First full day at Adepticon

I'm having an awesome time at Adepticon.  I was definitely able to recover my "hobby high", after the near-disaster of my flight cancelation yesterday.

My entry for Crystal Brush is now safely (and prominently!) placed in the display cabinet.  I made some touch-ups in the morning, and I added the title-sign, which definitely "finishes" the piece, more than I expected, actually.  

I must say, I'm pleased with the overall level of quality of my piece, relative to many of the other entries.  There are definitely some entries that are in another league above mine, but not nearly as many as I expected.  So I think my piece is earning a satisfying share of spectator attention, and it's not entirely overshadowed by the works of the masters.

I spent the day tooling around, meeting and talking to hobby celebrities, artists, and vendors.  I'll have pictures to show later (many of them with me sporting a horribly cheesy grin), but I met:  Ben Curry and Gareth Dix of the Bad Dice Podcast, Lizardman Jeff who has guest-appeared on the GarageHammer podcast, Joey Berry of the Warhammer Joey YouTube channel, Roman Lappat and Raffael Picca of the Massive Voodoo blog, Bryan Steele from Cool Mini or Not, and plenty of other great personalities.  I must say, too, the Adepticon Staff is very friendly and helpful.

I tried out a demo game of This Quar's War, a game that I own, along with two factions of figures, but which I have never had a chance to play before.  It was nice to actually put those characters in action.  

I attended a seminar by Justin McCoy of Secret Weapon Miniatures.  The course covered the basics of using weathering pigments.  It was a great confidence-builder to practice with the material in a low-pressure fashion, with Justin covering the basic do's and don'ts across several different product lines.  

I enjoyed a good lunch with Mike Brandt and the NOVA Open crowd, and I hung out with Oko and our Warhammer Fantasy contingent a little bit after the tournament.  I capped off the night checking out a spontaneous flea market in 40K ballroom, and I scored a rare out-of-print Rackham product, called S'Erum, Ophidian Sydion.  It's box containing a miniature and a small fantasy novel.  Kind of an odd little product, but great to add to my Rackham collection.  I wish they had written more fiction for the game.