Salt Lake Comic Con 2017

 This year we went all out on costumes.  For some unknown reason, other than our apparent desire to torment ourselves, we decided to create two new group cosplays.  One for the contest and one for us.  I gave you an update a while back on our plan but things evolved as they often do.

My husband shaved his head.  I can't remember why he did it and I can't seem to recall if the costume idea inspired the head shaving or if it came about after he shaved his head.  In any case, he wanted to be Emperor Ming.  I think you would agree with me that it was very successful.  




Since my hubby wanted to be Ming, I had to decide between General Kala and Princess Aura.  Since I am not a small woman, most of Aura's costumes were just not going to be in my comfort zone.  Kala worked out great and and I was quite comfortable.  We didn't get many photo requests this year but more than any other year people would smile or stop us to talk about how they loved this movie as a kid.  Peoples faces lit up when they saw us.  That was pretty awesome.  We were scrambling to get all the costumes done and I couldn't have done it without my friend Bonnie's help.

 My favorite part was when someone asked us for a photo and my brother, playing Flash Gordon, was in the background trying to fit in and the guy taking the photo was getting really annoyed this random bozo was photo bombing us.  He finally realized we were all together and felt bad.

 My hubby built our lightsabers from scratch.  I made my lekku using a paper model and painting dragon skin silicon over it.  I sewed all of my hubby and I's costumes including making my very first pattern and my hubby did all the armor.

So now we get to the costume contest.  *sigh*  It was not my favorite part.  It took all but 3 hours of the day.  A day for which we paid admission and got to see nothing of the Con.  Waiting in line for my brother's judging, moving the line, getting moved again, being moved to a side room, finally being called in to get photos, going back to waiting, being called back in for registration, going back to the room to wait, being called back in to stand in line for judging, brother getting judged, going back into the room to wait for group judging....it was a long day.  We also had no chance of winning.  People asked me why I was sneering in every photo....a couple of reasons, but the top two are...

1. I was annoyed. My lip just kept doing that on it's own.
2. This stuff hurt after a while....not bad but my lekku and custom balaclava were tight to help keep fiber fill stuffed dragon skin on my head.  Don't get me wrong, I thought it looked cool, but by the end of the day I had bruises on my forehead and jaw. 

 There were some absolutely breath taking costumes even in the amateur category but the group cosplays were ridiculously out of our talent range.  The winning group costume was Cinderella and the two step sisters which looked great.. It got even better when they ripped and tore the custom dress they had made for Cinderella on stage to reenact the scene from the movie exactly.  I don't know how they did it but it was all on purpose.  They did it several times during the judging contest and they just reset it.  It was awesome.

Over all we accomplished exactly what we set out to do.  We tried new skills, we tried a new experience and we went out with a bang!  We sure learned a lot of how not to do things but we also were pretty proud of what we put together.

The costume plan

All right my fellow minions.  It's going to be another very busy year.  We may be adding FanX to our line up of events which will bring the total of Cons to 3 this year.  AHHHH!
Why?  Well, apparently our Power Rangers line up was fairly popular and they want us there for the opening weekend of the movie.  Plus, Weird Al is going to be there this year and I'VE NEVER MET HIM AND THAT WOULD BE EPIC!!!!

Anyway...

We also have planned on Disney this year which will require some planning and we have another family trip this year.  That's a lot of travel.  In addition, my brother has decided that we need to step up our costume game.  He wants to enter the costume contest and SLCC is pretty picky and so we need to get moving on Costumes.

This year my brother wants to do Star Wars.  A good thing to have in the repertoire.  He's doing an original character that is going to be epic.  My hubby is going to attempt a mashup.  Starlord Mandalorian Merc and I'm going to attempt a Sith Inquisitor.  Of course I want to do well enough that I can enter the costume contest too but we'll see.  That's a pretty ambitious costume.



We started by doing the easy thing.  We are making ghetto dress forms.  I taped up my hubby and we are going to fill it up with gap fill foam.  The cold weather has reduced the amount of expansion we got so it's going to take a few more cans to finish this project up.




Next we need to make a list of what we need to make and start experimenting with new materials.

Here's to latex headpieces, thibra armor and some serious attention to my sewing skills.