Tuesday, February 17, 2015

The Road to Bricks Cascade 2015 - I Think I Can, I Think I Can...



 Home Again

What turned out to be a six-week long stay at my sister’s new house is now over.  Sunday morning I packed up all of my stuff, and by Sunday evening I was back in my lovely basement home.  (Well, I say ‘lovely’…) 

They say that there’s no place like home, and if they’re referring to dangerously low ceilings, an only half-assed attempt at insulation, cold concrete floors, inadequate heat, the ever present dampness, instances of mold, uninvited creatures from off of the vermin menu, and far too little space to live in, then they’ve definitely hit the nail on the head there.  NO PLACE like home.  

Anyway…

My bricks aren’t completely sorted (in fact, I’m still a tote-and-a-half away from completing the initial ‘large category’ stage of sorting), but I’ve declared them “good enough” until after Bricks Cascade.  Sadly, when travelling from the second to first floor of my sister’s house, several containers of sorted bricks fell, and so now I’ve got some mix-&-match containers with multiple categories therein.  (Aaaarrrghhh!) 

But now it’s become MOC-building crunch-time.  If my mathematic skills haven’t failed me (which, honestly, is about a 50/50 shot) there are a mere twenty-two days and change until the convention. 

Time to do away with those extravagant luxuries like eating and sleeping.  Instead, it’ll just be build, build, build.  (And blog.)

Cartography

Last month I’d been informed that the preliminary version of the exhibition hall map had been posted to the website.  So I checked, and there it was.  A very informative little graphic.  It showed where all of the various venders were set up.  Clearly outlined the snack bar and concession areas.  Included locations for the animation theatre, and the Duplo play area.  And, most importantly, showed us where all of the themes were located. 

Well, almost all of the themes, anyway.  There’s one theme that was left off of the map.  Can you guess which theme was missing (asks I, the Superheroes theme coordinator)? 

That’s right.  The Superheroes theme was nowhere to be found. 

I immediately contacted Jeff Berquist (the convention’s Theme Overlord), and he promised to get the oversight fixed ASAP. 

Now the new map is up, so I finally know where I’ll be…

The Superhero Theme’s New Home

I’ll be sharing table space with the lovely and talented Molly Patton, Theme Coordinator for “Town & Train”. 

I’ve examined this map closely, and if the little rectangles representing table space are an accurate depiction of what we’ll be working with, then I’m a little bit worried.  There are 190 display tables on the exhibition hall map.  For 12 themes.  Here’s how they’re distributed…

Art, Auto, Architecture, and Mosaic (and yes, that’s one lump category) gets 20 tables.  Battle, Micro, and Classic share (presumably evenly) a 36 table section.  Technic, Bionicle, and Castle/Pirate get to split a 40 table allotment.  44 tables divided among Steampunk, Mecha, and Space.  Which just leaves the last section:  50 tables designated for Town & Train and Superheroes.  Not quite an even split:  46 tables for Town & Train, 4 tables for Superheroes (including the Crisis on Infinite Baseplates collaborative build). 

Yes, it’s the first year that Bricks Cascade has a Superhero theme, and I understand that they want to take it slow in case the MOCs aren’t as forthcoming as we’d like, but…four tables?  Really? 

I’ll be emailing the Theme Overlord (again) to find out whether or not I can expand further into Town & Train territory if need be. 

The Little Theme That Could

My goal is for Superheroes to prove itself to be ‘The Little Theme That Could’.  (And no, I’m not comparing my theme to ‘The Little Engine That Could’ just because it’s in the same section as Town & Train.) 

I want a massive showing of superhero themed MOCs.  It’s not like they’ve never been at Bricks Cascade before.  Last year there was probably a couple of tables’ worth of superhero MOCs spread out through the Art and Town-&-Train themes.  A couple of tables’ worth of superhero MOCs even though there wasn’t a specific theme for them. 

This year, there IS a superhero theme.  I’m expecting more than just a couple of tables’ worth.  I’m hoping that one of the main topics of discussion for the con is, “Holy Crap, did you see how many MOCs the Superheroes Theme has?” 

I think we (the builders-and-displayers of BricksCascade) can pull it off if we try.  I think we can.  I think we can, I think we can, I think we can…  No—I KNOW we can, I know we can, I know we can…

MOC Registration Now Open

In other “things on the Bricks Cascade Website” news:  MOC registration is now open.  So once you’ve built your Superheroes MOC (or whatever category of MOC it is you’re putting together), you can register it with the convention so it gets on the theme coordinator’s list, and gets a MOC display card printed for it. 

MOC reg has been open less than a week now, and as of this morning, Battle, Classic, and Space don’t have any MOCs registered yet.  Art has one.  Bionicle has two.  Superheroes and Technic are tied with three apiece.  Castle and Mecha both have four.  Microscale and Steampunk have each got five, and Town-&-Train has six. 

Superhero and Technic are both smack dab in the middle – there are the exact same number of themes with fewer MOCs as there are themes with more MOCs than we currently have listed. 

But like I said, it’s still early days for MOC registration.  Those numbers will undoubtedly grow by leaps and bounds over the next couple of weeks. 

Signing Off

Okay, that’s it for me at the moment.  Time to get back to building…

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