Super-Size Final Friday Post Before The Big Show

admin

This time next week we’ll be hanging out at CMON Expo 2016. With one week left, you’d think we were out of cool things to announce, but you would be very wrong. We’ve got a very exciting update for you.

Right out of the gate, we’ve got the info posted about this year’s Panels. Come and find out the state of Dark Age and Wrath of Kings, as well as learning about the exciting, new, dungeon crawl game Massive Darkness, plus what designer Eric Lang has been up to with Bloodborne and The Godfather games he’s been working on. Hear all about the great projects CMON has in the works for the next year straight from the designers, themselves!

Along with the Panels, we’ve also updated our Events Page with yet more cool things to do at the show.

Starting out, we’ll be holding a Regional Qualifier for Krosmaster Arena. Grab your Gobbals and Tofus and prepare yourself to fight for the title of Ultimate Krosmaster.

After that, we have something rather special for you. How would you like to play some of our upcoming games with the people behind the games, as well as some of our special guests? That’s just what you get to do in our CMON Expo Play Dates events. Come out and play Rum & Bones: Second Tide with designer Michael Shinall, or The Godfather: The Board Game with Eric Lang, or Arcadia Quest: Inferno with Designer Guilherme Goulart and Watch it Played’s Rodney Smith, or one of several other games. Space will be very limited, so be sure to check in with the Games HQ table to sign up.

For those that want to learn a bit about making their miniatures look as good as they possibly can, we’ve got classes with three of our painter special guests. Teri Litorco will be teaching miniature painting fundamentals. Jen Haley will be happy to answer any questions you might have about different painting techniques. And Dave Taylor will be happy to share his wisdom gained from painting over what must be at least 10,000 miniatures over the years.

Come see one of CMON’s newest card games, Unusual Suspects, being played by some of our Expo Special Guests during the Unusual Suspects All*Star Games. Will they be able to figure out whodunnit, or will the perpetrator go free to terrorize the city with their crime spree? Only with a keen eye and deductive skill will they be able to make sure justice is served.

That’s not all for Unusual Suspects, though, as we’ll also be running the Unusual Suspects CMON Expo Game!

This convention game will run during the Expo and be for all of our attendees. The grand prize will see one lucky winner turned in to a Suspect in the game’s future expansion! Full details about the game will be available when you pick up your badge.

The fantasy sports game that’s sweeping the world will also be at the show. Grab a bottle (or two) of your favorite brew and take part in the first annual Guild Ball Brew and Brawl tourney.

Moving right along, we’ve got three new guests that we’ve added to our Guests Page.

Dave Taylor Dave Taylor has been painting and playing with toy soldiers for over 25 years, and has been working in the industry for 22 of those years. He estimates he has painted close to 10,000 miniatures, which is highly likely. His consulting business, Dave Taylor Miniatures, is currently working with CMON on marketing machinations for Dark Age and Wrath of Kings! Feel free to stop by the painting/hobby area to talk about toy soldiers with him.

Mauricio Vergendo Maurizio is a veteran Italian Magic: the Gathering player that fell into the board game world in 2010.

He co-founded Yemaia in 2012, becoming one of the producers and the Lead Developer for titles such as Hyperborea and Dojo Kun.

He will attend CMON expo with upcoming Yemaia projects.

And last, but certainly not least, we have another Guest of Honor for the show, Sean Murray.

Sean Andrew Murray is an award-winning freelance illustrator, concept artist, author and teacher who has worked in the entertainment industry for over fifteen years.

Sean has spent the bulk of his career as a video game concept artist, working on such titles as Dungeons & Dragons Online, The Lord of the Rings Online, Ultima Online, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and two unreleased projects at Harmonix Music Systems.

His freelance client list includes: Dreamworks, Legendary Pictures (Guillermo Del Toro), Disney-Hyperion Publishing, Travis Beacham (writer of Pacific Rim), Sideshow Collectibles, Wizards of the Coast (Dungeons and Dragons Online, Magic: The Gathering), Lego, EA Games, Privateer Press, Fantasy Flight Games, White Wolf Games, ImagineFX magazine, Steve Jackson Games, FableVision and 3DTotal.

Sean was a finalist for a medal in the 20th annual Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art competition. His work has been chosen for seven Spectrum annuals and has also been featured in ImagineFX magazine, Kotaku.com, EXPOSÉ, and Prime – The Definitive Digital Art Collection. Sean was nominated in the “black and white illustration” category of the prestigious Chesley Illustration Award. He also won a Silver and Bronze medal award from the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles in 2015.

A graduate of Syracuse University, he has taught in the illustration departments at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and Syracuse University. He also occasionally runs his own 6-week long intensive online seminars on the subject of “world-building for concept artists and illustrators.”

Recently Sean began working for visionary film director, producer and author Guillermo Del Toro on several projects, including a television series called Killing on Carnival Row, an unannounced project for Dreamworks Animation, and an illustrated young-adult novel titled Trollhunters which was published in the summer of 2015.

The production of Sean’s illustrated fantasy book, Gateway: The Book of Wizards, was funded by a successful 2012 Kickstarter campaign. The book was a primer for a fantasy world centered on a vast city called Gateway, which Sean has been working on in his sketchbooks for over 15 years.

After the release of the Book of Wizards, Sean began working on several ideas for new Gateway projects. He and former colleague John Hawkins, lead designer of the hugely successful DomiNations video game, discussed the possibility of collaboration. Together with John’s design partner and game designer extraordinaire, Michelle Menard, the three of them developed a prototype for a card game called Gateway: Uprising, which combines deck-building with an area-control board game.

Sean is hard at work finishing up all the original art for the final version of Gateway: Uprising, and is working on early stages of future game projects inspired by the Gateway world.

That’s what we have for you this update. I told you it was going to be a good one.

We’ll see you next week at CMON Expo 2016!!