I had the outstanding opportunity to talk about electronics in costuming last weekend at FurCon in San Jose, California. This was my second time speaking here; was first invited to a year ago.

What really sets this group apart is the emphasis on world-building and personal characters. Also, there’s more costume electronics…and more Adafruit electronics especially…at this one convention than I’ve seen in an entire year’s worth of anime, comics and steampunk events. From custom fursuit-sized jumbo NeoPixel goggles to dragons with animated OLED eyes, these are power-users of cosplay technology!

I gave two 90-minute talks, one on introductory first-time electronics for costume-makers, and a second focusing specifically on lighting effects. Great turnout at both! The slides (with dialogue and notes) for these panels are online…

PDF versions are here:

Costume Electronics: The Very Basics

MORE Costume Electronics: Light it Up!

But some of the slides use animation loops…for the full experience, use these links and download the Keynote files:

Costume Electronics: The Very Basics

MORE Costume Electronics: Light it Up!

Highlight of the entire weekend: at the end of each talk, we drew names for a few Gemma and Metro boards, plus a full starter toolkit to one lucky winner. But as the first few names I pulled already had setups at home…each of them voluntarily gave up their spot to make sure the kit went to a beginner! And the second kit was put to use immediately to repair someone’s outfit right there. Good folks, good times.

Also, dragons. Did I mention there were dragons?