Entertain or Go Home

With costumes and dancing, this might have been the most entertaining spot on the floor

Just Dance 2015 is the sixth installment Ubisoft has published in the Just Dance line. While there doesn’t seem to be any reason to exhibit this game at NYCC, I found it to be a welcome addition to the floor. There was plenty of space to sit in front of the stage, the combination of costumes at times was ridiculous, and the crowd felt free to boo the people on stage who could not figure out how to select a song—which just made them dance that much harder when the song finally came up.

To earn points in the game, players mimic the on-screen dancers in an array of modes and songs. The Brotherhood of Asssassins (pictured above) chose “I Love It” by Icona Pop.

If nothing else, it was fun to guess which song a group would pick and see which players from any given group would end up being the most enthusiastic. Some people were ready to leave it all on the stage for a little applause. —Madeline

Building Action

Lego Reboots Bionicle in 2015

If you’ve walked the Lego section of a Target or Toys R Us in the past year, it might be hard to believe Bionicle was the big reveal at Comic Con. Lego seems to have a license for every nerd franchise on top of the Chima and NinjaGo brands advertised through weekly cartoons.
Why relaunch Bionicle?

Boys are clamoring for this, according to Rob Johnson, a Lego Brand Manager on site. (To prove the point, a recent college graduate practically had his face pressed to the Bionicle display glass in longing.) The line originally launched in 2000 as a subset of the Technic series. Bionicle was replaced by the Hero Factory line in 2010. Johnson assured me the new Bionicle is vastly different from Hero Factory with 25 unique pieces created just for Bionicle. 

The attractive colors and ease of building are meant to allow younger kids to crash the pieces together and help older kids unleash their imaginations when creating monsters and vehicles. Johnson assured me 7-year-olds had no trouble building the sets in focus groups. “Durable” and “easy-to-build” were Johnson’s go-to expressions for describing Bionicle—both incredibly appealing terms to someone who has spent hours putting together Chima and superhero movie playsets just to watch them hopelessly fall apart minutes later. —Madeline

Three days of video coverage in about 6 minutes

It was a very different experience to be rolling instead of shooting stills...

Make Mine Marvel

Live Tour and Costumes Galore at the Merry Marvel Booth

As far as breaking news or major announcements, the Marvel booth was not the place to be. 

The convoluted comic summer tentpole Secret Wars had already been announced, so Marvel didn’t have a lot to talk about on that front. Even though I feel like I would have loved someone to walk me through how Secret Wars is going to unfold, and what, if any, long-term ramifications will come from it.

Marvel’s biggest comic announcement was the upcoming Spider-Gwen series. Spider-Gwen has been a runaway success since her book debuted in early 2015. 

Beyond that, the big hit at the Marvel booth was the star power that the cast members of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. provided. It was impossible to walk the show floor when Clark Gregg stopped by the booth for photo opps and signings. The atmosphere was electric, and Gregg truly looked like he enjoyed himself. 

Marvel’s other major announcement came from Marvel Universe, a traveling live action show. Think Disney on Ice with heroes instead of princesses. 

Marvel seemed to be holding a well-attended costume contest literally every few hours. Fans seemed incredibly excited to be on stage in large groups, taking photos in front of the giant Secret Wars back drop. 

There was also a rather large roster of creator signings and artists sketching. The writers were some major Marvel classics (Peter David, Chris Claremont), but the artists seemed to be on the lesser-known range. The lines were pretty long, though, as fans literally had long boxes full of books to sign. I personally received a Cap sketch from Korean artist Younghoon Ko. 

Nothing major really announced, but when you’re the biggest dog on the block, sometimes just showing up is enough to scare the major players into thinking you have more going on. —Luis

Bandai's Big Hero

The Bandai booth historically is all about the Power Rangers. Their partnership with the Power Rangers franchise has been going strong for over 20 years. This year, Bandai had a new star, Baymax. Their collection of Big Hero 6 collectibles were a huge hit with young fans and collectors alike. The Deluxe Flying Baymax with lights, sounds, and Hiro seemed to be one of the biggest sellers of the show.  The line also included sharp-looking sculpts of the rest of the characters of the movie. I wish they had more action features and articulation, but I understand wanting to keep the price point down and make them more accessible to their younger demographic. —Luis

Year of the Bat

DC’s Influence Omnipresent

Walking away from the convention, one fan asked, “Where was DC?” Everywhere. Convention-goers were greeted daily by amazing, giant Teen Titans Go balloons. Cosplayers were dressed as the Joker and other Batman characters. An original copy of Action Comics #1 was on display in the collector’s section. DC wasn’t loud, but it was everywhere.

For the second year in a row, DC eschewed the conventional show floor space for the area below the main entrance. There they displayed all of the cinematic Batman costumes in honor of Batman Year 75.

There, DC also had a hands-on demo of their Infinite Crisis MMORPG. Fans seemed to enjoy the game experience and the alternate takes on the characters. 

In Artist Alley, DC writers were signing their books and artists were sketching at a dedicated DC booth. This was easily my favorite place to be as I was able to talk art with Cliff Chiang and all things Batman with Scott Snyder. —Luis

NYCC for ADW

I not only have so many photos (and videos—hello 5D), but so many interviews I can't wait to share. It's crazy that I somehow forgot how much fun it is to ask people questions and build a story. And the vendors had so much to say!

Summer Is Here!

Our Summer themed issue has arrived:

Art Department Weekly | Issue 75 Vol. 6

It's Toy Time!

Once again, Crazy Colored Glasses is listing the Top 10 toys of the year. So he came up with 12 or so for me to shoot. (Last year there were 20.)

For details, check here: Crazy Colored Glasses

Or Not So Much

I haven't been here in a long time... After I finished up retouching all the high res photos for my portfolios and sent them off to Niche with LV, I started doing graphic design out the wazoo. There was a lot more freelance design to be done than freelance photography. I had one more assignment for LG Mobile (well, two more days of shooting around the Feburary fashion week), and then pretty much took a break from everything because I was pregnant and no one had any money left to spend on freelance budgets. Really, I didn't go back to work until the very end of pregnancy—right before the end of the fiscal year (when there was leftover money for freelancers again). In between, I started painting, did some illustrations, waited to be paid for those illustrations, and wondered how I had become such a couch potato. I'll fill in the gaps. But that's where I've been. Now I'm accountable. ;0)

Cheering Section

I wasn't sure if I was going to cover the marathon again. Last year I ran around the city to cover as much as I could. Last year there were no 8GB cards on sale (so all I had were some 512MB cards). Last year I didn't really know what I was doing. This year, though, I knew I didn't end up doing much with the pictures I took. In fact, I did so little, I didn't even post them on this blog. I was thinking this year it might be fun for the three of us to go down to the marathon and sit and be spectators and cheer.

The weather was pretty nice. We found a sunny spot at the 4-mile area, saw the wheelchair, women's, men's, and the rest run past. On the left is the winner, on the right is Scrappy doing a dance to keep warm. We left in time to get home to see the lead women and men finish on TV.

Chuck E.

We wore our costumes again for a costume birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. I shouldn't say "we" because adding a tiara to your street clothes isn't much of a costume. For a second day in a row, LV was Indiana Jones and Scrappy was Padme from The Clone Wars. LV suggested I wear a sweater vest and be him. Then we decided that was weird. Instead, I tried to dress like one of the archeology students in Raiders of the Lost Ark--a cute dress, Mary Janes, and "Love You" written on my eyelids. No one knew I was in a costume. Maybe I should have gone with the tiara.