The Artificer's Studio

The following was written about two weeks ago and just never got posted;

So, it is time for the quarterly update. Ya!
May, June and July can be summed up as a complete waste of hobby time. I only played two games in there months, did minimum painting and drove to Chicago and back in twenty-four hours. Work took up most of the time. One projects deadline was moved up eight months. The design was compressed in roughly five months. It was a nightmare.

At the end of July Dan Corbett and I went to Chicago for Gamesday. I picked him up a little after 3:00am and we made it in the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center about 8:30am. We were lucky enough to get free tickets through my contacts with trade sales. Once we picked them up I looked at Dan and said “Let’s go on in.” He gave me a little confused look, probably because the show didn’t open until 10:00am and replied ”Ok.” We walked up to the door; I said hi to the staffer at the door and told him we were going in to visit. The staffer shrugged his shoulders and said “Sure Chris. I talk to you later.”

Once in I dropped off a model to James Craig at the Golden Demon Lounge. There we talked with Dave Taylor and James for a while. We wondered back out into the throng of unwashed gamers and waited until the doors officially waited and spent time talking to Jervis Johnson and my buddies Mike Majors and Travis Farber prior to the retailer seminar. A vast majority of the coward rushed the Forgeworld booth. Those guys need armed guards. I talked to a friend later in the day that said he was in the FW for 3 hours. I was introduced to Tom Walton from the UK Design Studio and we hit it off. His is nice guy and it is always nice to meet a tread head. I picked up a couple audio books and talked with Black Library author Mike Lee.

We went up to the retailer seminar. Dan and I met the head of trade and direct sales, Chris Woodward. The seminar had some helpful stuff for retailer, but nothing on upcoming releases that I didn’t around know.

We then went back down to show and walked around I spoke with Mike Lee again and got him to sign a few books. During our conversation we discovered that we had a mutual “friend.” We talked for awhile and exchanged information. I then met Nick Kyme and got him to sign Salamander. Dan and I were lucky enough to get in to the Chris Borer sculpting seminar. I learned so much. Chris’ stuff is fucking awesome.

By the time the FW line was manageable there was nothing left. We stuck around until 4:30’ish and then fled. We stopped to just outside of Valparaiso, Indiana at Gaucho’s Steak house. Oh my, it was possible one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. I’m not going to start here, that would only make me hungry!

The drive back was long and I was really tired. I dropped off Dan and was home and in bed around 2:00am. Exactly 24 hours from when I woke up!