YYC Adventures: Calgary Horror Con

Next week is the beginning of what I like to call the month of terror, or as those who are a bit more mundane like to call it October. This time of year means that the leaves on the trees are dying off and changing to brilliant hues of orange and yellow. This month also witnesses all the ghouls and goblins as they prepare for the coming of their favorite holiday All Hallows Eve better known as Halloween.

Well during the weekend that has just passed I went to witness some of the anticipation building up for this holiday. The gathering that I am talking about is called Horror-Con and is relatively new to the city of Calgary. This toddler of a convention is only a whopping two years old but already it has begun to grow support and in size.

Find out more about them here: Horror Con

The only reason that I found out about this wonderful event is because I was informed two days prior by a close friend of mine. At first I wasn’t sure if I was going to go at all but another friend agreed to go with me and then last minute my Wifey decided to join us. Boy am I ever glad that I did go but my one and only regret is not having brought a lot of cash with me.

At the event there were a significant amount of booths that were selling some really outstanding wares. Amongst the ranks of these vendors there was a booth operated by one of my friends and the reason I was intrigued enough to attend. The friend I am talking about is the lovely lady who so graciously made the cake toppers for my wedding.

Check out her wares here: Grave Digger Fashions

Or her DA account: CootieTourniquet

Besides my good friend Jace’s booth there was a great deal of other really amazing booths to see pedaling their wares. A great deal of very talented artists who have an affinity for the horror genre were all gathered together and resulted in a good time for all.

Take a Look

Even the Southern Alberta Lego User Group Calgary Chapter were at Horror-Con and representing the art of the genre through the use of lego.

Find out more about them here: Southern Alberta Lego User Group Calgary Chapter

The group that I was with even partook in one of the many stage shows that they were doing, I witnessed a very gothic singer performing his music.

One of the booths that was featured at the convention was a tattoo artist who was doing ink for those who wanted it, including my good friend Mr. Devo. Unfortunately I was not around to witness him doing this mostly because he did it on the second day of the con which I could not attend. I really wish that I had some cash to buy some of the stuff there and I know that Wifey feels the same. We did get ourselves some spookily adorable little cupcakes from one of the vendors and I collected a business card from the vendors that I did like.

This was really cool and now that I know of its existence I will watch for the Calgary Horror Convention next year.

Sincerely Urban Yeti

Wow from around the Net: Pokemon Cross Stitch

If there is one thing skill that I sometimes wish I had the time and patience to pursue it would be cross stitching. If I could master this art with thread I would probably cover most of my clothes with intricate and wicked patterns. Alas my attention span and short fuse will not allow me to ever complete anything of a caliber such as this without first breaking a lot of things.

As with every kind of medium there is a Geek who has utilized it for a medium to express their personal geekiness. Cross Stitching is no exception to the geek invasion and for geeks who are lovers of the pixel art this is one of the easiest mediums to cross into. With most of the classic video games being passed around 8 or 16 bits this means that the images of our favorite characters are already perfect to be cross stitched.

Introducing Linda the girl who set out to be the very best, like no one ever was, to stich them all is her real test, to stitch them is her cause. Lind took all the sprites from the Pokémon game and put them to fabric, I am almost speechless in looking at this. A project of this magnitude takes an outstanding amount of commitment to pull off and bravo for her doing it.

Check out her blog here: Eponases

Here is a pick of the master crafter standing next to her masterpiece of geekdom.

I wish I could create something of that magnitude, maybe one day I will.

Sincerely Urban Yeti

Wedding Aftermath: Cake

I have been married for about 10 full days now and things could not be going more my way, life with Wifey is bliss. With the stress and craziness of the wedding being over it finally feels like our lives are returning to some state of normality. There is still so much however about the crazy milestone event that passed that I would like to talk about.

Right now I am not planning to be talking about it forever but there are still so many elements that I would like to share on my blog. Which speaking of my blog I am happy to announce finally has reached a milestone of Its own in gaining over 2000 page views Wahooo go me. This Blog is the medium in which I am using to express myself, to share my thoughts and to share the events of my life.

Well back to talking about the wedding, today I would like to share one of the coolest aspects of my geeky steampunk wedding. With a theme wedding that is so unique one of the benefits is that it allows for people to be very creative and thusly some very cool things come to be.

When I was enrolled in post secondary I was attending a trade school, where I made friends with the Baking and Pastry Arts students. This friendship was due to a very close friend of mine who was actually in the Baking class introducing me to them all. This friend, Felixx we will call her, stepped up to the plate when me and my Wifey were in talks about wedding plans. We asked Felixx if she would ever so graciously make one of the most important parts of any wedding, the Cake.

Upon seeing the cake my Wifey and I knew we had put our faith in not only the right person but someone who is very talented. She designed this masterpiece from top to bottom and it turned out way better than anything my wild imagination could come up with. One of the main reasons I knew that Felixx could pull this off and keep to the theme is because in all honesty she is the one that introduced my Wifey and I to the concept of steampunk.

Still on the topic of this wonderful cake creation, in the photos above do you see those little people standing atop the cake. Those beautiful cake toppers are hand sculpted figures of my Wifey and me in our costumes from our trip to this year’s comic expo. These were done by another friend of mine, Jace, a fantastic artist who also helped in the making of the cake.

Check out her DA Account: CootieTourniquet

And here are the toppers:

One more thing about the whole cake experience and I am done I swear. I called on one of my fantastic groomsmen for a favor. I asked if I could borrow a sword from his collection to cut the cake with. Like a true friend he came through and allowed me to use his cutlass to chop into this delightful baked good.

In the end it is times like these that I realize how great my friends are and how they will always come through when I need them. Felixx put in so much work into the cake and it looks fantastic, even the tiny details like the clock being set to 2:22 my lucky number. Jace put so many fine little features and the toppers turned out amazingly. I am so appreciative of everything that they did for my special day I don’t think I can ever thank them enough.

Sincerely Urban Yeti

Three Days Left To Go: Seating Chart

It is the Final Countdown down to the last three days until the magical day in which I promise myself to the woman I love for the rest of my life. 3 days left and it is creeping up fast on me there is so many little things that I have left to do as well as a lot of family events that I am required to attend. The amount of time I have to do things is significantly less than the amount of time I need to do everything, there are a lot of times I find myself saying “I will do that after the wedding”

With so few days left there was still a big amount of things to do this weekend that required my attention. I spent two days laying down sod and doing other finishing touches on the home renovations at my folks place. That is relevant to the overall event because they are taking on a big burden of handling the rehearsal BBQ so the least I could do is give them a hand.

I am coming out of a weekend more exhausted then I was going into it with so many tasks left before the big day. There were a lot of little things that still needed procuring and that included two trips to Michael’s to pick up some needed supplies. I finally got to finish the seating chart I still may put a couple of finishing touches tonight if I get the chance to but we will see.

 I got to have some creative liberties with the seating chart. This will be the first thing that folks will see when they walk into the reception and guide them to find their fictional organization. So the first requirement is that it needed to be big. So I started by obtaining a piece of foam board and a poster board and picked the smaller size to work off of.

This project was an excellent excuse for me to get a new set of water colours to create the primary background. First I painted a base of golden yellow trying to coat as much as possible to give the entire thing a underlay. Next I used a brown to give the entire thing a texture and make the background have more depth to it.

Using some stickers I found in the sale area of the scrapbooking section of Michael’s I formed the borders in the corners. Once the poser board had dried I affixed with glue the poster board to the foam board.

Using a basic printer I printed out a card for each table which I had designed on my computer using the table toppers as a basis to keep continuity. After printing I found the colours to not be organic enough for the effect I wanted so I added a water colour overlay. Here is where I get to apply little ingenuity, instead of using basic water for this water colour I brewed some coffee and used that with the golden yellow.

After using the water colour on the table cards I attached each card to a dark brown piece of texture card stock. This adds a much needed contrast to the entire thing with the light browns and yellows this bold accent makes everything stand out a lot more.

 With ruler in hand I laid out all the cards in the appropriate order on the poster board and I only screwed up the order once yay go me. I used some of the Wify’s books that she always has lying around to weigh down the cards in order to allow the glue to dry. This process also stopped the wet white glue from causing the paper to curl.

There are still some things that if I had some more time I would like to try but unfortunately I do not have the time to do them. In some ways I feel like this looks like a grade school project but it is what it is and that is just my inner self-loathing critic talking so let us ignore him and be proud of my accomplishment. My coffee table is a utter mess after a large mix media project such as one like this, but this is just one of the prices of art.

Sincerely Urban Yeti

SEVEN DAYS: Steampunk Bird

One Week, this not only states how long I have until the sound of wedding bells chime for me but it is also the title of one of my favorite bare naked ladies songs. The countdown breaks into that final week long stretch and I am actually surprised that none of my friends have called me with their best impression of the little girl from the ring.

SEVEN DAYSSSSS

I was working on some things for the wedding last night and figured I should post another one of the projects that I put together for my upcoming event today. As with most weddings there are centerpieces on all of the tables, with the theme of our wedding being that our theme is Victorian based we need to have some very specific pieces. This allowed me to do one of my favorite things without getting in trouble. I got to go garage saleing digging through others junk is one of the things about summer I look most forward to.

One such piece that I found was an old looking bird cage that looks perfect and will fit right in with the theme. It is not a legitimate bird cage and could never properly house a flying friend, it is a for display use only type thing but it looks cool.

Looking at the birdcage got me thinking and my creative wheels started turning in my head forming an idea. I headed down to Michaels to gather some supplies for another project and while I was there I inquired if they had any bird like things that I could mod. They had a couple things and I found exactly what I was looking for.

This little guy was perfect for what I wanted to do, my idea was to make a little clockwork bird to sit in the cage. I got out my paints and glue gun and sat down with Brudar for an afternoon of watching shows (Avatar the Legend of Korra) and some arts and crafts. A couple of hours this little guy was reborn like the proverbial phoenix to start his life anew.

The day is swiftly approaching and I still have a lot of things left to make and I will be trying to post a new on each day leading up to the wedding. Of course I will be submitting photos of the grand affair after the fact and cannot wait to share it with all of you.

Sincerely Urban Yeti