Gen Con 2022 was a wild, weird working holiday in August, with all the jitters, excitement, and surprises of the holidays packed into one four-day weekend.
Distant Era Workshops at Gen Con 2022
In the past I’ve attended Gen Con as a role-playing game writer (for Dungeons & Dragons and other games); sometimes I’ve attended as a game demonstrator for Academy Games; in 2019, I taught photography workshops with The Glitter Guild and fellow photographer Greg Inda. But this year I attended for the first time as Distant Era, offering a dual posing workshop and photography session for cosplayers (twice) and a toy and game photography workshop for all ages and camera types. Back in March when I submitted the events to Gen Con, I wasn’t sure which ones would be accepted or whether anyone would sign up for them, however all of the workshops were accepted and sold out within two weeks of going on sale, so I braced myself for some active days and prepared as much as I could.
The workshops seemed to go well. It was amazing to see the cosplay posing workshop participants gain confidence as they created awesome poses and supported one another. Posing for the camera is such a strange thing. I know it and feel it myself, and I completely empathize with how weird it feels, but I think with the subjects’ wonderful costumes and poses (and displaying the images live as we shot them), everyone started to have a good time once I had finished talking about the mechanics of posing and we got into the photography. I’ll be editing the images over the next few weeks, and after the subjects receive their portraits I’ll share a selection here on The All Worlds Traveller.
In the toy and game photography workshop, I got to switch gears and focus on teaching photography mechanics for three hours. I had taught a two-hour version of this class at Gen Con 2019 exclusively for camera (non-mobile) photographers, but when that class had ended, everyone had still been engaged in the activities. I thought it could easily go another hour, and I decided to open up the class to all camera types—mobile phones, SLRs, and mirrorless, broadening the focus of the class while discussing what each device was capable of. The participants created totally awesome images over the three hours, and we all shared knowledge. I learned some new tips, tricks, and wisdom myself from interacting with all these great photographers.
The MVP and the Helpers
I often call Elizabeth MacDougald the Distant Era MVP for her assistance in the studio. I don’t know how any of the above would have happened at Gen Con without her invaluable assistance with setup and takedown, encouraging the participants, answering questions, providing insightful perspectives in posing, and helping out in all ways. These workshops, and Distant Era’s Gen Con 2022, would have been utter chaos without her, and I am deeply grateful to her for her exceptional assistance in everything.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to my old Publications Office coworkers, Charissa Johnson and Becca Cain, from The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago for their feedback on my Distant Era business card designs. What would have taken me weeks (or months) of indecision was reduced to a few days going back and forth on the design with feedback from my former work pals. It felt like our team was back together again working on a tiny project, and I’m grateful for their expert advice.
I had been wild with anxiety in the weeks leading up to Gen Con—trying to avoid COVID, getting the workshops in order, creating workshop materials, and working on all my other projects. The whole production was like an elaborate dance while juggling flaming knives, and this is where my mind was for the first three days of Gen Con, but each day when the workshops were over, I got to have some fun as well.
Fun
We saw friends and wandered the halls with John Kidd from the Auxientia sessions and Karissa Kosman, “The Faun” from Distant Era’s The People of Light and Shadow (who ran her own panel at her very first Gen Con), ate at great restaurants, tried a few games, and so on. We spent quality time with artist Claudio Pozas, who returned to Gen Con this year at long last. Claudio and I go way back to being co-writers/designers (under lead designer Rodney Thompson) of the Dungeons & Dragons book Heroes of the Feywild back in 2010. But in 2019, I was the photographer on Mary-Kate Bullaro’s (“The Vila” in Distant Era’s The People of Light and Shadow) Shakespeare’s Heroines cosplay shoot, in which Elizabeth portrayed Prospero; Claudio used that photo as a reference for a painting called “Words Aflame,” a beautiful artwork that has been a source of joy for Liz, and which she had (a canvas) signed by Claudio at the convention. Being the super nice guy that he is, Claudio gave me a print of the Great Wheel, his artwork from the D&D The Player’s Handbook depicting all the planes of existence.
RIGHT: “Worlds Aflame” painting by Claudio Pozas, 2019.
BOTTOM: Elizabeth MacDougald and Claudio Pozas at Gen Con 2022.
Magic
Some of our most magical moments of the convention came from conversations with the good people at Greater Than Games, creators of the Sentinels of the Multiverse card game, Sentinel Comics RPG, Spirit Island, and others. Elizabeth and I have spent several evenings in 2022 playing the cooperative superhero card game Sentinels of the Multiverse, introducing it to friends, and—even better—playing the Sentinel Comics RPG. Elizabeth put together a cosplay outfit for the character Nightmist (imagine Doctor Strange + Clea Strange + Harry Dresden in one female character, aka a mashup of everything Liz loves). In a blog of gratitude, I bestow a heap of gratitude upon Christopher Badell of Greater Than Games for the meaningful conversations, his great generosity of presence, and for absolutely making Liz’s Gen Con (and mine!). And eternal thanks of course to Eric Simon, who not only worked the Greater Than Games demonstrations this year but introduced us to Sentinels of the Multiverse at his wedding long ago, and who, even longer ago, once hired me to write a story called “Songs Without Words” for his Steamscapes North America game, which still has a special place in my heart.
The other magical moment happened on the first day as I loitered near the Themeborne booth. The UK company Themeborne produces the games Escape the Dark Castle and Escape the Dark Sector—short, fast, and fun games that hearken back to ‘80s fantasy and science-fiction games and come with an immersive soundtrack; the soundtrack and the art is done by Alex Crispin. As I waited for Liz at another booth, one of the people in Themeborne shirts said, “I remember drawing your face.”
Last year, I had commissioned (as a Kickstarter add-on) illustrations of our faces as characters in Escape the Dark Castle and Escape the Dark Sector. Which meant that the man speaking to me was Alex Crispin himself, and he recognized my face (and wild hair) in spite of the mask. It was such a pleasure to speak with him, ask questions about his music and illustration, and to tell him personally how much I enjoyed his work—in music and in art—but it meant even more that he reached out while I was idling by the booth.
There’s a lot more to say about Gen Con 2022, but I think I’ll leave it there until I have pictures of the cosplay posing workshop to post.
It felt good (and strange and intimidating) to go as Distant Era, but now that it’s done I feel great about it.
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