July 9, 2023: Liberty Con Supplemental Report

Steve's report on Liberty Con 35 was packed with highlights and yet barely scratched the surface of my own first Liberty. So here's a supplemental report! With more photos, naturally.

Steve and I tried something new for the What's New panel this time: we streamed the whole thing on TikTok! It went well; we were able to take questions from the livestream audience as well as the IRL attendees, and I plan on doing it again at small cons in the future (with more advance warning so more of you can tune in). If you're interested in joining us next time, follow us on TikTok. The other advantage to streaming the What's New was that I was able to retrieve most of the panel from the cloud and chop it into a few highlight videos. More of those will be appearing periodically on our TikTok page as well.

Liberty was a wonderful con with a ton to offer, but my absolute favorite part was the hobby and crafting area. There were craft supplies and scheduled workshops throughout the weekend, on a variety of subjects including terrain building and weaving. The minis area was where I spent most of my free time . . . 3D printed miniature dragons, dinosaurs, and figures were all up for grabs. There was a dazzling array of bits, with sci-fi, military, and fantasy miniatures all ready to build and paint. And of course everything was pre-primed. It was paradise! Enormous shout-outs to Jonna and James for making that room such a success. MIB Misty Kat ran a very tight ship in the game room; it's thanks to her efforts that I was able to spend some real time in crafting!

I unearthed a little figure of the Dungeon Master (from the old cartoon) and had a great time painting him up. I ended up giving him to my friend Jeremiah (who, in addition to being a fantastic dungeon master, is a TTRPG content creator on TikTok). And of course I'm already planning a workshop for NEXT year – a Car Wars build-and-paint-and-take using printed CARnage STL bits.

This was also my first public appearance as Car Wars Line Editor, and it was a blast. Naturally, there was much autoduelling in the game room. And several of the authors behind the new Car Wars fiction from Three Ravens Publishing were in attendance – we had a great panel, and I was able to pick up a physical copy of Burning Roads and get it signed! Next in that lineup is 72 Hours to Graceland by David W. Hensley, and I can't wait to dig into that draft when I get a minute . . .

As a bonus, my favorite piece of Car Wars terrain saw more than just the game room on this trip; after the convention, it came along to the real Rock City and had a mini-photoshoot atop Lookout Mountain!

Other notable firsts this year include: my first game of Terraforming Mars (a runaway success) and my first karaoke performance (survivable). I can't wait to see what Liberty Con 36 has in store!

-- Irene Zielinski

P.S. I had been threatening planning to share my video of SJ's LC karaoke performance, but Alyce seems to have beaten me to it, and then Steve went ahead and dropped the link in his report  . . . so I guess my bit of comedic insubordination will have to be providing you with this photo of Steve posing as Lady Liberty from that same night, in cutout form if you're inclined toward custom Discord emojis. Please use this irresponsibly.