San Francisco Comic Con 2017

Saturday in the Shindig Dress. Photo courtesy of Ashely Soucar (Pictured here as Rey)

San Francisco Comic Con has come and gone and it was another successful weekend!

It was unusually hot (106F at my house; 108F at Moscone Center West), so I shook up my initial cosplay plans to try to accommodate that. I went with Rey for Friday, since it's the most comfortable and most breathable cosplay I own, Kaylee for Saturday, since I would have a car to accommodate the cage crinoline, and I was on the fence for Sunday, but ultimately went with Elsa. It was still more than a little unpleasant and I was insanely grateful for the AC in the Moscone Center. 

A Skeksis! He won the masquerade. 

This was my first year at SFCC and I was very impressed. There weren't quite as many panels I was interested in as I'd hoped, but there was an excellent range of local artists and illustrators in the vendor's hall and Moscone West is well laid out for people watching and photos.

SFCC was a much larger con than Wizard World Sac and the diversity of cosplays was awesome!  Of course, there was still a strong showing of Deadpools and Harley Quinns and more than a few Wonder Women and Reys (myself included), but so many underrepresented fandoms too! Not only did I encounter three other Kaylees (all Jumpsuit Kaylees, but still awesome), but three different Malcolm Reynolds and a Wash! I also saw three different Battlestar cosplayers (a Starbuck, a Boomer, and a general Viper pilot), some fantastic Moanas (plus a Te Ka and a Sharkhead Maui!), and an Eggs from Boxtrolls! I was so impressed with everyone (particularly the eight year old Wonder Woman and the seven year old Sabine from Star Wars Rebels who'd made their own armor!) and I had a fantastic time seeing what everyone had come up with. I even skipped out on several panels to just watch all the amazing costumes come and go.

There were quite a few Beetlejuice cosplayers, but this one was my favorite!

I did enter the costume contest on Saturday (in the Shindig dress again) - I'm getting better about being in front of a crowd, but it's slow going. This masquerade was larger than the last one and included a prejudging session, where you were able to actually speak to the judges about the work you put into the cosplay and they could see it up close. It also ultimately streamlined there main event, for which everyone was grateful. Someone must have misjudged a bit in the setup, because the backstage area was very tight and we all end up packed in like sardines and roasting hot. I was fortunate enough to meet some amazing creators and awesome humans in the contest line up regardless and it was a very positive experience overall.

My cosplays did fairly well throughout the weekend, for the most part. Rey held up fine, but I was stepped on pretty severely in my Shindig dress and I'll ultimately want to replace the bottom ruffle. The Elsa dress has a few loose seams in the train (another unfortunate side effect of being stepped on) that will need to be addressed and I did forget a wig cap for my Elsa wig. I ended up abandoning the wig halfway through the day - it looked dreadful and just wasn't worth it. Much to my displeasure, it looks as though I'm going to need a new Elsa wig  - the fibers on my current one don't hold a style well and tangle terribly.

And that's it for summer cons this year! Hope everyone had as excellent a summer as I did!

Wizard World Sacramento 2017

Kaylees and a Deadpool!

It's been over a week now since Wizard World Comic Con in Sacramento and despite being over 100 degrees Fahrenheit every since day, it was a successful weekend of cosplay and panel going!

Friday was mostly a bust - traffic on the the way up from the Bay Area was a massive headache and, even though we expected it to be a mess, it still took us over three hours to reach our hotel and all the panels for the day had finished. I'd brought my Merida dress for Friday, but it was late enough and so unbearably hot, I decided against it and instead we just popped over to the venue in street clothes to pick up wrist bands and then headed off into the heat for drinks.

Saturday panels of interest didn't start until noon-ish and we'd planned to get in some photos of both my Merida and Shindig dresses at the park in the morning, but the heat was so ungodly, even at 8 AM, we decided against it and just lounged in the air-conditioned hotel room. Around 10 AM, I went ahead and steamed and pressed my Shindig Dress for the day and we wandered over to the show floor around 11.

Of course I had to say hello to the puppy!

I was so pleased with how the Shindig dress wore. It was a little stuffy on top, even in the AC, and I was unable to sit easily in chairs (it can be done, but not particularly gracefully), but otherwise I was really, really happy. I was asked if I was Princess Peach perhaps a dozen times, but everyone who identified the Shindig dress was super excited to see it.

We wandered in between the floor and panels for most of the afternoon before I went back to change for dinner - the cage crinoline wasn't really appropriate for the restaurant and I was able to steam my top again before we jetted off for food.

After dinner, it was costume contest time. I re-curled my hair and headed over to line up. I'm not much of a judge of contest size, but it was a fairly efficient sort of thing and I was asked about the ruffles on my dress and didn't fall, despite not having my glasses on (can't do contacts and my vision is just this side of blind), so that was successful. The Shindig Dress didn't place, but I wasn't terribly surprised - there were some seriously impressive makers there that night.

Sunday was mostly a day of panels. We packed the car and I changed into my Jakku Rey cosplay before we headed to the venue. It a nice and relaxed day of sitting in the lovely air conditioned rooms in my most comfy of cosplays and listening to excellent folk be excellent. We did end up ducking out before the last panel of the day to beat some traffic. (Spoiler: We didn't beat traffic and sat for ages off the bridge waiting for an accident to clear).

It was a great weekend over all and now it's time to repair and recover for SF Comic Con in September!