Ludica Roma 2012 reboot. This time we had no snow to stop us. Do you remember the original Ludica 2012 in February? We were lost in the fair with scarce public to view us. This time the weather was good.

The convention was located in three pavilions: Model (boardgame, wargame, radio controlled modelling, railway modelling, live role play, videogames), Softair (softair, western & country zone (!), refreshment area), Bimbi (Lego, the reign of children). This one in the photo is the Model pavilion. If you think that there were not so many people around is because the structure is huge: almost 15000 people were in the fair during three days. Well, the first day there were only 2000 people, it was Friday and it is not a good day to do something like this.

This was part of the area for wargame clubs. Some displays and demonstration games were set up by local wargame clubs. A large area was dedicated to Tana dei Goblin and Reindeers clubs for their boardgame demonstration tables. New boardgames from Essen fair were available to try them. A great work from the people who created the GiocaRoma convention. That glorious event is now merged with Ludica.

A large skirmish game about Abissinia war. In the background some elements of the 501° Legion “the fist of Vader”.

The small detachment of wargame vendors. Edizioni Chillemi is specialised in military matters, Aster Wargame is a supplier of bases, hexagons, 10mm TB Line miniatures and painting service. The high cost of stands kept away other specialised vendors. Our world runs on small amounts of money and this structure is absolutely no cheap. It is not a fault of the organisers, it is a fault of the fair structure administrators. However there were other vendors in the modelling area, with 57mm miniatures and this kind of stuff.

The large spaces were good for radio controlled modelling and this kind of mobile models. Outside the pavilion there was a track for cars. Inside a swimming pool was available for ships.

One of the strangest forms of radio controlled modelling were that about earth-moving models. Pretty dirty indeed. Don’t try this at home. Especially if you live in an apartment.

Amy Pond was in the fair? Maybe… She was trying historic fencing movements. Some combats were done using a buckler too.

Another real fight area. But with gum swords. Girls are very competitive, more than boys.

A paintball rifle range. It reminds me something from USA but made with not so real guns. In Italy firearms are almost prohibited. There were three arenas, one for paintball, one for softair, one for lasergame. The lasergame stand assistant were gorgeous.

The Ludica Bimbi pavilion was where children can live in the wild. Lots of games and activities for 0-10 years children. The fair public was composed for the most by families with children. So we had generic visitors even for other areas. An opportunity to spread the game and modelling culture to people. Keep attention to wild children indeed.

Post number 15 on Lucca Comics & Games (& Cosplay). The final post. I showed to you some of the highlights about this annual event. I hope you enjoyed them as I enjoyed my days spent in this beautiful fair. Here some photos about the evening of the last day, while the ephemeral structures of the fair were dismantled. The emptiness, some trash on the floor, package almost done, vendors on the way to home. It’s strange to walk in pavilions finding so much space, thinking that distances are briefer than you experienced during the day due to the crowd. Andrea saw for the first time some parts of the fair because he was tied to his stand.

Here the official photographic report of the fair:
1 November
2 November
3 November
4 November

Praise to Macaluso, the pagan fat devoutness. Praise to the resurrected and glorified victim of the hunt, a ritual made by fair staff after the closure. They want to give auspices to the realisation of the next fair with this hunt/passion/death/rebirth ritual.

After the dinner we moved toward Terni. We arrived after the 3 of the night, finding Andrea’s house almost flooded. But this is another story…

Next: Ludica Roma, Pabogel and more! I am so late with the schedule but there are too many things to post.

The translation of the sign is “Up with boobs”. After a lot of posts about Lucca Comics & Games we are almost at the end. And now is “the best of show” moment. In the past I spent words about exhibitionism. No more words, only photos. They are young, they are comic & anime fans, they are gorgeous, they want to show their beauty to the world. Thank you.

These photos are not mine. I’m not a professional photographer and I take photos for this blog only with my mobile phone camera. So, to offer to you a more complete view of what is the cosplay in Lucca, I took some photos from Flickr. My images are intentionally small, view the entire photographic report on:
https://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=lucca+cosplay+2012&m=text#page=1

In Lucca Games there was the Miniature Island. Yes, we were on an island in the sea of Lucca Comics & Games (and Cosplay, remember). We were only an island in Lucca Games pavilion too. Boardgames had a larger space and importance because in Italy we have various publishers on the market. This means that more money is involved in this sector than wargames one. Roleplay games are another sector and it has a respectable market. Live roleplay is an obscure sector to me and it was located in another pavilion. But the videogames market rules upon us all.

To celebrate the release of the new chapter of the Assassin’s Creed saga, the third one, an entire pavilion was dedicated to it. A polite statement to say that Ubisoft bought it. They have got the money to do it.

Around the city you could see some projections of this videogame advertisements on the walls. More revealing was the reenactment event of the Saturday, the simulation of Bunker Hill battle (1775). Almost 200 reenactors and lots of gunpowder were involved. We play wargame battles with miniatures, videogame industries play wargame battles with real men. Money makes a difference.

Another money matter. Videogame stands were huge and customised. I forgot to take a picture of the new Nintendo console and its gorgeous girls stand assistants. Among these game giants I took a photo of a wrestling videogame with the straight edge wrestler guy. Weird. Minor Threat – the band who came up in the eighties with the “straight edge” term – didn’t think about this evolution.

Just Dance is the exhibitionists videogame of the fair. Every year a new edition, every year wild girls try to hypnotise men with their rhythmic movements controlled by a game console with video camera. Some stand assistants lead the game. Here at the end of a day. I saw them in the morning, before the open of the gates, dancing without public: they were so crazy for dance to do it for fun! After 4 days in Lucca I was dead tired. And these girls?

An alternative way to utilise your old CRT computer screen: using it as a stage for miniatures.

In Lucca there is always a little modding section. This one was kitsch for sure, a gun with inside and outside various bad taste things, as Smurfs and model cars. Ugly looking.

Something better. But not so practical with that finger-eat fan. Glamorous but too much “open” to be a computer case.

A great machine! Water cooled case. Clean design, neon lights, blue-black-white colours. What can I say? It is sexy.

Paolo from Switzerland came to Lucca by train. Here while he is wearing his new computer headphones. Saturday night we walk together to a place outside Lucca where were relegated the computer geeks. They organised an all night long videogames lan party. Someone fell asleep on the floor, indeed. Instead Paolo, our hero, killed millions of aliens and took the train the morning after at 7 to the watches country.

Diabolik is an Italian comic anti-hero that now celebrates 50 years life. He is a thief who steal for no real reason: it is his nature. He is even an assassin, a cold man that utilise technology in his jobs. He is a spiritual heir of Fantômas.

A couple of Diabolik exhibitions were in Lucca, one inside the Comics Museum and the other one inside an ancient church! It was weird to see the king of the thieves with his dagger in this context!

This comic was very anti-conformist when it was published in that years. Bigoted people and authorities saw in this character a dangerous menace to moral. In 1967 this cover with a girl who wears only a bikini was sequestrated as a porn publication.

Some years after, some bank coined small gold ingots with Diabolik covers as an economical investment…

After a psychotronic film directed by Bava and a childish tv cartoon series, now is the time for a glamorous video series. Sign of the times, during a long 50 years story.

A break from Lucca C&G reports. They will follow next week. Now is the time of Ludica Roma convention! I’m leaving with Andrea “Ganesha Games” Sfiligoi for a three days duty in a huge fair full of wargames, boardgames, videogames and more. A full report here after I will have ended the Lucca series.
See you in Ludica!

Lucca Comics & Games has a wrong name, a better statement would be Lucca Cosplay, Comics & Games. This is the Italian biggest event for cosplayers. This year I was more involved with the Ganesha Games table so I dedicated only few time to take cosplayers photos. Sorry.

These two girls remained all the time on the wall posing for photos. Every day (4) they changed the dresses. They have got a video blog where they speak about their daily experiences in Lucca.

The walk on the bastions are the traditional place for show your cosplay and your legs to people and photographers hordes.

A huge sword and a slight corpse. Yes, the sword isn’t made of steel.

A girl in bikini. A common view in Lucca those days. Look at the girl on the right: a little more heavy as dresses. On the left another girl with an open umbrella. Maybe it wasn’t summer time.

Monsters from famous flicks. It was fun to walk with a bed or a well!

Steampunk, a new subculture that I like. The next year Osprey will publish a book with steampunk wargame rules.

This paunchy chap was just come from a human female abattoir. Or had he devastate a mannikin deposit?

Anime heroes gone bad. This chap impersonate a pop singer from Love Me Knight (“Kiss me Licia” in Italy) anime. Time goes by for us all. And a big belly can be the result. These film producers are specialised in parodies.

A miracle in the parking! A pirate patch was discovered by us on the ground. We suppose that a cosplay recovered sight! Lucca works miracles.

A warm androgynous nude look. And a blast from a fist. Common sights in Lucca.

Another cosplay from anime world. And an easy way to keep close a girlfriend. She is almost a cat, he can remind an Arabian knight. I’m too old, I don’t know all these Japanese series. I don’t know which characters are impersonated by 80% of cosplayers…

This guy is the “reenactment part” of this post. Some people as cosplay costume wear their softair dresses. So they can walk in the streets with (softair) guns. I think that they are prohibited outside specific areas. Even a lot of metal cosplay swords are illegal, I suppose. However, lots of people in Lucca wear costumes so these weapons are saw as part of the fair colour. But there is someone who overdo! This is a Humvee, indeed! This vehicle is labelled as German but the overall aspect is American, with a forest camouflage, I believe. In Italy we don’t have Humvee. The guy wears an Italian desert “vegetata” uniform. A patchwork and another not so legal presence.

What is an action figure? Only some resin parts, glued and painted…

Well, the result is not so simple, these are works of art.

In this post I collected the best of sexy action figures that I saw at the fair. I am a male, so I fell in love with weapons and girls…

The next action figures are less sexy. Because this is porn, sold as an item for anoraks. I don’t think that something like this can easily find a place on all desks or bookshelves. And inside a comic fair? Well, if some manga series support male homosexuality, if Fifty Shades of Grey has sold 60 million copies worldwide and females think about it as literature, maybe these statuettes are not so strange here. So these sculptures are not things for perverts, are only a matter of healthy sex urge. Only some resin parts, glued and painted, do you remember?