Distant Era Portraiture at Gen Con 2024 with Indy

Today, I’m so happy to share the work Distant Era made with one of our very favorite Gen Con photo subjects, the remarkable Indy!!!

Our Most Consistent Gen Con Subject

A repeat client every year from 2022 through 2024, Indy is not only our youngest Gen Con subject but our most consistent. We first met Indy in 2022 at our very first posing workshop at Gen Con. In that session (also attended by Brownie Knight from last week’s post), Indy brought the character Toga Himiko from My Hero Academia. One of our favorite moments from that workshop occurred when Elizabeth helped coach Indy through some action to connect the character to some emotional place that activated the portrait with intention—in that case, reaching toward a door the character was afraid to knock on, pictured below, on the left.

Indy 2022: Toga Himiko from *My Hero Academia*.

Goodbye Anxiety, Hello Enthusiasm

Any anxiety Indy felt at that first big workshop was replaced with enthusiasm in 2023. One of the subjects of the 2022 workshop had introduced Indy to the universe of Genshin Impact, which inspired Indy to return in 2023 as Qiqi, a character from that world. Full of excitement and confidence, Indy tried a variety of poses in the 2023 workshop, growing more comfortable on camera after each and every workshop.

Even in my daily use, like performing on stage, I find myself using the poses you taught me.

I never felt confident in the cosplay community until that first workshop. You guys taught me so much, and the others in the class made me feel accepted in the community.

Can’t wait for 2025. Already planning!

Indy

Mastery of the Pose

This year’s 2024 mini session, however, was the best of all.

Indy came to our session as Wanderer, another character from Genshin Impact. This time, 2022’s anxiety was nowhere to be seen; 2023’s high energy was collected and focused. In each and every shot, Indy put into practice the workshops we’d done in previous years, creating shapes and angles in every pose, and each of these were motivated by the character’s emotions, energy, and vibe. As we photographed this twenty-minute session, I couldn’t help but be so proud and so impressed with the work that Indy had done over the years.

This summer, seeing how Indy’s confidence had grown from two years ago, it felt that the workshops had been a good thing, that Indy had learned what we’d hoped to teach and had grown so confident and so good at this… It made us so proud.

What’s more, Indy had ideas for character pose and action. It wasn’t just us directing the shoot but rather taking Indy’s lead and doing those ideas.

Here’s a peek behind the scenes, showing Elizabeth helping out with the cape toss.

For the detailed edits of Indy’s portraits, we created the look on the left below, which shows Indy making those fantastic posing angles we talked about in our past workshops. We also created one using a pose that Indy suggested. For that second one, we put on a wide angle lens to exaggerate the foot that’s about to whack whoever messes with Wanderer.