(Cover image: Production Office)

In this blog series, we will report on the production progress and other news of The Expanse each week. We will collect the latest social media and press activity from the show’s production team, cast, and the community. We hope this series will be useful for those who are not able to closely monitor social media, and provide an easy way to catch up on all the latest Expanse updates each week.

To catch up on the previous week of updates, check out our last post here.

Production

This week, the Production Office, as well as other members of the crew, continued sharing occasional photos and insights into the production process, which is now a week into Block 2. For those interested, check out the PO’s tweet about the instruction labels the crew leaves around on set; and here is a quick video clip of Brian Hui, the makeup artist on set, applying Dominique Tipper’s (Naomi Nagata) Belter neck tattoo. Wes Chatham also shared this video of a tube light array being positioned for a shot on the New Terra set, for the fellow mechanics in the fanbase.

The PO also shared some photos from a new location set built inside a barn in Dundas, Ontario, and an executive from Amazon visited the set! For more updates like this, we recommend following the Production Office on Twitter and Instagram, as well as the show’s Director of Photography, Jeremy Benning Csc.

In other news, Orbit Books is hosting a sweepstakes competition which you can enter for a chance to win the entire The Expanse book series. You can sign up for it here. Unfortunately, this competition is limited to US residents – sorry, rest of the planet.

Speaking of the rest of the planet, it appears that Season 3 of The Expanse is not coming to Amazon Prime in Europe just yet. Redditor u/floppart spotted a list of Prime Germany releases for next month, from which our favorite sci-fi series is sadly still missing. We will continue to keep our ears to the ground for any updates on this.

In more uplifting news, The Expanse was featured in this article by Aerospace America, the official magazine of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The article acknowledges the series’ realistic approach to science and space exploration, a much-praised trait that attracts not only die-hard sci-fi fans but aerospace and other scientific experts to the show.

Finally, two cast members celebrated their birthdays last week – everyone’s favorite villain, François Chau (Jules-Pierre Mao); and Elias Toufexis (Kenzo/Protomolecule hybrids), who performs motion capture for the protomolecule hybrids since his character, Kenzo, was unceremoniously consumed by the protomolecule on Eros in Season 1. If you haven’t already, be sure to follow François and Elias on Twitter and wish them a happy one.

That’s all for production news – read on for some updates from the community.

Community

The community has been fairly active the past week, with a lot of fantastic new fan art and cosplay being shared online.

First, The Expanse was mentioned in the web-comic strip Mr. J Comics, which you can check out here. Thanks, Mr. J! Be sure to follow him and his work on Twitter. Meanwhile, resident space bartenders Paine × MacTane released their 60th cocktail recipe, named after Xinlong, the rock hopper flown by Diogo’s uncle, Mateo. Check it out here. If you’re in the Baltimore area, be sure to catch them teaching Lang-Belta at ChessieCon next month.

The cosplay competition hosted by Christina Ward (@theora666) concluded last week, with many more great entries and other cosplay outside the competition being shared. All three factions were thoroughly represented: Our own @Fadawah dressed up as a dashing MCRN officer, backed up by heavily armored marine @EddStoke. Even Lieutenant Lopez from Season 1 received some love from @ProteanAudio.

Team Earth came out with some stunning Avasarala cosplay by @KaraTStarbuck, while @SonOfRackham and @Capt_Napalm were “those guys”, dressing up as Rocinante mechanic and muscle Amos Burton. Here is a closer look at the shotgun prop Napalm designed for his costume.

Proud Belters likewise kept up the pressure with more Millers by @anna_rake, a Miller & Julie couple cosplay by u/dandelioneaterX, and even an adorable baby Miller who got to visit the set! More fans constructed Belter spacesuits, including @WebKarls and @thebuildatorium, and Diogo was represented by @sriz6 on Instagram.

Christina has sent off the entries to the guest judges, so keep an eye out for the winners to be announced on Halloween. There were quite a few this week so we apologize if we missed some in this post!

We’ve also seen a lot of new fan-art pop up across the solar system last week. Multiple sightings of the Rocinante have been spotted: This excellent sketch by @sp00ny_bard; an adorable Lego Roci by u/azoreg; some good old Tachi school vandalism shared by u/MisterPunchRockgroin. There was also this to-scale 3D render of the Rocinante having a day off in London’s River Thames, and this not-to-scale 3D print of the ship by @jeanettemueller. The OPAS Behemoth received some 3D treatment from @aebdigital as well in this stunning recreation.

Our beloved characters have not been forgotten by fans either. Local renaissance man @BoraAKutlu has been sharing more glamourous edits for nearly every major character, and @lilifane.art on Instagram has produced beautiful drawings of Avasarala and a Protomolecule-infected Julie.

A couple of interesting videos were posted as well. Gamers may be interested in this weapon mod test conducted by Henry Wilkie in Space Engineers using in-game recreations of the Rocinante and Agatha King. Youtuber First-Pass also posted this in-depth technical analysis of the MCRN Donnager and how it would perform compared to some other well known science-fiction starships.

Also, here are some ‘Remember The Cant’ pumpkins to celebrate the Halloween spirit: One by u/Happy_Heathan, even featuring Holden’s likeness, and another by u/KittyCatherine11.

That’s all for this week, folks. Check back next Monday for a rundown of the upcoming week in the world of The Expanse. For those interested, our detailed record of Expanse-related web activity for this month, courtesy of human super-computer SkalmanIsDaMan, is available here. As always, if we missed something you think belongs in this article, please get in touch with us and let us know!

Signing off,
Ed