Special & Community Guests
Special Guest: Black Gryph0n
Gabriel Brown, aka Black Gryph0n, is a 25-year-old American singer, actor, songwriter and animator who is one of the MLP fandom’s most popular and versatile artists. Musically, Gabe first became known for such songs as "Proud To Be A Brony" and "Paper Sky." As an animator, his “-licious” series (Twilightlicious, Rainbowlicious, Pinkalicious, etc.) was a huge hit. He is also a popular “reactor” on ACRacebest’s Bronies React series. At the age of 18, Gabe joined the US Navy and was training in special operations when he broke his femur in a sky diving accident. He switched to the Navy’s music department and then spent three years touring the Eastern Hemisphere as lead singer for the 7th Fleet Band’s Orient Express. He was awarded three Achievement Medals as "a superb vocalist/entertainer;" singing in 12 languages and multiple genres during hundreds of engagements. Now separated from active duty with an honourable discharge, Gabe has a full-time career as a performing artist with an extensive following around the world. He has released IMmortal, a CD of original songs with his brother Baasik, including hits like "Crusader," "Faster Than You Know," and "Academy." After a successful collaborative cover of Michael Jackson’s "Beat It" with Michelle Creber (voice of Apple Bloom), Gabe and Michelle now work as a duo; recording, performing, touring, creating comedy sketches and releasing co-written original songs.
Special Guests: FiMFlamFilosophy (Greg & Petirep)
Greg: Greg is the writer and primary voice actor behind Rainbow Dash Presents and The Mentally Advanced Series. The Mentally Advanced Series was originally a style of abridged comedy, re-hashing frames from the show into a parody. But more recently, Greg has also taken the role of artist for MAS in order to hide from the inevitable copyright-based robot apocalypse that will one day sue humanity into oblivion. Greg is reclusive and mysterious, and some say he has magic powers. Surprisingly, he met a woman by making fun of cartoon horses and she agreed to marry him.
Petirep: Ryan Petrie, the artist more comonly known as Petirep, is a the co-creator for FiMFlamFilosphy's Rainbow Dash Presents series. Petirep drew all the art and did the editing for the series as well as lent his hand at some voice work. Petirep has been working with FiMFlamFilosophy since 2012 drawing thousands of individual pictures and improving his art skills. Eventually Petirep got a job with popular indie EDM record label Monstercat drawing their album arts and doign various graphic design work. Some other works of note from Petirep include "DinkySharkFighter32," "Alicorn Day," and an upcoming FiMSlam series: Bannana Republic.
Special Guests: Equestria Daily (Sethisto & Calpain)
Sethisto: Sethisto, whose human name is now Sethisto Scootaloo, rose to fame in 2010 with a silly little blog about pastel ponies. Since then, Equestria Daily has reached millions of views and has been clicked on from the depths of Antartica to the one internet-enabled computer used in North Korea. Seth does not know all the show secrets, but he does know all the types of pizza in the world and has experienced them all personally. Seth's favourite pony is Trixie, apart from when it is Luna.
Calpain: What happens when you combine science with a wiggling horse? You get Calpain of course! Calpain, a former biological researcher and an admin on Equestria Daily, is here to represent Equestria Daily along with his fellow blog ponies. Joining the fandom in early 2011 he has seen and done a lot in the community so feel free to ask him anything you please! Plus, don't feel nervous to sign his lab coat, all are welcome!
Special Guest: Kira Buckland (Rina-Chan)
Kira Buckland (aka Rina-chan) is a voice actress who has provided various voices in and out of the My Little Pony fandom. She is probably best known as the voice of Twilight from the PONY.MOV series and Double Rainboom, Mayor Mare from Fighting is Magic, and Colgate from the Brushie videos. She has also been a featured vocalist on songs such as "Lost on the Moon" and "Hooves Up High". Recently she provided the official voice matches of Twilight, Spike, Pinkie and Applejack in the iOS Storybook Apps. As a "fandom girl made good," she's developed a promising career in voice acting for anime and video games with credits including Kill la Kill, Accel World, Blue Exorcist,Skull Girls, and 5 Centimeters per Second, among others.
Community Guest: Saberspark
Saberspark is a YouTuber with a bad case of A.D.D. From documentaries to comedic skits, this guy can never stay in the same place for too long and is always on the move with random ideas. He is also a member of Bronies React and is by far the sexiest person involved in the series.
Community Guest: ACRaceBest
ACRacebest is a Southern Californian YouTuber and the creator of the popular Bronies React; a series that combines some of the fandom's biggest names into one react to various fan-made videos and game-changing MLP episodes. With a big flurry of videos ranging from PMVs to Comedic skits to The Low Budgets (a series devoted to competitively destroying cars), Race is also well known for his Convention Vlogs. Keep an eye out for him during this convention, as there is no doubt he will have his camera rolling and you just may end up in one of his wacky and wild videos. Race got into the fandom late in 2011, and has been producing content ever since. On top of videos, he takes part in racing demolition events and performing live improv comedy in addition to his full time job as a mechanical engineer. One of his biggest fears is finding tomato sauce under a rug during the months of June and July. He would also like to note that Saberspark talks in his sleep and it scares him. Never underestimate the power of a bean.
Community Guest: Dustykatt
Who is this goofball? And why can’t people stop staring at that mustache?
Dusty's life is a manly checklist. The son of an auto worker (have you driven a Ford lately?), high school and college athlete (baseball, football), former bodyguard and ranch hand, trained Big Time wrestler, and Harley mechanic whose custom motorcycles have appeared on the cover of “Easyriders”. A pessimist would say “he can’t make up his mind”; an optimist would say “no single career is big enough for his mustache”.
And he watches a cartoon show intended for little girls. Well, what do you expect from the Manliest Brony in the World?
What’s with that? Well, aside from making him grin like someone who just found a twenty dollar bill in his underwear, it’s given him a chance to do what he does best: ham it up. Dusty is known primarily for his livestreamed podcast “Stay Brony My Friends”, his YouTube videos which have gone viral, and separating convention-goers from their money at charity auctions. Dusty fearlessly treads upon the crushed skulls of YouTube trolls and hack journalists as he destroys stereotypes. What he is most proud of, though, is his fans. The finest bronies in the world (his audience… that includes YOU, right?) have come together to raise over 40,000 dollars for a variety of charities. This has also piqued the curiosity of documentary filmmakers, thus explaining why you can see his ugly mug and manly mustache plastered all over movie theaters.
Do you think he’s crazy? One look at those tattoos and you know the answer is “yes”. But it’s good-crazy. Come join him at http://manliestbrony.com, because crazy is always entertaining.
Stay brony, my friends.
Community Guests: Bronyville
Bronyville has been around forever by the time scale of this fandom. Started by Apple Cider and Chef Sandy back on April 20th, 2011, they were the first podcast in the nascent adult My Little Pony fandom- the bronies. We imagine you know who THOSE people are, given the event you’re at. The team originally consisted of Apple Cider; podcaster, coder, and gentleman, and Chef Sandy; loose cannon, gaymer, and mega nerd. In 2015 we joined forces with Brony Time, a fellow podcast, to expand our crew. Joining us in this endeavor is Alpha, lover of Assassins, Five Iron, ska loving dude and Hats fiend, and Scope, our resident foul-mouthed Astronomer-grumpypants. You can catch our show weekly on Ponyville Live, Ponyville FM, Celestia Radio, and perhaps other places soon.
Community Guests: Legends of Equestria
Legends of Equestria is one of the most ambitious projects in the MLP fandom—a full-fledged MMORPG that lets the player be an Earth Pony, Unicorn, or Pegasus completing quests and socializing in a beautifully-rendered 3D environment based on the show we all love. While it's still in the alpha phase of development, LoE will have an open server weekend during BABSCon, and stations at which one can actually play the game in our Video Gaming room. You, yes YOU, can be a pony for the weekend…what's not to love?
Community Guest: Catie Wayne (Boxxy)
YouTube star Catie Wayne is best known for her viral character, Boxxy. But when she's not applying way too much eyeliner, she can be found on YouTube hosting a number of different shows, including Discovery Digital's Animalist site. She has been an active member of the pony community since 2013. Her greatest pony-venture thus far has been partnering with the Hub Network to create the show Friendship is Recapped, which was launched last year at BABScon. She is thrilled to be a part of BABScon yet again, and can't wait to see you!
Community Guest: ILoveKimPossibleAlot
ILoveKimPossibleAlot (KP) is a critic, reviewer, and analyst in the Brony community. Don't let the username fool you, she packs a punch with her content! She is most well recognized for her tribute to Discord's voice actor John de Lancie with her video "Let's Go and Meet John de Lancie". With over 60,000 subscribers, she is known for her humor, her wit, her movie referencing power and being the #1 Discord fangirl on the interwebs! "
Community Guest: Lochlan O'Neil
Lochlan O’Neil, also known as Too Rad Cosplay is a prolific My Little Pony cosplayer who has been in the fandom since 2011. Upon entering the Brony community, her love of Pinkie Pie inspired her to make her first cosplay. Since then, she has cosplayed over 20 different My Little Pony characters, including Adagio Dazzle, Coco Pommel, and Sunset Shimmer. Lochlan has attended several conventions across the country such as Bronycon, Denver Comic Con, Anime Weekend Atlanta, and many more. At these conventions she has run pony related events and panels ranging from cosplay photoshoots to how to design pony cosplays to her ever popular “Ask-A-Pony” panel. Lochlan also has several notable fandom voice acting rolls such as Applejack and Granny Smith in Doctor Whooves the Great, and Rainbow Dash in Derpypony22’s “My Little Dashie” miniseries. In addition to running several panels at BABScon on cosplaying, she will also be hosting the Cosplay Contest.
Community Guest: Equestria Plush
My name is Marie, aka EquestriaPlush. It is a great honor to be asked to be a community guest. Thank you all at BabsCon for thinking of us.
First, about me. I have been sewing since I was little. My grandmother and mother taught me. Before making My Little Pony plushies. I did wedding dresses, bridesmaids and flower girl dress. Fairytale type weddings. My real love was costuming. I have done renaissance style outfits. Almost every Disney/Fairy tale princess.
But for the last four years I have been making MLP ponies. I was brought into the fandom first by my son Aaron and then by my girlfriends daughter Jourdan. Since that first day four years ago I have never looked back! I LOVE MLP the ponies are adorable and so much fun. After attending my first convention I was all in. I have never seen or meet such wonderful people. If only everyday could be filled with such “friendship”. EquestriaPlush is a whole family adventure Myself, my husband Steve and two sons Aaron and Alex are all Bronies. Also my best friend and “adopted” daughter Jourdan. You can always catch us together at the conventions.
Community Guests: The Paper Pony
The Paper Pony consists of a husband and wife duo bringing all manners of nerdiness to life out of cardstock paper. After a Christmas idea gone right, we’ve become addicted to seeing what our favorite characters look like cut out of paper and stretching the limits of the papercraft medium.
We’re lucky that MLP dropped into our lives once upon an unsuspecting trip to Netflix, and are so happy to be reaching out to more of the fandom by traveling to every convention we can get our hooves on! Our drive to see more folks smile by creating a wide variety of pieces, teaching papercraft, and creating the best art we can for charity items, has made the past two years in the MLP art scene some of our happiest .
We look forward to more conventions, more art collabs, more paper and of course, more ponies in 2015!
Community Guests: Everfree Motorsports
Everfree Motorsports, or EFM for short, is a Sim Racing Club primarily for Bronies founded in 2011. We organize live tournaments and weekly online motorsport series of varying classes, primarily on games from the Forza Motorsport series.
For BABScon, we will host a station in the gaming room, comprising of Two, maybe three, TVs hooked up to Xbox 360s playing Forza Motorsport 4, all of which are connected to Xbox Live if possible. Each Xbox will have a massive library of pony themed race cars created by our members from around the world. Players will be free to select from any of these cars to use for Free Play, Tournaments, a Hot Lap Contest, Races with our members over Xbox Live, etc. If possible, we can have a separate leaderboard for the VIP Guests. Attendees can also spectate official EFM races with possible live commentary.
The centerpiece of this station is a Replica NASCAR Stock Car Cockpit, wrapped in a livery designed by one of our members. It too is installed with a TV and Xbox 360 with Forza Motorsport 4, and connected to Xbox Live. It will have the same library of cars for players to choose from. Players will be able to sit in the rig and control the same library of cars like they're driving a real race car. The rig can be used for the same activities as the other Xboxes."
Community Guest: Solrac (aka YapLap)
Solrac (also known as Yaplap) unintentionally joined the fandom after posting a “Leak” of the Second Season’s MLP:FiM Intro, only to blast away the viewer with an ear-shattering, yet oddly entertaining screaming cover. Since then, Solrac continued to scream various MLP:FiM songs, collaborated with various Brony Musicians, and teamed up with ACRacebest to create the infamous “Bronies React” series.
Besides shouting to the top of his lungs, Solrac has a great vision for new and original projects, such as the Never-Ending tribute to Fan-art: SOLRACUEST or the upcoming Animated Series: Solrac Ventures. Is it his burning passion to create, or devastating anger he applies into his work? Or his love to entertain an audience? Or his flowing mane, that make Solrac so widely loved by almost everyone he meets.
If you see him walking around the con, don’t be afraid to greet him, he loves to make new friends! (Don’t worry, he won’t shout at you, too loudly.)
Community Guest: Silver Eagle (Ponyville Live!)
Howdy! My name is Silver Eagle, and I serve as the director of the Ponyville Live! media network. For over two years, I have been building and maintaining the homepage of PVL as it has become the fandom’s leading source of live pony radio, video streams, podcasts, convention coverage and more. When I’m not working with the PVL network, I’m a professional web developer, PC and board gamer, moviegoer and general nerd person.
I’m honored to be invited back this year to BABScon 2015, one of my very favorite conventions. I get to see so many awesome guests in an exciting city far from my homeland of Texas. I look forward to seeing everything the convention has to offer from behind the lens of a camcorder, as I work with my awesome team at Ponyville Live! to bring live streaming footage of the convention out to the web. Check us out @PonyvilleLive on Twitter or at ponyvillelive.com, or come say hello to us at the con!
Community Guest: Chelis
Chelis joined Horse News when the organization was in its first stages of infancy, and between then and now was part of the rise of one of pony media’s biggest juggernauts; achieving the spot as one of their admins of the site along the way. Chelis has covered some of the fandom’s biggest events through Horse News, such as the first closure of EQLA, the announcement of Sunset Shimmer playing a major role in Rainbow Rocks, and his multi-part investigation of the disturbing trend of “anti-brony” Tumblr blogs.
When Chelis began to write fanfiction again in the summer of 2013, he did not expect the success he has achieved. He’s considered one of the 'up and coming' humanized/Equestria Girls fanfiction writers of the fandom, and has enjoyed success with popular titles such as “The Girls”, “Us Against the World”, and much anticipated “The Devil Inside”. He can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chelis714 , and his stories can be viewed at http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Chelis
Community Guest: CapperGeneral
I'm CapperGeneral, lead writer for Horse-News.net and general nuisance. Member of the fandom since the beginning, and unintentional lightning rod between the cradle and the community. Spent years in the shadows, before spilling out into the public's view. You may have used my caps, read my posts, heard my voice on TER, or more likely attended one of the numerous...social gatherings I've helped organize over the years. You may have also donated to a food bank in memory of my death 2 years ago, or are wearing one of my shirts from last year. Definitely not a representative of the board I call home, but doing the best I can. The things you don't know I've done are far more entertaining, than the things you do know. I Want To Cap Infinitely Repeating Digits.
Community Guest: SilverSlinger
While excellent craftsmanship isn’t all that rare in the brony community, SilverSlinger has some impressive skills that set him apart from the rest. Rather than using paper, fabric, or clay, he performs intricate work with various metals (sometimes accented with beautiful stones or enameling) and creates absolutely stunning pieces of jewelry! SilverSlinger became a brony back in February of 2012, under the alias of ChaoticBrony. After seeing how much My Little Pony has inspired so many to create such beautiful works of art, he decided that he too wanted to contribute to the brony fandom. Therefore, he combined his love of My Little Pony with his 10 years of jewelry designing experience and has made many beautiful designs that are worn by thousands of bronies worldwide.
Community Guest: Toon Kritic
Hailing proudly from the Windy City of Chicago, he is the self-procalimed Colt of Personality; ToonKriticY2K’s the name and toons are the name of his game! Toon Kritic, or Toon or TK as he's been called, has been doing reviews for over 5 years on his YouTube channel and balances reviews of not just technicolor horses but reviews on animated content ranging from Disney to the obscure. As long as it's animated, it counts. He's had experience working with some of the most well known reviewers in the community from Joshcorcher to Silver Quill, to Dr Wolf and to Voice of Reason. A movie buff and lover of many fandoms, Toon's one true passion lays in his watchful eye over the "Bronalysis" community, determined to bring out the best in newcomers and veterans alike. Come and check out the Brony Reviewing 101 panel to see him and an entourage of well known reviewers in person! And as always, stay tooned!
Community Guest: Foalpapers
Foalpapers is a postgraduate student in the UK, currently studying for an MA in classics. His current research focuses on the reception of Greek Mythology in Children’s media, he has presented the findings of his research at numerous professional conferences and fan conventions alike. He has also participated in a number of large, online fandom charity fundraisers and community projects that have raised tens of thousands of dollars for various MLP-inspired charitable endeavors. Aside from his renowned demeanor, he is well known for bringing insightful commentary on his twitter, @foalpapers, and towards ensuring a “Friendship par excellence” among followers, attendees, and fans alike. Foalpapers will be moderating several panels at BABSCon, including a certain writers panel that dares to venture to unexplored terrains of literary insight on the fantastical world of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Community Guest: Sherclop Pones
BABscon is excited to welcome back the Dynamic duo who make up the "insanely" popular creative team Sherclop Pones! Come meet the mad brains behind such fan favorites as "Friendship is Witchcraft and "Kimmi Sparkle." Hilarity and witty quips are sure to be had, along with a few possible sneak peeks at future projects!
Community Guest: Horrible People Games
This Seattle-based game development studio is responsible for creating, by far, one of the most successful card-based gaming crazes to sweep the fandom to date: Twilight Sparkle’s Secret Shipfic Folder. As the name implies, it is a very silly card game about shipping ponies. Twilight Sparkle is Equestria’s most prolific (and horrific) fanfic author. She ships herself, her friends, and her family, regardless of relation, orientation, or harmonious mane-and-coat color combination. The team from Horrible People Games will be present at BABSCon, with a con-exclusive card release, a “behind the development” panel, a tournament, and much more!
Community Guest: Silver Quill
Also known as, “The Brony Fandom’s Sole Known Reviewing Hippogryph”, Silver-Quill is a talented analyst, artist, and personality responsible for creating the After the Fact series of reviews of episodes, comics, and other MLP related topics and content.
Community Guest: Starlight Studios
This passionate team of fandom game developers has moved on from the successful release of MLP online to bring you their newest title, MegaMare X - A homage to the Megaman X Series. MegaMare X is derived from a completely original game engine, with run-and-gun mechanics, custom retro-style artwork, music, creatures, and other unique group-built features. Check out their panel and demo-booth in Button's Arcade!
Community Guest: Creativity Kitchen
This top-notch group of fandom animators has been responsible for such memorable animation projects, such as Rainbow Factory, Fighting is Magic, Super Smash Ponies. They’re currently working an ambitious new, show-styled animation called Dinky’s Destiny, and will be performing an official pre-release at the Fan Animation Panel.