A weekend filled to the brim with creativity and generosity

I am writing this after 14 hours of much needed sleep, but I want to write this post with the previous weekend still fresh in my mind. My expectations of the weekend were high because the first edition was such a huge succes, but the Kamping Kitbash organisers completely blew my mind again. 

DAY 1

After a surprisingly smooth journey from Brussels to Leuven I arrived at the Kamping Kitbash event grounds. A big yellow mansion on the top of a hill, surrounded by beautiful trees. After meeting some new people and seeing some familiar faces from last year I took the opportunity to set up my stuff for the creators table. I went all out this year and spent all my free time making stuff for Kamping Kitbash. I made sculpting handles, plinths, loads of resin casts and I even had some old dentist tools for sale. Most importantly, I also sculpted Pebbles the Kamping Kitbash mascotte, and made 80 casts of them!

And then came the opening ceremony. Last year we were all super glued into a giant human chain as a literal bonding mechanism, so I was genuinly curious to see what the organisers had planned. What followed was a hilarious play with three silly wizards making a creativity potion. A very fitting prelude for the weekend.

 

 

Following these magical wizards it was time for my first workshop. My good friend Terran from Conjured Craft fame organized a workshop to make sculpting tools from sticks, and since I am a staunch follower of the 'you can never have enough tools' philosophy I obviously had to join. After a scavenger hunt in the surrounding bushes we all came back to the table and made some incredible tools. I already knew Terran was an amazing teacher, but they really hit the ball out of the park with this one. 

I spent the evening chatting with friends while crafting and drinking some fine Belgian beers, which made a lovely end to the first day.

DAY 2

 Immediately after breakfast it was my time to shine, because I signed up to do a 'participant led' workshop. My preferred type of clay for sculpting is polymer clay, because it hardens when you bake it, in stead of curing over time like epoxy clay does. Unfortunately you can't put your plastic models in the oven, so you might think that polymer clay doesn't lend itself very well for kitbashing. To disprove this notion, I organized a 'sculpting bits with polymer clay' session. I assure you that this was not an elaborate scheme to sell more of the sculpting handles and tools I brought to the event. 

The workshop went very well if you'd ask me! I feel like people tend to hold off on sculpting because they don't know where to begin, and a workshop like this can be a good 'icebreaker' to start a new hobby journey. 

The afternoon was completely free for me, so I decided to do something that I hardly ever do. I started a kitbash project. I jumped head first into the bits bath and grabbed whatever piece that spoke to me. For some reason I kept finding the same mini over and over again, so eventually I gave up on finding another and decided to use it for my project. I grabbed a 3D printed coffin, a cool looking sword and one of the plinths I brought. I did a simple repose of the main body and since I couldn't find a head I liked I sculpted a classic cultist hood. Thank you Veronica for the story about Lucia and Stjärngossar that provided the idea for a star on the hood.

That evening Shane hosted a very special collaborative storytelling horror game called Ten Candles. Shane is a horror connoisseur and he absolutely delivered. We played outside in the dark, with ten candles spread out over the table. Our characters all had different traits that we could literally sacrifice to alter the story. Taking your paper card with the trait and burning it with the candle while explaining your addition to the story line is the most cult thing I have ever done. 

DAY 3

In the morning of day 3 I drank way more coffee than what was good for me, so I went for a little walk in the neighborhood to try and get my energy levels down. After lunch it was time for my second workshop, 'worldbuilding through mask making' also led by Shane. I was specifically looking forward to this, but I was entirely unprepared for how much this workshop captivated my creative drive. Shane asked us before even starting to put anything to paper to close our eyes and say out loud what we wanted to use as a theme for the mask. I heard someone say 'rotting seaweed', another said 'trees' and I came up with 'Unknowing'. Throughout the workshop Shane would ask questions about who would make your kind of mask. Why are they making the mask? What sound does the mask make? People who felt comfortable could respond out loud. I was fully immersed from the moment I closed my eyes in the beginning of the workshop. I feel like the coffee from this morning and Shane's well placed questions allowed me to go into a level of hyper focus I haven't experienced before. I had a cardboard box, a scalpel and a roll of tape, and when I was finished I only had three thumb-sized pieces of cardboard left. I will be incorporating the lore in my DnD setting, so I'm sure it will come up on this blog somewhere in the future. 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and so does Kamping Kitbash. The event ended with an award show, to celebrate all the amazing people who helped making this event as good as it was. Looking back at the event now I realize it were the people who made it this successful. The dozens of volunteers who gave their time to everything from logistics, to cooking, cleaning, answering questions and endless demands for more coffee. The organizers putting in the time to put all this together. The people hosting workshops sharing their knowledge. The participants for sharing their tools and ideas. And all the people getting together and sharing the crafting and dining table. To me this level of generosity and community building is exactly what the world needs in these trying times we live in. 

The last evening started off with tears of laughter with a hilarious cabaret/circus show. The rest of the evening was spent laughing, chatting, drinking, and playing an absolute banger of a game, Bugs Platoon by Martin McCoy (expect this maelstrom of lore and storytelling excellence somewhere in the near future on Kickstarter!).