Life of Brian

Games Convention 2007 . . .. . . Booth Babes Montage

Comic World Taiwan 16 . . . cosplay!

Last weekend, Aug. 11-12, 2007, the Phillips family headed off to the Comic World Taiwan 16 comic book and cosplay convention held at National Taiwan University in Taipei. Kaye went with friends on both days while Lorraine and I were there just the Saturday.

Kaye cosplayed as a character in the manga/anime Reborn and spent most of the time with a couple of her friends.  The friends were supposed to also be in costume but once again did not get them.

See the complete gallery of images we took during the weekend, go here.

For more of these images from Comic World Taiwan 16, go here.  For more Life of Brian cosplay images, go here.  For cosplay news in Taiwan from the good folks at Cospho Up Commision, see here (the next big event is Aug. 11-12).

All the best,
Brian

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Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]
Certified Hypnotherapist
President, Society of Experiential Trance
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
http://www.BrianDavidPhillips.com

Fancy Frontier 10 . . . cosplay!

Last weekend, July 28-29, 2007, the Phillips family headed off to the Fancy Frontier 10 comic book and cosplay convention held at National Taiwan University in Taipei.

Kaye cosplayed as a character in the manga/anime Reborn and spent most of the time with a couple of her friends.  The friends were supposed to also be in costume but didn't get theirs in time.  Next cosplay, there should be a group of 'em in costume though.

This was a big event with over 33,000 people in attendance.  Yes, that many folks.

See the complete gallery of images we took during the weekend, go here.

IT'S GOOD TO BE KING

A couple girls ran over to me and asked to take a photo with me. One of them demanded that I let her kiss me for the photo because I'm so "cute" for some strange reason, when asked by a pretty girl to be kissed I have this odd habit of consenting.

REBORN

My daughter Kaye in her Reborn costume doing her Death Note pose.

MOTHER KNOWS BEST

My wife, Lorraine, and my daugher, Kaye, take a breather in the hot sun of the first day of this weekend-long event.

THAT'S A LOT OF HOT SWEATY BODIES

Since he was visiting, we dragged our good friend Joshua Samuel Brown (yes, the internationally reknowned author [web]) to his first ever major cosplay event. Josh is usually as carefree and easy going as a human can be but even he found certain aspects of cosplay convention culture to be well beyond the pale.

PHOTOGRAPHER MADNESS

While there were a LOT of cosplayers out there, at certain times, it seemed that the number of photographers far outnumbered the cosplayers. In fact, at times, it seemed that the photographers were moving in swarms. This was particularly true if the cosplayers happened to be beautiful women in rather . . . er . . . hot not because of the weather . . . costumes . . .

For more of these images from Fancy Frontier 10, go here.  For more Life of Brian cosplay images, go here.  For cosplay news in Taiwan from the good folks at Cospho Up Commision, see here (the next big event is Aug. 11-12).

All the best,
Brian

Sign Up NOW!
Hypnosis Shows, Sessions, Training . . . and MORE!
See http://www.BrianDavidPhillips.com for details!

Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]
Certified Hypnotherapist
President, Society of Experiential Trance
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
http://www.BrianDavidPhillips.com

Girls of Comic Con 2006

Wildest Dreams . . .. . . coming soon

Check out one of the "trailers" for the upcoming performance of Wildest Dreams, the senior graduation play for my students in the English Department at National Chengchi University to be performed Dec. 14 and Dec. 15 at the university (be there!) . . . the play is about a group of friends who play role playing games (RPGs) to the point of the games becoming their escape from reality . . .

The students have gone all out and created a film that will be used in conjunction with the on-stage drama . . . the characters on stage will "play" the table top game with their fantasy personae manifested within the film. I am the faculty advisor of the play for which I am quite qualified (my doctoral dissertation is in interactive drama (live RPGs), I have advanced degrees in theatre, I deal with reality levels in my hypnosis work, and I played more RPGs than a human really should play).

See the official blog for the play here and the fullsize versions of the trailers here (download links for the mov files are below the embedded player).  Venue information is on the blog.

Koolness.

All the best,
Brian

Cosplay this weekend!

There is another cosplay event this weekend, Feb. 4-5, at National Taiwan University in Taipei. We are planning on going. Kaye, Susan, and Gareth will once again be dressed as characters from Naruto and I will be using my new 3D rig for the first time at a major cosplay event to see how it works. If you're interested in other cosplay posts and links to more photos than a human should see, then see the past entries in the Life of Brian: Cosplay category.

New 3D Rig goodness . . .

Well . . . we now have a new rig for digital stereo photography . . . two Sony V3 digital cameras on a twin-rig, external flash with sync, using a LANC Shepherd Pro to control the cameras. Been wanting one of these rigs for some time. Got the LANC Shepherd Pro from Rob Crockett and have also ordered his twin rig support which I'm told is entering the mail in the morning . . . see his pages at Ledametrix.Com - Digital Stereo Photography for details on those fine products.

Originally, Lorraine thought we'd just get the Sony V1 cameras for the rig as they are plentiful and cheap right now in Taiwan. However, she changed her mind and started looking around for the Sony V3s as they are much nicer cameras and support compact flash which we have been using with my Canon rig.

The LANC Shepherd Pro allows one to monitor sync between two Sony cameras that support the LANC protocol (not all do this so you have to check the list of compatible cameras) and also allows one to get sync for flash photography, something that is difficult to achive with twin camera rigs without having to chop 'em up and mess about with the electronics. The LANC Shepherd allows one to get near-perfect sync without modifying the cameras . . . something very important to me as I don't want to lose my warranty and I am an idjit when it comes to such things.

Well . . . I have had my LANC Shepherd Pro since before Christmas but no cameras to attach it to . . . we finally managed to track down a pair of new Sony V3 cameras in Taipei a few days ago. For now, we've mounted them to a twin bar side by side with an external flash connected to a cold shoe on one of the cameras so we're good to go. Happy happy joy joy!

The distance between the lenses is a bit too wide and creates a hyper effect I don't like as I really love to take stereo portrats. However, we'll replace the bar when the new one comes which uses a portrait orientation with good lens spearation as seen in the image at the start of this post.

I posted my first few photos to the 3D Stereoview Exchange which some of you are members of and am quite happy with the rig thus far.

Water Boy . . . . . . We were visiting a couple friends in Taipei and took along my new twin rig to give it a bit of a try. The complex at our friends' place has a beautiful courtyard filled with statues. Of course, when one sees a little boy pissing into a pool, one just has to catch it in 3D. The shot has a little ghosting in the anaglyph (red-blue 3D glasses) here but the parallel looks beautiful in 3D.

Celebrity Dog . . . . . . Last weekend, I hosted a hypnosis workshop in my home and one of the last minute attendees brought her dog with her. My wife, Lorraine, took a bunch of photos of the dog with our new rig as she and my daugher, Kaye, love animals. This particular dog also happens to be a celebrity in Taiwan and often appears on television programs or does special appearances. This is the first dog in the seeing eye dog program in Taiwan. She is retired now (had to retire early due to hip problems as her previous owner that she worked with lived on a fifth floor walkup with no elevator). She is old but affectionate and a bit energetic in her friendliness and is extremely gentle.

Dear Friends and More . . . . . . One of my hypnotist friends in Taipei is a reknowned psychologist, neruolinguistic programmer, hypnotist, and astrologer, Deepak Vidmar. With anyone else who combines psychology, trancework, and astrology, I would think they were over the line into the touchey feeley no critical thought territory of lala land but Deepak has a very critical understanding and knows whereof he speaks with the data to back it up. We visited Deepak and his wife Ming-Yng, a former Buddhist nun who is as gentle as they come, the day before they were set to head to India for a few months. You can check out his webpages at Astro-NLP - therapists will want to take a look at his calm ball process for panic attacks and more. This is an anaglyph (red-blue 3D glasses) so the red shirt comes off a bit harsh but the pair works well enough. From left to right: Lorraine Phillips, Dr. Brian David Phillips, Dr. Joseph Deepak Vidmar, Ming-Yng Vidmar (yes, the ladies are indeed much prettier than the men).

You can see some of the other shots in anaglyph and parallel format here.

I had never used Stereo Photo Maker but followed John Hart's descriptions for batch processing and everything seemed to work wonderfully. Now, if only I could figure out how to get it to batch and adjust things a bit more intuitively or at least find a way to adjust a bit better to eliminate some of the viewing issues or the non-common photo space without having to crop and adjust every image individually (I tend to take hundreds of images when I'm shooting - just taking the rig out for our initial test shoot/walk around our neighborhood I took 150 photos - so batch processes are my friend). I typically would use Anabuilder as it has a nice window setting effect for batch processing but it is extremely slow on my machine so an alternative would be nice.

BTW, in John's SPM tutorial, he mentions that you may need to adjust one image in the batch process by a few pixels to take into account mounting differences for the lens in the body. Could someone describe in extremely simplistic and babytalk terms just how I can determine what numbers to put where so that I can deal with horizontal or vertical alignment issues caused by the setup? I may have a PhD but I sure ain't all that smart when it comes to some things and this is one of those things.

In any case, I am a happy camper and while I won't be retiring my Canon 300D + Loreo LIAC setup forever, it will see a LOT less use in the future.

All the best,
Brian

More 3D news here.

Rainy Day Cosplay . . .. . . Comic World Taiwan 11

As previously posted on Forumosa . . . Cosplay and Comic Fandom Convention this weekend at NTU.

The weather sucked for the cosplay . . . big time.

So, most of the cosplayers went indoors to the CW proper.

We ended up not even going the first day but went in the afternoon of the second day.

My wife made costumes for our daughter and two of her friends . . . based upon the Naruto anime. Didn't get the hair colors right for two of them but decided we will tweak them for the next big cosplay in Taipei this coming February 4 and 5.

Pictured from left to right . . . Gareth Cheng (Uzumaki Naruto), Kaye Phillips (Uchiha Sasuke), and Susan Oscar (Haruno Sakura).

I made the large blade thingie my daughter is holding while the boy's father, Michael Cheng, put the finishing touches on the knives. The kids made the throwing stars themselves. Lorraine, my wife, put in very long hours on the costumes and will probably be tweaking them even more before the next event.

For those with an interest, I have some other photos at . . . my fotki . . . they are uploading right now so I haven't had a chance to tweak image rotations and the like. Will probably not get around to that until Monday or so.

Anyone else actually go?

Cosplay is Costume Roleplay and is basically what all those kids dressing up as comic book characters are doing. It is loads of fun and the age range for participants range from children to post-graduate school types. Actually, young children are pretty rare but every once in awhile you will see them.

There are some relevant links from a previous post below.

If you or your kids like to dress up as comic book or game characters, they'll love it . . . or, if you like to take photos, this is a great event.

My daughter is eleven and has been cosplaying regularly since she was four years old (I've been the doting father for longer and have been taking cosplay photos the whole time . . . see my cosplay albums for an idea. Although my daughter has been doing it since she was tiny, it is more popular with college age folks so you will see a very wide variety of costumes and the like.

The event is a comic book fandom convention but the cosplays are definitely an important part of it. If the weather holds then a lot of the cosplayers will be outside in the sun for photo opportunities (they pose and also run around taking photos of one another with many folks there to take pictures as well). Quite a few will be outside the gym sports center complex (the convention will be inside that building) and others will head over to the lake on the NTU campus. If it rains, then they’ll go inside to designated spots for photos but then you will need to pay the entry fee.

If you aren't familiar with cosplay, go to the cosplay category here and read some of the back posts.

I used to get cosplay annoucements vanished and has only just come back online http://cospho.dyndns.ws/~zordius although he doesn't yet (if ever) have his old English calendar back up (perhaps if enough folks request it, he'll restore it). He has tons of photos.

All the best,
Brian

Looks like no cosplay for us this weekend.

There's a typhoon pounding the island this weekend. We couldn't go to the big cosplay event at NTU today as we had guests over for lunch and wiled away the afternoon chatting with them (as one of them will be headin' stateside for a year, we wanted to get a chance to visit). The typhoon is dumping rain and the like so even if the cosplay event is still held (doubtful as the typhoon will probably shut it down), we probably couldn't get any good photos. C'est la vie. Will have to make sure we get to the one in December and go full force.

Game Show and Cosplay Convention Cuties . . . . . . fleshbot discovers

Looks like fleshbot has discovered cosplay . . . Game Show and Cosplay Convention Cuties . . . lots of photos in the links. Speaking of cosplay, there will be a big one in Taipei this weekend at National Taiwan University . . . hopefully it won't be too rainy so we can get some good photos. If you don't know what cosplay is, you should . . . go read all the posts here.