Animated Events: Artwork at Gen Con 2026

 Was on the fence about going to Gen Con this year. I skipped last year's event because I wanted to save money for a new car. But I found that I enjoyed doing my own 'Gen Con' week of solo gaming a lot more than expected. Started looking forward to a quiet week of cooking and gaming as well as saving all that money on gas, lodging, and food. And it almost stopped there. The issue was, there were a number of friends going this year. So I shared my thoughts with Mom. Ever the fount of wisdom, she mentioned how my Aunt unexpectedly passed away in March and we never know how much time we will have with our family and friends. So, I might want to think twice before skipping out on those chances to spend time with loved ones. Point taken. Badge, hotel, and parking pass bought and paid for. It was worth the time spent. Above and beyond the time I took to reconnect with friends, Gen Con is always a haven of incredible artwork. When I wasn't with friends or walking between sessions, I was looking at all the art like I was at this wonderful museum of gaming.

I don't play this game, but it looks really cool.

Love the annual mini painting contest

I'm not a puzzle person, but this is pretty cool!

League had a much larger presence than I realized.

Battletech, always good for some awesome art.

Wow... that is new!

I miss you Henry Cavill...

I'm not a 40K fan, but this is really cool!

I don't play Pathfinder, but Paizo's artwork and sculptures are always top notch!

Always worth the walk over to the Lucas Oil Stadium to see Genevieve, the Gen Con mascot.

Genevieve

Again, lots of League of Legends artwork, this time from a third-party reseller of the Riftbound card game. I couldn't help but wonder what Riftbound sales would be like if they had released the upcoming K/DA albums and had a K/DA Riftbound pack release...

Cause it's all about the Vastayan foxgirls!

Not much a drinker, but I like how they went all out on this display.

There were a lot of great games to play and purchase at the con, but my favorite was free. Luke Gygax, the son of Dungeons and Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, autographed a copy of the book he wrote: Luke Gygax's World of Okkorïm. 

Next year is a big anniversary for Gen Con. I'm planning on attending with my college roommate. And it'll likely be my last for a while. I've only missed three since 2002. After a while, as enjoyable as it has been, you start to feel like you've seen and done everything there is to do. And then you start to wonder about what else is out there and what else you could do with your vacation time... like visiting all the great art museums in the world. Hrm...

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Animated Thoughts: Art Comes in Many Forms, pt. 3

After swearing up and down that I probably wasn't going back to Gen Con any time soon, or if I did, it would only be for a day, I ended up biting the bullet and buying that 4-day pass.

It was the 50th Anniversary celebration of Dungeons and Dragons and there was going to be a plethora of historical panels with the folks who made the game. 

My plan was to drive down to Indianapolis, stay overnight, say 'hi' to some friends, do a little shopping, and then drive home. But, as fate would have it, I had enough cash saved up to do three days in Indianapolis so decided to make the most of the experience.

Gen Con is one of those places where the artwork takes center stage--even to all the games. You could have the best game out there, but if the artwork is 'meh', well, it's hard to catch the eye of potential players (customers). So, I set out with camera in hand and a willingness of spirit to soak in all that wonderful sci-fi/fantasy artwork.

Catalyst Game Labs had some nice treasures in their display case but "The Battle for New Avalon" was the theme for the annual CamoSpecs diorama. If you look closely, you can see the the Republic of the Sphere forces backing up the Davion Guards against the Sword of Light. 

As always, the detail on those miniatures is always top-notch! Wish mine looked that good.

There was a fair amount of interesting art at the con--lots of it was on banners.

I'm not into Pathfinder, but Paizo's artwork is always top-tier.

The 50th Anniversary of D&D "museum" was both overwhelming and underwhelming. Given how the Con pulled out the stops for the Gen Con anniversary back in 2017, I was expecting more than a number of display cabinets with some D&D artifacts--back then they built a facade for the Horticultural Hall and had tons of historical artwork and gaming books and artifacts from the history of gaming. 

Now, a lot of the books and papers they had in the display cabinets "were" pretty cool. And I did like the "D&D by the versions" display. Overall I think Peterson and Kammer did an okay job with what they had, but it was not what I expected given the enormity of the anniversary of D&D.

Every year, there's group art project. Not much to say here, I just thought it was pretty neat.

Was a real treat to meet Gary Gygax's son Luke (and his wife Bouchra) during the "Growing Up Gygax" presention. Real quality people. Would love to talk to them again.

Spent some quality time looking at the miniatures competition. 

Am truly humbled by the skill and the patience it takes to produce work of this quality and on this scale. 

Not a lot of statues at the con this year, but there were a couple good ones in the dealer room.

Heh. The annual balloon sculpture turned out to be a promo for a Gnome game.

As I left, I had to say 'good bye' to the life-sized UrbanMech that has become a mainstay of the Catalyst Game Labs experience at Gen Con. Don't know when, or if, I'll be back. I still feel the siren-song of that bucket list trip to all the great art museums of the world. But Gen Con will always hold a special place in my heart.

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Animated Events: Gen Con Online

Gen Con was kind of wild card this year. I had purchased the online badge and rolled over my in-person badge to next year in order to help out the convention. The online badge was only $20, but I opted to have a physical copy shipped to me. Just because. But I was left wondering if there would be anyone running events that I was interested in. Well, I shouldn't have worried. Like I do during in-person Gen Con, I chose to split my time between events that would help me grow as an artist as well as some fun stuff--usually shopping and gaming.

Turns out that Amazon was running a heavily discounted special on the three core rulebooks for D&D 5e, so I took the plunge. I bought the Beginner boxed set when it first came out back in 2014, but wasn't impressed enough with the set to want to get back into it, and every attempt afterwards stymied my efforts -- including when I tried to get into the local D&D Adventurer's League games only to find out that everyone was running them on Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. (I usually get out of work around 6-ish). But, the price was right so I plunked down the cash, and when they arrived, I was very pleased with the purchase. The foil covers were nice, but I think I might get another copy of the Players Handbook--a standard edition so I won't get upset if the cover gets dinged or dented. During this time, I looked into registering with Zero Session and playing a beginners game of D&D online. Zero Session is a group of tourguides and actors down in New Orleans who are also gamers. When the lockdown hit, they went online and now, for a modest fee, run RPGs for people all over the country who are also in lockdown. My experience with them would prove fun enough that I started looking into playing D&D solo until I could find a group in my area that could accommodate my wonky work schedule--even if it means I have to start DM-ing again. The "History of D&D" panel and the "what led to the downfall of TSR" panel pretty much sealed the deal for me. Before the con was over, I ordered the Essentials boxed set, one setting book, two adventure modules and a pair of the splat books. Even after forty years, D&D is still in my blood.

The drawing session that Gen Con hosted was okay. Unfortunately though, because the models were streaming video from their homes, and there was a wide variety of cameras and lighting, it didn't exactly go smoothly as one would hope. A lot of the lighting really didn't work for the cosplay outfits that the models had chosen. And it was sad too, some of those outfits looked like the cosplayers put a lot of effort into them. I also liked how the organizers had selected models across a range of ethnicities and body types. It was really nice to get a little variety in my sketchbook.

Well, at this point, I think I'm through with the Gen Con animation panels. They're usually hit-or-miss for me, usually more miss than hit. But this year was pretty much the end. One of my big pet peeves is when you have a fifty minute panel to cover a topic and you bring in more than three people (not including the moderator) and you spend most of the time introducing the panel speakers by having them talk about themselves and their careers. It usually leaves about ten to fifteen minutes where they talk about the subject and then open for questions. Idiotic. Needless to say, when the guy who dominates the conversation during the panel is a live-action filmmaker whose only experience is watching anime with his kids--and he gets most of his comments about the Japanese animation industry and the production process completely wrong--well, it's time to move on. Add to that: the "Production Sound" panel was totally forgettable. No more film and animation track at Gen Con for me. I'd rather go back to the "Author's Avenue" cause at least there I'll learn something useful about developing relatable characters or building believable worlds or how 'print-on-demand' is changing the publishing industry. As much as I want to learn things at Gen Con that further my animation career, sometimes you just have to cut your losses and move on.

One of the high-points of the con was the poisons and toxins panel for 5th edition D&D. Run by an actual doctor, he gave a good summary of the types of poisons and toxins out there in the real world, how they are classified, and what effects they have on the human (humanoid) body. Then, he converted them into a nuts-and-bolts version that was directly applicable to 5th edition D&D campaigns complete with suggestions for how DMs could "simulate" the effects of being poisoned over time on a Player Character who missed their saving throw. His presentation was so good, I immediately signed up for the same panel that he would give on the following day.

Now, with regards to gaming, I had the chance to play both Senet and the Royal Game of Ur with a bunch of people over Zoom. Both games were very much like Backgammon and both were very enjoyable games. I put them down on my ever growing list of games to buy (once I find someone to play them with). Online virtual gaming is... interesting. While I had a good time playing the card game "Sushi Go" in an online venue that will eventually be a VR gaming environment, I don't think they're ready for primetime yet. But it will be interesting to see how it all shakes out once VR is more widespread as a gaming interface.

And thus, Gen Con Online 2020 came to an end. I can sum up my experience in one sentence: Online Gen Con may not be best Gen Con, but it is much better than no Gen Con.

Hopefully next year we can all meet up again in Indianapolis for the best four days of gaming.

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