STGCC: And for those who make it fun

The Singapore Toys, Games, Comics Convention 2010 starts tomorrow! Hurray! They’ve got the line up and “who’s who” up at their website now including the name of the shops. However, I’d like to focus on SOME people who aren’t “special guest stars” but who make the convention fun. They range from the various shops, to the organizations and even media people! I got to talk or rather email some of the people below so heh, you guys will get to know more on them!

The 501st

Singapore has one of the largest garrisons in Asia! They’re a group of Star Wars fans who make their own armour and costumes based on the bad guys in the movies. Everyone who is a Star Wars fan, owning a “bad guys'” costume and who likes to help out people are welcomed to join the 501st Legion!

Heh you see, even though they’re stormtroopers, imperial guards or even Darth Vader, the guys and ladies of the 501st are pretty sweet and nice. They do charity work and help out at some events!

At STGCC, they will be holding a droid hunt in which members of the public can join (note: This is VERY fun, my friends did this before). All you got to do is sign up at the 501st booth and you’ll be given a lanyard with a droid card. Then you’re free to roam around the convention hall doing your own things… AND THEN THE STORMTROOPERS WILL HUNT YOU DOWN!! They’ll be wandering around in little squadrons and will try to spot you. They will then capture you and issue you with a ticket to collect a prize at the booth. Heh.

More details at the 501st booth but one of my friends who did this… Well, here’s a hint. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you should know there’s one line about “droids” and if you use it, it might work. HUR HUR. To sign up, there should be a small fee to join but this will go to charity!

All the money collected will be donated to their said charity for the weekend (check out at the convention to know more). Besides the droid hunt, the 501st will be having a photobooth in which you can take a picture with them and there would be a R2D2 there too! Boop beep boop boop.

Check them out at their website if you want to join them or find them at their booth to check out their armour and find out more from them! They’ll be near the Starwars.sg people too! There’ll be a Hoth Battle Scene built entirely from Lego bricks so woaah.

If you’re spending mucho moolah to buy goodies at the convention, I don’t see why you can’t spare a fiver or ten (or more!) to help their cause.

G&B comics

If you like Western comics and are not a member of G&B, I tsk tsk at you. Members get special privileges like movie night and special sessions of signings with visiting artists and writers! Heck, they get discounts and other funky previews too. For STGCC, watch out their booth for the comic giveaways. Just check out what time they’ll be giving them out or heh, buy the comics since they’ll certainly stock up especially on the writers/artists who’ll be at the convention!

They’re the store in which you can pick up the special edition comics of V is for Vendetta, exclusive prints of Kickback  and other limited edition sketch books by Leinil Yu.

To be a member of the store you have to get to the actual store location itself at Rochor Centre since I would think they’ll be too busy selling the goods at the convention itself. Address and other info at their website here! Oh by the way, they SHOULD have their NETS machine marking at the booth at the convention… Bye, bye monies to you!

Here Be Geeks

They’re one of the supporting blogs of STGCC. Ha, ha I might be biased because I’m a guest writer for them but really, they’re cool. The articles and tweets they post are easily read and insanely fast. If you want to know any info or “inside” stuff of the convention, head on to their blog at Here Be Geeks or follow them on their twitter.

HBG is made up of a trio of geeks and site was created to fill up a niche that lacked in Singapore – comic books, television and gaming. They felt that the pop culture elements were seriously lacking in exposure here. (Yes, I totally agree.) They just started 11 months ago and booyah, now they’re even the supporting blog for STGCC!

The dudes will be walking around attending the panels, MODERATING some of them, providing live updates to the blog and tweeting at the event. If any of you readers want to know what’s happening at STGCC before you even hit the place, you should definitely read their posts since they’ve extensive maps of the location, event timings etc. Heck, it’s even in a more readable format that the STGCC website currently. The schedule for the events on all 3 days are out too and they’ve managed to find the pdf for it. So if you want in both pdf or excel, you can check out their blog post here, heh.

You might catch them in their official HBG t-shirts or on the last day, they’ll be going as the League of Evil Exes from Scott Pilgrim or Star Trek. Also, look out for contests and giveaways at their site! I can certainly say that their stuff is not sucky. BWUAHAHAHA! Very cool stuff if you like geeky things. Ok, uh. You don’t need to spend anything unlike the above two people, however please say hello to them! They’re nice. People going to some panels, you’ll see at least one of them and uh, me too on the various ones on the three days as moderators.

Movie Mania

They’re a movie fan group of costumers. Actually they don’t stop at just movies, they do costumes from games and comics too! They’ll be having a booth and Reno, the head of MM will be talking on Sunday at the 1pm panel at the 401-402 room. He’ll be talking about Cosplay 101 – How to make/source your costumes with Ellya Chao and Clive Lee. In my ahem, ahem sources I know there will be an ODST (from the Halo series) squad on Saturday. If you guys like the game, be sure to catch the whole squad there! Besides ODST, MM were the guys who usually can build their own armoured costumes. They have a Warmachine and Ironman too. Reno will also be one of the judges at the cosplay competition held there on stage.

Seriously, if you like costumes, weapons and all that cool stuff. Check out their booth or their website here.

Gone Case!

There’s a lot of cool independent artists and studios to be had at the convention at the Artist Alley. I managed to interview one of them who’s launching their book “Gone Case” there! Interestingly, they’re in the What’s New page of STGCC!

Gone Case is written by Dave Chua, a freelance writer, editor and a joint winner for the SPH-NAC Golden Point Award in 1995 amongst other awards. It’s illustrated by Koh Hong Teng who won the Digital Art Gold Award at Comgraph Asia Pacic Digital Art & Animation Competition in 2001 for his graphic novel “01321” and his comics have been published in both Liquid City 1 &2.

The story was actually published in 1996! It’s a novel about a coming-of-age story about a year in the life of a 12-year old living in a Singaporean housing estate. However, in this comic adaptation, the duo took a year for it to come together, discussing on which points to focus on for it. The inspiration for the story was when Dave Chua wandered about the housing estate he stayed in, and felt there was a shortage of stories set in that milieu.

You readers can check out their sample pages or bits of their story at their website here. They will be at the Windmill Studios booth, Artist Alley J12. And just at STGCC, the comic book will be just $16! The price at major bookstores will be $18.90 so best you get it there. Plus, you can always get your book autographed by them! Besides Gone Case, they’ll be selling Hong Teng’s popular ‘BLKS&NOS’ Art Series Postcards and Cheah Sin Ann’s book – Billy and Saltie: Cool Croc.

IZReloaded/R3LOAD Network

If you’ve been to any event previously like AFA, various parties and whatnot, you might have seen IZReloaded before or at least his videos. Both IZ Reloaded and R3LOAD Network are official supporters of STGCC 2010 and he and his crew will be there!

IZ will be covering STGCC for R3LOAD Network, an entertainment and pop culture web TV network.  He’ll be doing a lot of filming, taking photos, interviewing, etc. And lots of tweeting. You readers can check out his twitter at @izreloaded. So if you want to be caught on camera, wave to him, smile and pose. Unlike the other blogs, IZ usually has video summaries of the events and they’re usually uploaded pretty fast.

Heh, if you miss the event, be sure to catch his videos. Or if you were there, check it out anyway to see if you were caught on camera!

AND THAT IS IT! Well, there’s more people who help out and make the convention fun but you guys have to BE there to check it out! If you wanna know where I’ll be? I’ll mostly be around the 501st, Movie Mania booth, artist alley checking out the goods or at the panels. I’ll definitely be on a panel as a moderator on Sunday for the 2.15pm-3pm, Traditional form of comic illustration panel at room 401-402.

Uh, so everywhere I guess?

SEE YOU GUYS THEN!

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sarah

Well, this is seriously Sarah and that's all you need to know for now.

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