I just mailed the OryCon 41 Souvenir Book off for review. Minor tweaks planned for next week, no problem. Now it's time to make dinner, get the kids ready for bed, and get a good night sleep because it's time to start the big beast of a Pocket Program first thing tomorrow morning.

I'm also a big fan of how the layout of my table of contents page turned out. #designnerd

A lot of interruptions to progress on the costumes today but Maddie and I got her base skirt done. Our youngest has picked out two costumes that she wants to wear at the convention based on finds from our thrift store shopping. She wants to be a fire elemental (found a pretty sweet skirt that looks like flames) and a black dragon. Goodwill had dragon masks in the Halloween section but they weren't black so Hunter and Ari broke out the paint to make it the right color. They also started patterning some back scales to go with the wings we already had laying around.

We've been watching Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance as a family. There is a convention coming up (OryCon 41) and we are inspired to make some costumes so we raided the thrift store and now a Gelfling and a Skeksis are under construction. I'm making a Brea costume for myself) and helping my daughter make Skekso the Emperor. I am on an "upcycle/reuse" mission for costuming so we plan to repurpose as much as we can versus buying new fabric from the store. We'll see how this goes.

This little guy is a Puckmarin (from the movie Flight of the Navigator). He is from the planet Binpuka Minor, which was destroyed by a comet, and he is the last surviving member of his kind. I plan to take very good care of him.

The Artist Guest of Honor, Rob Carlos, is known for his creation of dragon portraits. For this year's OryCon Rob created a special painting inspired by the theme "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations." An early version of the painting was captured for us to use in our promotional materials. This is a poster that I put together to advertise the convention. The completed painting will be on display in all its glory in the OryCon Art Show. Come to the convention to see it in person.

The fairy tale figures from the Grimm Forest board game are now painted. I used the character cards as guides and tried to match colors the best I could. I still need to put one more coat on the bases and sealant top coat, then they are done.

Date night meant ordering in, catching up on The Orville, and painting minis. These are from the Labyrinth board game. I finished up Sir Didymus and Jereth this evening. I just need to figure out the base color (probably purple to match the game box) and then the Labyrinth game pieces are done.

We're reading Menolly’s stories from Anne McCaffrey's Pern books (Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums). Who doesn’t fall in love with the fire lizards?

Menolly's Fire Lizard Song
The little queen all golden
Flew hissing at the sea
To stop each wave
Her clutch to save
She ventured bravely.

As she attacked the sea in rage
A holder man came nigh
Along the sand
Fish-net in hand
He saw the queen mid-sky.

He stared at her in wonder
For often he'd been told
That such as she
Could never be
Who hovered there, bright gold.

He saw her plight and quickly
Looked up the cliff he faced
And found a cave
Above the waves
In which her eggs he placed.

The little queen all golden
Upon his shoulder stood.
Her eyes, all blue
Spoke of her true
Undying gratitude.

Nerd bliss is sitting in a bar with at least 100 Hamilton fans belting out the soundtrack while you needle felt an alien critter (Puckmarin from the movie Flight of the Navigator).

Another meet-up with a friend to paint! Kirsten and I had a paint day while the guys routed network wire. Doing something a bit different, this painting is based off of a painting by Colleen Wilcox instead of the simplified event paintings. To add my own personal spin, I also added artwork from Madeline's and Arianna's sketchbooks. I combed through the pages and found a collection of sketches to integrate into and around the tree.

I call it "New Worlds," a place where cats and owls frolic with 6-legged, crystal dragons among elaborate, alien flowers.