grip and some sort of big coil on the front.
I finally got a chance to meet David Woods in person, a local steampunk I met online. He was working with the stormtroopers on con security, dressed in just a t-shirt and jeans though he said that he and another were thinking of doing the steampunk thing on Sunday. I told him that I hadn't been planning on coming back on Sunday as I had some errands to run but, if I could take care of those things quickly enough, I would try to come out.
David is apparently getting into wet plat photography, which will be neat when he starts taking portraits. Most impressions of what 19th Century photography looks like is based on plates and prints that are a century old. What will they look like when made fresh? It will be interesting to see them the way the Victorians saw them.
One of the artists with a booth there, Jay Fife, asked if he could give me a call and use me as a model, saying that there aren't may people available with all their own steampunk gear. Sure, that would be great.
As usual, a lot of people liked my costume and wanted to take my picture. Again people kept asking what movie I was from or what character I was cosplaying. I suppose there aren't enough steampunks for them to look at is as a broad aesthetic or genre instead of a single specific thing. They wouldn't ask questions like that if I had a steampunk ghostbusters aether pack on my back.
