That is just superb in every respect.
How would you rate the wasteland weekend overall?
Oh and who in the crew had that future samurai costume. That is deserving of a prize as your car. In fact I would say it ranks as one of the best PA costumes ever. Any chance of a few pics of it so I can shamelessly steal all the great ideas. Some pics of your bomber on wheels would be great too.
Really words cannot express how impressed I am that you own a real freakin battlecar.
Another question why cant you drive it on the road? Is it because its not mechanically sound or because of the huge fake guns all over it? Or some other reason?
Thanks very much!
Overall, I'd say Wasteland Weekend is freakin' awesome. At first, my brother just bought us tickets because it is held on the weekend of my birthday, and we're all into post apoc, so we thought it'd be fun. We weren't sure if we would actually go, even up until the last week or so, but we had done some costumes, ranging from half-assed to full-fledged, so we headed down. I was a little apprehensive, since I've never really been super extroverted or into costuming/cosplay. We didn't know if the people would be friendly, elitist, jerks, or what.
When we arrived, pretty much instantly our fears were laid to rest. There's a pretty much universal vibe of friendliness, which I was pretty shocked by. We set up our camp and pretty much immediately, we met our neighbors (at the camp now known as "Titty City" which... was a pretty good spot to camp.
and they offered us beers and we got started meeting folks.
The moment when I looked to my friends and said, "Ok, next year, we're going ALL in" was when we walked through the front gates. It feels like you're stepping straight onto the set of a post-apoc movie. The elite guard at the gate who help with security are movie authentic to Thunderdome, and go a long way toward establishing that initial shock of, "HOLY CRAP THIS IS AWESOME!" and it just keeps going. Costumes are required to pass through the gate as a rule to preserve the authentic post-apoc environment, and people are really starting to do a lot of things to help add to the atmosphere. Some people have barter stalls set up and most anyone is open to bartering if you see something you like. There's the Mushroom Cloud Lounge, which is a hookah bar run by the Skulduggers tribe, our tribe started a bounty hunting game this year that people had a lot of fun with as well.
It is the Mojave though, so the weather really dictates the activities. During the day it's pretty relaxed, most activity occurs in the early morning (don't worry, you will be up at sunrise. Your tent turns into an oven pretty fast), then people relax and chill in the shade when it's hottest, and in the evenings are when things really start to pick up. The Atomic Cafe is the bar which, due to liquor laws, is unable to charge for drinks, so it is a community donation-based bar - they go around all the camps in the evening asking for donations of booze and mixers, then drinks are free at the cafe. It works out really well.
Ahhh yes, the wasteland samurai.
That was made by our very own Rummage (or Connor, if you don't want to use his wasteland name
). Believe it or not, he had a different costume, then scrapped it with two weeks to go before the event and came up with his samurai one. The helmet is made from a hardhat and tires, the rest is leather, rivets, and tires. He actually did win a prize in the costume contest - 3rd place I believe.
My armor was a similar setup, although I went for a more mongolian look:
It was heavy as hell and very unwieldy though, so in order to drive the limo I rarely ever even wore it at the event. I kinda regret not getting more pics of me in it.
Oh, the Mutie Beauty isn't street legal mostly only due to the exhaust. We took one look underneath, and the pipes were rusted to hell and riddled with holes from a few feet behind the catalytic converters and back. There was no way that the car would pass smog testing without completely redoing the exhaust pipes and mufflers, probably the catalytic converters as well. Even then, there's no guarantee. So we just decided to hell with being street legal and cut them there, then flare them out at a 45 degree angle so they directed the loudness out to the sides.
Personally, I'd like to get rid of the cats too and run straight pipes out the side. I'm a fan of loud V8 rumbles, and it is powered by a Ford 302, so it sounds nice.
Aside from that, I'm pretty sure the rebar welded across the windshield would draw some criticism from the authorities, as would the waist guns. If we made them detachable from the mounts, that would be solved though, but you're not allowed to have protrusions that extend further out than the side mirrors is my understanding.
All in all, I really had a blast both years at Wasteland Weekend and our group of friends has gotten a lot out of it. It was on the ride home that we decided to form our company (three of us created Rust Devil Games) and on our smartphones went and bought the domain names we'd need. Hopefully in the next few months our kickstarter will launch. All good stuff
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