BlizzCon 2015 Cosplay Panel

Here is my recap of the cosplay panel from BlizzCon with a few relevant YouTube videos thrown in. I needed a break from all the Legion talk, so this was the only time my husband and I split up for panels. I thought the panel was pretty cool, although I was disappointed at how the main objective seemed to be to promote the Blizzard Cosplay Reference Kits (three of the five panelists were Blizzard employees). I don't cosplay (but have a definite interest in doing so), but I thought these were good tips for beginning cosplayers. More experienced cosplayers, is this true?

Sneaky Zebra- BlizzCon Cosplay Video

The Panel:

*Keikei Day- Moderator (Blizzard employee)

*Rachel Day (Blizzard employee)

*Lorraine Torres (Blizzard employee)

*Allison Trinh

*Jordan Duncan

Rachel showed us pictures of cosplays from past BlizzCons. She talked about how the cosplays have progressed over the years. Blizzard employees have their own cosplay group.

Lorraine - Cosplay Basics

Where to start?

-Pick your project

-Do your research (She really pitched the Blizzard Cosplay Kits here)

What to Use:

-Safety equipment while crafting

-Your time wisely- manage that shit!

-Google!- techniques, pattern making, etc

-Use everything to create costumes (craft supplies, thrift store buys, etc)

-Premades/commissions (commission pieces if short on time/skill)

Jordan- Prop Building

Design, Plan, Build

-think about LEDs, wiring, batteries

-plan your molding/casting process with those listed above in mind

-use Adobe Illustrator for patterns (ability to make patterns in layers for adjustments, etc)

Assembly

-shaping and scultping of pieces

-filler, primer and sanding

   -then molding:

•      prep the mold
•      make a mother mold
•      cast the mold (hollow cast for weight)
•      clean the prop
•      paint!

Allison- Large Cosplays (she was Winston in the BlizzCon Cosplay contest on Friday night)

Pre-planning

-shipping/trasnportation of cosplay

-personal safety in costume (fans, water, handler)

-fitting into a larger costume/form (braces/pads)

Hoop Based Costumes

-easily scaled/add or remove hoops as needed

-lightweight and collapsible

-hollow for air circulation

Heads

-plastic canvas (lightweight and not durable)

-balaclava (tight fitting and easy articulation)

-resin/fiberglass (heavy and durable)

Jessica Nigri- Deathwing Costume Creation

BlizzCon 2015 Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm Panels

Here are my recaps of the Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm panels I went to during BlizzCon. BlizzCon was like information overload, so I know that I'm forgetting a lot of stuff!! I bought a notebook on Friday night so I could start writing down what I'd heard that day, and so I could take it to panels with me on Saturday lol. The smart blogger would've come with a notebook though...oh well, maybe next year (if I get so lucky!).

Hearthstone Panel

-the new adventure is The League of Explorers (Egyptian type feel)
-discussed all forty-five (!) new cards
-will earn all four new heroes at the completion of each wing/the adventure
-Reno Jackson, Brann Bronzebeard, Elise Starseeker, and Sir Finley Mrrgleton are the new heroes
-Discover! (class specific or neutral depending on your deck. its on a lot of the new cards)
-first wing of the adventure opens on Thursday, November 12th, 2015

Heroes of the Storm Panel

Character Development
-Eighteen weeks to test a character.
-Two hundred Blizzard characters on a list of potential HotS heroes.
-Things considered while choosing a character to add: how many of that type currently exist in the game and the character's silhouette.

New Characters
*Cho'gall

• Two players controlling one hero. Cho is melee, Gall is ranged. Each part has his own talents, but they have attacks that work together. 
• Cho'gall can't be purchased. He will be given to every BlizzCon attendee and virtual ticket holder. Those players can then pair up with other players and so some battles together as part of a quest for the player to get Cho'gall. The original Cho'gall holder can earn gold once they give four people Cho'gall.

*Greymane

• Shapeshifter since he's a Worgen.
• Fight from afar and finish up close.

*Lunara

• Permanent speed increase.
• She doesn't walk, she prances.

Other News
-Gul'dan is coming.
-Pre-order Overwatch Origins and get Tracer as a Hero.


Are you guys excited for any of the new changes to Hearthstone or Heroes of the Storm?

WoW Wednesday

I have started playing WoW again! Yay! I started playing right at the tail end of Children's Week, and managed to do the Darkmoon Faire (totally missed Noblegarden though, which was a bummer). I have been playing my level 90 shadow priest on the Alliance, running around Panda land and doing the copious amounts of dailies that are out there now that I can fly. I've always been big on dailies (remember all those dailies you could get in Shattrath? Anyone? Bueller?), so this is super exciting for me. I just wish it was on my mage, but they're all hovering around around level 86-88 and are severely under geared. 

Last week was also the time to buy BlizzCon tickets. I was super pissed because I didn't see anything announcing it, so  I completely missed the May 7th opportunity. They usually send emails announcing it, plus they advertise it on the opening Battlenet screens, but again, I saw nothing. It wasn't until I saw people's screenshots on Instagram later that night that I learned about it, and the second opportunity on May 10th. My husband and I tried on May 10th, but of course, we didn't get tickets. The system they used sucked, and we got kicked out of the waiting room a few times. Tickets were showing as available, then we'd try to purchase them and either we'd get kicked off of the screen, or the screen would say that the tickets were no longer available. It was very frustrating and I feel that Blizzard didn't handle the ticket sales well at all. They usually don't, but this was probably one of the worst years. We've been trying to get tickets since 2006, so its been very frustrating. It only took four years for us to get SDCC badges lol, and its supposed to be super difficult to get SDCC badges.

Did any of you get lucky enough to score BlizzCon tickets? Any thoughts on this year's ticketing system?

WoW Wednesday - BlizzCon 2013 The Recap

Hello Everyone! This post has been a long time coming, so thank you for your patience! My computer issues have been solved for the moment (had to wipe the husband's old laptop and start anew. Mine is still completely dead), so things should be getting back to normal. This post was supposed to go up last Wednesday, but in all the computer mayhem, plus a death in the family, it was lost in the shuffle. It wasn't all horrible though, my lagging gave me the opportunity to find a great contributor to write about her experiences with the virtual ticket aspect of BlizzCon. So yay for that! Lets jump on in, shall we?

I think the biggest thing to come from this year's BlizzCon was the announcement of the new expansion. We all knew it was coming, but finally the confirmation was here. Which should have been a big deal except....a few days before BlizzCon, I saw a post on MMO Champion that said that Blizzard had copyrighted the name Warlords of Draenor in Australia/New Zealand. So really, the news was already out. But its nice that Blizzard made it official :)

Some fun things to come out of the expansion are the garrisons (which seem a little Everquest to me, but I'm still down), level cap raised to 100 and the race remodels.

If you want to see lots of cool pictures from BlizzCon, check out this post from Mandie over at Geeky Glamorous. She got some pretty awesome shots and it looked like so much fun! I am determined to go next year.

And here is TradeChat's video recap of BlizzCon:

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But enough of my ramblings. I am proud to introduce the first (and hopefully not the last) contributed post, written by Kimberlee.

My Thoughts on Virtual Blizzcon 2013

Most. Underwhelming. Xpac. Announcement. Ever.

Ever.

Don’t get me wrong, I like some of the changes that they’re planning to roll out with Warlords of Draenor, like the long overdue item squish. I’m also more than a bit happy that my tabards, toys, and all that stuff will FINALLY have their own tabs rather than occupying my ever dwindling bag space, void storage (no expansion, seriously?!) and bank (also, the bank toon and 5 bank tabs I have there).

But, let me go back to my previous rant for just a moment… Because… Heroes of the Storm got a cinematic but the new expansion didn’t. Every expansion has had a cinematic trailer, except this one. To say I was completely unimpressed with the announcement trailer would be an understatement. Blizzcon gave us in-game footage, concept sketches, a few shots of the new areas that are still under development, and a look at the racial re-skins. None of this felt terribly inspiring, and I think it fell far short of the bar in terms of setting the stage for the feel of the expansion in the way that previous releases have shown us. Re-watch the announcement trailer, and then go back to watch the announcement trailer for Cataclysm, or Pandaria, or ….. You’ll see my point.

We did, however, get a look at the new Alliance and Horde capital cities of Karabor and Bladespire Fortress. Did anyone else notice how, again, the Alliance got a kind of "pretty" starting area while the Horde are shoved into a wasteland of a slightly different flavor? Anyone? But I digress, as much as the cinematic was a TERRIBLE set up for the new world, I think that Draenor, as it was presented in the panels, will be a challenge and hopefully a better version of the things we loved about Outland.

Anyone familiar with the Warcraft book series will be well versed in the lore that is the foundation for Draenor. Those of you familiar with the Warcraft games, specifically 2 and 3, will recognize characters like Grom Hellscream. Hopefully we’ll also see some familiar faces, like Rexxar, since we’re going back to the time before the first war.

While I could go on about all of the impending changes, and a rant about 10 levels without flying (oh, how times have changed since Vanilla), let’s take a quick look at the thing we’re most excited for:

GARRISONS

Customizable housing is long overdue, I’ve been expecting it since Conan released theirs. Thank the Old Gods it won’t be like the housing we’ve seen in games like Ultima. While I’m fairly certain this is going to involve at least a bit of a "mini game" concept, and it’s going to be another level-grind to get to max garrison size, I think the ultimate utility of NPCs who will complete tasks while you’re afk will more than compensate for any inconvenience. (If it’s well executed.) I’m also hoping that eventually we’ll see some of the housing storage utility, like those in games like Star Wars Galaxies.

At the end of the day, I bought the Virtual Ticket for the pet, because I pretty much can’t help myself when it comes to in game collectibles. Presentation aside, I think Warlords of Draenor has the potential to take the playability of the game to a whole new level for all players, regardless of raiding or guild affiliation.

WoW Wednesday- BlizzCon 2013

The time has come, fans of Blizzard games! BlizzCon 2013 is this weekend, November 8th and 9th at the Anaheim Convention Center. I wish I was attending, but sadly I wasn't lucky enough to get tickets. If you're like me, and still want to check out the action, virtual tickets are still available. They are $39.99 and come with fun in-game goodies (something for WoW, Starcraft II, Diablo III and Hearthstone). The best part of the ticket for me, is to see the closing ceremony. This year's performer is Blink 182. Blink 182! They were my ultimate crushes in high school and I did get to see them in concert once my sophomore year. The show was amazing, so I hope its equally as good for all you BlizzCon attendees.

Blink 182

If any of you are actually attending the event, I hope you have an awesome time and know that I am extremely jealous of you :) For the rest of us, lets have a virtual party!

Links for BlizzCon:

*Virtual Tickets

*Event Info

*Forums