Chill Out and Art at EGX14.

Tags: college, Digital Art, Eurogamer Expo, EGX, EGX14, Earl's Court London, Graph'It, Digital Photography, Cosplay

Date: 29 September 2014 08:51:03

Well that was a fabulously truly bonkers week at Earl's Court for #EGX14. The highlights started a couple of weeks before the show. I'd asked some wonderful tablet artists to donate pictures on a given theme and the results were fabulous. The digital paintings were printed off at A1 size, attached to foamboard, displayed at the show and finally given away to the charity stands at the show for them to fund raise with (Special Effect, Make a Wish and National Autistic Society).

On setup the very fabulous Dame Kath of Jones and Sir Nick of Thatcher made it all happen (with RoStev helping out on the last day). SO many people joined us to draw. Loads of students attended each day, a lot of them Cosplayed, Graph It pens were used and used and then used some more, iPads, Hudls, Surfaces and 3DS' were drawn on, new artists started a new hobby and brilliant artists shared skills with others.

The best thing? Possibly the Cosplay stage space for us. We co-ordinated with two Cosplay troupes: the Lots Of Us and the Birds of Truth (as well as thematically linked Cosplayers on the day) and took over the stage for an hour on the four days of the show. For every session we set up a diorama for people to paint/draw/photograph and it was always, ALWAYS, ace. Blog post to come but here'a a few representative pics:

(click on the pics to get the larger ones...) So on a budget of... well... nowhere near enough... for an hour each day we had the sixth largest stand at EGX. Truly and utterly fabulous and bonkers all at the same time. Also: the new aluminium stand for the show (the hat stand) worked brilliantly :) (so now we have two fab Aluminium bespoke tablet art stands - the hat stand and the eYe, both made by the very fabulous Nick Thatcher of Thatch Industries).

The lowlights? Less that 6 hours sleep each night for the past two weeks. Also - some of the receipts will be paid but I feel like I've partially bankrupted myself on emergency coffees and bottles of water - HOW MUCH??? - as mine ran out no matter how much I took I always drank more. My throat is completely clobbered and I'm going to be teaching with a whisper for the next week. And also: general event shatteredness.

... and this is bearing in mind that the phone that had the pedometer on was also being used as a wifi hotspot so I didn't have it on me for a few hours each day. And yet I STILLL could have cosplayed easily as Jabba the Hut (as opposed to what I did do: a Teletubby Muskateer mash up). It was - so very nearly - the best tablet and drawing event ever, definitely the best one we've ever done.... Now normal teaching service is resumed... I've got over 100 students to get to an A* in 10 months :) Although... will try and get the #WelcomeToGuildford awards sorted out soon...