The literary sci-fi/fantasy/horror con Ad Astra happened this past weekend. It’s a small fan-run show in its 31st year, and that means it’s completely different vibe from the big comic cons I tend to frequent like FanExpo and the New York City Comicon. Ad Astra is much more low key, relaxed, and full of friendly people who appreciate the genre. There are lots of panels with intriguing topics, such as “Book Binding Workshop”, “Creating Fantasy and SF Languages”, and “Real Space Science”. It’s one of those shows where you really want to book a room to stay overnight at the con hotel even if you live in town, because the party goes on til the wee hours. I was sad when I had to go home as soon as the dealers’ room (I use that term loosely, because dealers tables were spread all over the place) closed! Compared to most of the large, professionally-run conventions, this one seems hopelessly disorganized. But somehow it doesn’t seem to matter because everyone just takes it in stride. The crowd skews a bit older than the typical Anime con, which works nicely for me. Ultimately, Ad Astra is about having fun with friends. I like that.
Another difference, from my point of view as a vendor, is the “traffic flow” of the attendees. At most of the shows I go to these days there is a constant stream of people wandering by my table. And yeah, often they’re not stopping long enough to look at my stuff, but you never know who might decide to stop and look so I never feel like I can take a break. At Ad Astra there are certainly busy times, but there are also distinct quiet times when everyone is off at one of those aforementioned interesting panels. The result of this is, I had lots of time to do something I haven’t done in a while– produce con sketches!
I guess you can call this cute little chibi-Worf a follow-up to Aria in the ST: TNG suit. When I drew this I was thinking it would be a nice donation for the con’s charity auction… until I realized they weren’t doing a charity auction! Oh, well.
One fellow who stopped by my table asked if I’d ever made any “Triangle 9″ mugs like the ones the Galaxion’s lab crew drink their coffee from. Well, I did paint one for my own personal use, but I’ve never had any made to sell. (I did have it on a button, though, and he was pleased with that.) After that conversation, I drew the above sketch. Makes you wonder how it could be that Aria hasn’t yet learned never to drink the lab’s coffee… I figure she probably agrees to a proffered mug from time to time just to be polite.
There were lots of people in some sort of costume, and a high percentage of them were of the Steampunk variety. Now, Darvin is a rather dapper fellow. Of all my characters, he’s the one I imagine wold most enjoy the chance to dress up in some psuedo-Victorian duds.
Sitting across from me was a group of guys from a Maker Space club here in Toronto, Site 3. They had with them a MakerBot, which I, and lots of other people, found fascinating. I’ve read online about all the cool things MakerBots can do, but this was my first chance to see one in action. Thoughts of Maker Spaces led me inevitably to thoughts of a certain Galaxion character.
I didn’t think too hard about the logistics, not to mention the consequences, of kludging a MakerBot to run on chocolate. I suggest you don’t, either.
At the table next to me was a group of ladies selling corsets, tiny feathered hats, and other items to go with your cosplay wardrobe (Apollonie is the designer’s website). They all got a great deal of enjoyment out of playing dress-up with various Victorian-curious convention-goers who’d never had the opportunity to try on a corset before. They’d take measurements to select the right size corset and then happily lace up their customers, who were thrilled at suddenly having an hourglass figure and a soaring new bustline to match. And all the ladies behind the table would gush– quite sincerely– at how fabulous they looked, and soon after that people pulled out their wallets. Men were not excluded from this experience, by the way– several of them also got laced up and gushed over (“That looks amazing on you!”). It was so amusing to watch that I eventually had to draw the above. If Darvin would be the one to most enjoy dressing up, I suspect Fusella would be the one to most enjoy playing dress-up with her friends.
…And that was my con weekend! Despite all the time I had for the sketches, I did actually have a reasonably good show sales-wise. I didn’t end up selling any of the above sketches, though, so if you’re interested in owning one for $30 (which includes shipping), shoot me an email! Link on the sidebar.
I’m pretty sure that Makerbot used to sell a conversion kit that would allow you to print with chocolate instead of plastic.
Aw, c’mon, that’s gotta be like science fiction or something.
I remember reading somewhere that MakerBots could print edible stuff, but I’d assumed that “edible” was being used loosely. I’m stunned and delighted that such a thing already exists. Fusella would probably say, “Great minds think alike.”
On a related note: have you been listening to Spark over the last year or two? Every so often they revisit this particular branch of “printing” technology. This past week threw me for a minor loop about testing of modifications allowing the “printing” of blood vessel wall tissue derived from stem cells!
I just started listening to the Spark podcast a couple months ago! I did have a laugh when I heard them talk about printing human tissues. Look at how versatile the technology is, and all Fusella could think about with her one-track mind is dark chocolate! (Note how I cleverly shift the blame to my character…)
The edible tool head made by makerbot is called the frostruder, it prints in things that can be squeezed through a syringe using air pressure. I personally have used it to print little chocolate frosting turtles to sit on top of cupcakes for my son’s 2nd birthday. You can see the process: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4178
On another note, people are working on making a tempered chocolate extruder already, here’s one that I thought was interesting: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:18017
This article claims that the “world’s first 3D chocolate printer,” developed by the University of Exeter, has just gone on sale, first announced about a year ago. (Though my chocolate-loving friends claim that they have to use pretty low-quality chocolate so that it hardens fast enough to print properly.) I’ve definitely heard of people doing stuff on MakerBots using sugar as the printing medium, though at least in the first test runs they were unsure about the final product’s food safety. That’s all printing sweets directly — it’s straightforward to use MakerBots or CNC mills to make molds for chocolates or objects for molding (that’s how a friend did her TARDIS chocolate mold), and I think some of the homemade CNC mills can even mill chocolate directly. So great minds do indeed think alike.
That’s pretty awesome– thanks for the link! Although molding chocolate does indeed make way more sense than trying to print with it, I’m sure eventually someone will use the technology to make something that will blow all our minds and tickle our taste buds at the same time.
So, Tara, did YOU try on one of the corsets, and did hubby pull out his wallet?
Well, I have had the opportunity to try on corsets before (which comes from having been in the SCA), so although the ladies asked, I politely declined. Also, I’m a big wuss.
These are great! I wish we had crossed paths more at the Con. I felt like I ran from workshop to workshop… Even skipped a few meals.
There have been some successfull experimentations in the reprap community – from which makerbot is a derivative – with chocolate and other foods printing.
For instance richrap made some chocolate bunnies with his 3D printer this Easter – search for the word “yum” in the page if you want to skip the introducing technical stuff.
Mmmm… Could one use a MakerBot to print out corset’s sections, which would snap together and make up the corset, then you use the plastic string as a lace to finish up…