Monday, April 30, 2012

Calgary Expo 2012 - We came, we saw, we Nerded Out!



Mrs Spiderman, Lady GyRox, Nyx Matia, and The Romanator
Holy crowds Batman! I'm going to start this post off with a little bit of a summary of the weekend and then go into my own experience. As I experienced some of what the news touched on, and some things are just more awesome for the media to even understand! :) I'm just smattering pictures that I took throughout the weekend up. There were so many more pictures, so check out the Flickr stream for more!

Who ya Gonna Call???


Everone with weapons wanted to pose with the Romanator!
Organizers of the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo anticipated 35,000 visitors over the three days of April 27-29, 2012.... By Friday night, the radios were announcing that the expectation jumped to 50,000. The Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo is a Non Profit Organization which means that 90% of the people you see running around trying to help people are volunteers. Which means all you people that were standing there screaming at the volunteers, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Got talk to an organizer, or someone paid to listen to you complain... Don't yell at the kid who's just trying to make everyone happy!


Batman & Bane got 'arrested'
Now I'm going to talk about my problem. All articles point to the great and powerful "once in a lifetime" reunion of TNG being the SOLE REASON why people mobbed the event. The Calgary Herald went a little further to casually mention Stan Lee and perhaps Adam West were to 'blame' for the increased hype surrounding the event. Now let's go back to my post here. Where I mentioned MY reasons for going to Calgary Expo..... It's ok, you can go, I'll wait... Back yet? Awesome.
Was too excited to take one nice shot










That's where I mentioned EVERYONE ELSE who was attending... Which, dear reporters and 'analysts' means that many of those people that went to this year's Calgary Expo were there to see one of the hundreds of Guests and Artists participating in the event. Upcoming Main Rant Warning: I AM SICK OF THE LOCAL MEDIA COVERING THIS EVENT AS IF THERE IS NO ONE IN THIS CITY THAT IS INTERESTED IN ANYTHING BUT "NORMAL" STUFF. Stop acting surprised as to there being interest in the "comic expo". Educate yourself on our media before you go sounding all judgey in your articles and blogs. Thank you.
One of the most amazing Cosplays I've ever seen!
Back to my summary... So Saturday came around, and by noon, no one was leaving and everyone else was showing up... Which means that the fire marshals saw what was going on and shut the place down. No one in until their say so... Which resulted in many people getting locked out and/or going home. Sunday came around and those who got locked out were either really pissed off and didn't show up, or understanding enough that they patiently waited in line while the volunteers counted every.single.person that walked through the doors! Also, Sunday was when the heavy hitters were back to back in the largest panel room (The Corral). All in all, there were some great things that happened, there were some mishaps. I'm still pissed about it all being "all Trek all the time" because even the post interviews that are happening with major media outlets are still talking about which "Trek" person they can bring in next year (barf), but I actually enjoyed myself, and am actually planning on going back next year!

So let's start at the beginning and I can tell you about my personal experiences, the good, the bad, and the nerdy!
*********************************************************************************

Dejathoris & Mrs Spiderman (Fangbanger & Sookie)

Friday came around and I could barely contain myself. All I could think about was the Comic Expo. And I had to do grown up things like finalize my taxes and call the bank... Which is really difficult to do when all you want to do is behave like a 12 year old girl at a boy band concert. Dejathoris planned to take the last flight out possible to her beloved friend's wedding in Sask. In our last minute revelation, we decided to dress up as Sookie and a Fangbanger for the evening. We headed down to the Stampede grounds around 5pm. By the time we got there, we were parking on the other side of the lot, and trekking our way across the entire Stampede grounds to get inside. Doors only opened at 3, so it seemed like it was an indicator of how the weekend was going to turn out. Once we got inside, the Volunteers at registration were lovely enough to give me all my passes up front (I purchased Saturday only passes for GyRox and her family). That was a really great note. The sad note around this arrival was there were NO SIGNS
Spiderman Lego Art by Brickwares
outside telling me which way to go. So we actually entered the building on the complete wrong side and had to walk all the way around. That was the neg. Now I will know for next year, but I'm sure visitors might appreciate the heads up! Inside was a geeks sensory overload. The room we entered in first was the Autograph/Photo op section. All cement and temporary curtain walls all over the place. Some food vendors set up, with line ups as long as Adam West's Autograph line! Adam Baldwin came across as a real trouper, with stories of him being really courteous and friendly to all his visitors! We maneuvered as quickly as we could out of the main room and headed over to the vendors hall. To which we became completely numb with how much geekery was to be seen. Everywhere you turned there were either costumes, cosplay, photos, artistry, and hand made geek couture. It was breathtaking.              

Nyx Matia needed a picture to commemorate the wall of Tshirts!


     I think I walked around with the most stunned look on my face. Many of the other con-goers were just like me and there was a lot of bumping into each other because we really had no idea where we were heading! There weren't any panels that we really wanted to see so we were just taking it all in, getting the lay of land, if you will. We got tired pretty quickly and headed out and over to the Casino to have a cocktail and call it a day. Honestly, in retrospect, I think Friday tired me out the most! It took every effort to stay up and watch Fringe (so that I would be all caught up for the 11Am panel with John Noble and Jasika Nicole the next day!).



Danerys Cosplay. Had to tell her of our future plans!
Saturday morning, and I'm up bright and early to get ready. I wanted to get as much stuff done as possible before my newb cosplayers GyRox and her kids Nyx Matia and Romanator showed up. And I realized while I was getting ready, I've worn Indira three times now and have forgotten a to wear a bindi EACH TIME! So I quickly grabbed some gears and stuck them to my forehead with some eyelash glue. The crew arrived and I showed off their costumes to them. I'll do a seperate post on the work up of their Steampunk. We're just going to focus on the Con here. We got ready and headed down to the grounds at around 10am. We made a quick stop at the bank, to which we ended up walking into a bank dressed in full Steampunk Cosplay. I'm so glad I had others with me! I drove around on Sunday looking for a Tim's Drive Thru in normal clothes but wouldn't get out of my car because I already had my Weekend Pass on!
I may have missed the Reboot panel, but I'm glad I didn't miss this Hexadecimal Cosplay!

So take everything you read about Saturday's Calgary Expo with a grain of salt. Yes it was a little bit of a disaster, but they learned from it and will be better next year for it. Parking was a HOT.MESS. People were all trying to get into the main parking, and I just wanted to get into the overflow parking. People were not respecting the lines around the traffic lights which mean that only one or two cars were getting through in each direction.










Screenshot of Fringe Panel: John Noble & Jasika Nicole
GyRox was driving and I was sitting there in a PANIC because it was 20 after 10am and the Fringe panel starts at 11 and I wanted to get there, sit down and just relax before the show started! I can't believe GyRox didn't kick me out of her car. I was seriously annoying... All in all, we made it in on time because we neglected to follow traffic rules as well. Had we not, we probably would have missed the show. We RUN inside to make it into the arena and have 20 minutes before John Noble and Jasika Nicole hit the stage. This is what I've been waiting MONTHS for. And to make it even sweeter, Season 5, the final season of Fringe had just gotten green lit two days prior. So we got to be the fans that congratulated them on their success! It was so amazing seeing their rapport together and answering some of the fans questions. I couldn't think of anything intelligent to say so I just left it to the more professional fans and kept a goofy grin on my face the entire time. (I know it was a goofy grin because the fellow beside me asked a question and I saw myself on the main screen for a split second...)

Zelda Cosplay was everywhere but there was only one Midna!
After the Fringe panel, we ran all the way over to the Palomino halls to catch the Steampunk Culture panel. Now I didn't know this at the time, but the way we went was actually considered as "leaving the event" and then "re-entering the event". Had we done this one hour later, we might not have made it in again! (You'll hear that soon). The Steampunk panel was close to full and we were the last people allowed into the room. Throughout the panel, others were sneaking out to go wait in lines for other panels which gave us a little more breathing room. What I really appreciated about this panel was the fact that it taught Nyx Matia and Romanator a little more about what they were dressed up as and what the esthetic and culture of it is about. We left the panel when it was done and I left to go outside for a moment and BAM! The lockout story.

I didn't take my phone, or my purse I had nothing and I was locked out! I'm standing at the door asking the security guard to just TURN AROUND and yell at GyRox for me and he's yelling back at me about how the fire marshals have shut it down and how no one can come in. I'm trying to explain to him that my friend and her family are RIGHT BEHIND HIM and he's telling me to call them. I'm telling him that I can't call them BECAUSE THEY HAVE MY PHONE and he just looks dumbfounded. So to summarize, I'm not mad at the Volunteers. I'm mad at the rude security guard who obviously needs a lesson in manners. I get it, dude, I'm not the first person nor the last to question why you're not letting me back in, but you should be patient. If you didn't know this, that's part of your job. We're confused nerds, who are not used to being confused because we generally follow the rules pretty well. He also didn't need to loose his cool on the young woman beside me who lost her brother and was in tears at the thought of him being lost and alone. That was not cool.
Don't be fooled, he's really tiny and ADORABLE!

So GyRox being the doll that she is, comes to the door and brings me my phone after I explain to her the whole story. I wander to the main entrance to see if they are letting anyone in yet while the lineup grows and grows and grows. I notice that many if not most people in the lineup do not have their passes so I go in search for where the other pass holders are... They're crammed in the tiniest space possible. The entrance way. I stand near the back by the door just in case there's a stampede so that I can have easy access out. I have lovely chats with people around me and explain my costume away (also explaining that half my costume is actually inside the venue!). I try to text GyRox to let her know I'm OK and I realize, nothing's going through. I have no service! I ask my new friends around me, they don't have service! We've overloaded the very few towers we have in the city and now have no connectivity! BOOOOO. I don't know why this happened, I still don't have an answer.

This is as close as my broke @$$ got to James Marsters
The volunteers outside are looking hopeless and every time the door opens swarms of people rush the door only to have it shut back in the faces. Someone finally comes out and says that the Fire Marshals have allowed them to start letting people back in in groups of 100 every 15 minutes. Hooray! I missed the first group but got in with the second by teaming up with a lovely girl who had a photo op scheduled with Mr Adam Baldwin. Once we got in we were shaking and screaming and hugging. It was like you just won the lottery! There are a couple of Volunteers beside us laughing (kindly) at our excitement. And because everyone wasn't crammed together again, our phones started to work! Huzzah! After making our separate ways I catch up to GyRox and her kids to hear about their afternoon. We wander the floors and do a little browsing. I know by this point I've missed the panels I wanted to see because of my own stupidity in being locked out. I check out how much my autographs are going to cost and know that I can't afford anything. James Marsters and John Noble are beside each other. They're $30 a piece. Well then, I guess that's not happening. By 4pm we realize we're exhausted and we call it a day.

Had to send a pic to Guavious, he's been looking for Gargoyles!

Sunday! Through the evening, Calgary Expo is posting on Twitter their updates and recommendations. I miss the part about showing up at 8:30am if you want to see and 11am panel. However, I'm waiting in the parking lot which is significantly emptier waiting for Dejathoris to call me from the airport. What a trouper! She's getting dropped off at the Corral to spend the day! I came to the conclusion this weekend that I cannot dress myself in any of my costumes by myself. I wanted to wear Wonder Woman again, but I actually cannot put anything on alone. We meet up in the massive lineup outside the building, and we're herded along to the main entrance doors. We get inside and confirm that we missed the Futurama panel (curses!) so we go and get ourselves some food.

This  Stormtrooper Bride's detail is WIKKID
Wandering some more, I pass a door in the Palomino hall to my dismay. The Undergrads panel that I thought I missed was rescheduled! STUPID GIRL! Why did you not check the updated schedule!!! We sneak into the 501sts panel, which is a group of costumers that have specifications on membership. Has to be evil, has to be movie accurate, etc. etc. It was interesting seeing another costuming group presenting, especially with all their rules, because in our world, we don't really have rules... Except the fact that me and Dejathoris fight/bicker over lots and lots of details. We're able to stay in the room, rather than leave and come back in for Robert J Sawyer's panel. Another one that I missed the day before, but today's one is the one I really wanted to see. He's talking about Flash Forward and what it took to get it from Book to TV Series.

Here's where I go all FanGirl on you. He gets there early and says to the room: If you're brought books to sign I'm more than happy to" ZOOM I'm up and at the front with my Con booklet because again (STUPID! STUPID GIRL!) I didn't bring my books with me! To be fair, Dejathoris and I are planning on going to When Words Collide in August, which is when I was planning on bringing my books with me. In my mind this is how the conversation went:

Mrs Spiderman & Robert J Sawyer!
RJS: Hi! How are you today?
Me: I LOVE YOU!
RJS: Okay....?
Me: SIGN THIS PLEASE! (drooling)
RJS: Who should I make it out to?

Me: Uhhhhh.... I forgot my name

I may or may not be exaggerating. He was lovely enough to give me a picture though! AAAANNNNDDD he retweeted my tweet of him which kind of made me lose my mind later on in the day. After calming down when I'm back in my seat I pretty much looked like I'm mentally writing down every word he says. But to be

honest, Robert J Sawyer (who refers to himself as Rob Sawyer, which I could never do) is an AMAZING speaker. He really does capture his audience. One lovely, lovely tidbit he mentioned was that the WWW series might *might* be in the works to becoming a TV Series. I would lose my

$hit over that. I love that series more than anything.
Stan Lee at the Corral


 
Once his panel's done, we head over to the Corral to watch the three people I would never imagine watching back to back. Stan Lee, James Marsters, and Sir Patrick Stewart (pictures are in that order). Hearing Stan Lee talking  about how he comes up with character names, and talking about my nerd
James Marsters at the Corral
namesake was pretty epic. James Marsters performing in every accent possible, including the mythic "Cajun Spike" was faint worthy, and Sir Patrick Stewart was just... just... I can't think of anything... What I really appreciated in Sir Patrick Stewart's panel was that he didn't stick to TNG, he talked about HIS body of work. Which, as a non Trekkie, I really appreciated that. All in all, this was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. I look forward to seeing the improvements in upcoming years, and I look forward to the announcement as to who will be participating next year!
Sit Patrick Stewart at the Corral

Thursday, April 26, 2012

The Importance of Finishing! - Leatherwork

You might notice that a lot of my pictures involve close up of edges and ends and what not... It's because I'm trying to show all those edges and ends with and without finishing techniques. They take forever, and some times they're a huge pain, but the end result is very much so worth it! Edit: Apparently writing all our finishing techniques is taking a long time too, so I'm splitting it up into different parts. Below are some of our Leather techniques!

When The Costume Guild headed out to our first con, Norwescon 34 in Seattle, WA, we brought our Dune costumes with the plans to dress up for the Saturday evening party. We decided on Friday night to enter the Costume contest instead. So we spent most of the day hanging out with other panicked costumers and some extremely over confident ones... And we learned about a little category called Workmanship. Workmanship is where they essentially look over your entire costume and look at all your techniques. Whether or not you're interested in entering a costume contest, we realized that a little extra workmanship goes a long long way. So I'm going to try and detail some of the techniques we've started using:



- Finishing your edges: When working on Perseus's Skirt, Dejathoris pointed out how much nicer the skirt edges would look if I took the bevel out and ran it along the edges.... Yes, yes indeed it looked better. But it was a pain in the @$$. So when you're taking on a bigger endeavor, you must take into consideration how to make your project look it's best, even if it takes you an extra 10-20 minutes it could mean the difference in your overall look!



- Sealing your Dyes: If you don't seal your dyes, prepare to get paint ALL OVER YOU. This is also the case with many types of spray paint on plastic but I will get to that in a moment. In leather shops like Tandy, you can get a sealant that's a paint or an aerosol spray. Each has a different kind of purpose and intent. I LOVE the spray for awkward angles and many of our projects like our Masks for NYE2011, but the paint was really good on finishing Perseus' (again). On NYE2011, Dejathoris made custom fit leather masques for herself and newly named Mr Dejathoris. To ensure that the dyes did not transfer to their faces, I believe she used the aerosol finishing spray. When we were painting/dying Perseus' leather, we actually used a stain rather than a dye. A dye would have resulted in too finished of a look, so we opted for a stain (more on that in the Perseus' post though). We then mixed some of the stain with the finish, because the finish alone ate away half our paint, resulting in it looking more "unfinished" rather than "worn". We liked the layered look, however we could have also opted for the aerosol to hold true to the look of the dye. 




- Rivets: "ARGH RIVETS" or a friendly frog sounding "Rivet" are two of the most common expressions around our working areas. Rivets can be really, really tough when they want to be, or easy as pie when you've finally figured it out. The key is figuring out how wide the leather/fabric/Wunderflex really is before guessing. Our most common problem was that we were trying to use rivets that were too big, therefore we'd end up with a half-dozen broken rivets and nothing to show for it! Also, this may sound silly, but make sure you're attaching your rivet in the right direction. Because prying off a rivet or a snap that's in the wrong direction is another massive, massive pain!



Thursday, April 19, 2012

Inspiration - From Coldplay to Game of Thrones?

Alright, super quick post tonight... I went to the Coldplay concert in Calgary last night and it was awesome... It also gave me a GREAT idea for our upcoming Game of Thrones EXTRAVAGANZA!
(I love this picture from Entertainment Weekly! I just had to borrow it!)

Some background information, if I haven't mentioned it yet, we're working on a Game of Thrones EXTRAVAGANZA for Norwescon 36. I'm trying to come up with a way to create the pulsing ruby that Melissandre wears and Coldplay gave me some wicked inspiration!

 Last night, they had the ushers handing out these ridiculous vinyl and plastic wrist bands. Then throughout all the breaks between opening bands they kept reminding the audience to put on their wristbands...

Why? Because during the show, they light up and each colour reacted differently to different music sounds (obviously masterminded to some wireless signal)! 







Well, this wireless piece of lighted technology is going to be dissected to hopefully come up with an affordable pulsing ruby!!



 And because I have a few extra pictures left over, here are some of the crazy shenanigans Coldplay was up to during the concert!


Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Dune - Part One (Costuming Arcs)

Ok Dune turned out to be really really long, so I'm breaking it into characters and costuming arcs. Costuming Arcs are going to refer to things like our Stillsuits and our Fremin Eyes because they cover more than one character, and Characters is going to be about the specific characters we did...

Please note that we don't actually have ANY pictures of our own from Dune. We've used the pictures posted on the Norwescon Flickr Stream. We've marked as Favorite any of us which can be viewed here.


Who: Paul Atreides, Channi, Reverend Mother
When: Before Paul has transitioned into the Muad'Dib; Desert Fremin
Who’s: David Lynch’s Dune (1984)

Dune was supposed to be a gimme to Guavious as he was been several forms of Bruce Willis over the years.  Frank Herbet’s Dune is one of his favourite selections, and it was a piece we all thought we could do right. What we weren’t banking on was a two week long debate on whether to do Movie Dune (David Lynch) or Mini Series Dune (John Harrison). The debate wasn’t over which story was portrayed better, but it was about which costumes were more iconic. Which costumes could you instantly look at and know “OMG DUNE!”. We knew we wanted to do the still suits but when you look at the two side by side they are two very different types of suits. After all was said and done, we decided on Paul and Channi in still suits, and the Reverend Mother from David Lynch’s Dune.

Stillsuits
The Still suits started out with an easy enough concept: black full body suit with strategically placed rubber pieces on top to mimic the “formed tubing” meaning to house the water.  We had found this fantastic rubber-like fabric that was sewn in a way to create “ribbing”. The only reason the rubber fabric and the armor worked together was ensuring that they stayed separated. If we connected the rubber portions to the spandex suit, the material would have buckled and the whole look would fall apart every time we moved. However by creating a “armor” suit with lots of Velcro and tabs, we created stillsuits that moved with our bodies. The Spice added was cinnamon. So basically for the whole afternoon, I smelled realllly good! We only coated Channi's costume with Cinnamon because of the timeline we envision. He's all Mau'deep now so he's gotta look royal while she's still true to her character...
               

Fremin Eyes
The Fremin Eyes proved to be another complicated task. But the return on investment was more than worth it! We started out by purchasing a bunch of different blue contacts to see how we could get the best Spice-infused blue. Paul’s eyes could be a little duller as they change throughout the movie, but Channi’s had to be full on BLUE BLUE BLUE. We decided we liked the look of the UV blue the best after all our trials. But word to the wise, if you’re not used to contacts work your way up to them!  Both Paul and Channi were not comfortable wearing contacts and tore through quite a few before finding a system. They also battled on who could get theirs in the fastest although that seemed to be a long, long contest. To get the whites of the eyes to reflect a blue look, we decided to layer Channi’s eyes with blue eyeliner to make them pop even more. We went through Sephora and Shoppers Drug Mart’s entire stock of blue shadows and eye liners to finally settle on Annabelle’s Mineral Pigment Dust in Azure. The process of getting the whole eye to look blue involved using a Pointed Liner brush and layering on thin coats of the shimmery powder. We dipped the brush in, tried to tap off the excess, lined the eyes, and then walked away. Repeating the process about a dozen times until the look was achieved. If you try to layer on more without waiting, too much of the powder fell onto the face, resulting in blue specks of shimmer all over.  It is good to have tissues on hand of a nice soft face brush to dust off any excess. To keep the look strong, before even starting, we used an eyeshadow primer on the whole eyelid to ward off oil build up and smudging.

The Body Jewellery Shop
http://www.bodyjewelleryshop.com/online_store/halloween-contacts-1180.cfm
Annabelle’s Mineral Pigment Dust in Azure http://annabellecosmetics.ca/Produits/Eyes/Eyeshadow/Pigment-Dust/Pigment-Dust---Azure.aspx
Sephora Brand Classic Pointed Liner Brush #17
http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P189141&categoryId=S4906&shouldPaginate=true
Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion (Original)
http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P284715&categoryId=B70