Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo 2013: Sunday

Phew what a weekend. I feel exhausted, but it was certainly well-worth the time, money and effort. I am now significantly poorer, even though I held off on a lot of purchases this year. Anyhow, woke up a little late today as I desperately needed the sleep after a 12-hour day in heels on the Saturday. I decided that today was best spent in my slippers. So I wore my slippers to the con.

Creepy. Anyway, Oliver and I tried to get there for the Nathon Fillion Panel, but unfortunately we weren't there early enough and found that the giant sliding door to the corral area was closed and a man on a megaphone was basically telling everyone to bugger off. We may have been able to sneak in a side door, but we decided to just wander the con instead. We got to see a lot of cosplayers and merchandise at least. Some of which was rather...frightening.

I loved these pieces of art. They were foam stand-up pieces that were attached by magnet to their bases so you could transport them flat. They had all sorts of characters including Marvel, Avatar (anime), Axis Powers Hetalia, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Left 4 Dead, Half Life, Fullmetal Alchemist and more. I would have bought a bunch of them, but I had neither the money nor the space to store them currently, so I passed this year. This is also one of the reasons I didn't buy any artwork as I don't have anywhere to display them.

Found another Katara today and an Aang to boot! A few feet away were Hiroshi Warriors, which I decided not to bother as there were a lot of people and Aang was trying to have a conversation with them. This gave Oliver a FANTASTIC idea for cosplay next year however. I would be the happiest person alive if we did it, but I'll leave it a surprise just in case.

Shortly after this I stopped at an artist's table to purchase a necklace that caught my eye. I looked up to see someone sitting there that looked extremely familiar. I read the tag around her neck and then I realized that I worked with her sister. I said hi and she told me the necklace I was buying was made by my coworker. Small world.

Thought this was pretty funny. In case it's hard to read, the artist had taken a sharpie to his sign and had written "beer," "hookers" and "I want all your money" on his sign. At least I THINK he wrote it. Either way, it's pretty amusing.

And then this. I'm going to have nightmares for a week. DOMO IS GOING TO EAT US ALL.

Tank Girl and Jet Girl! In civies. Met up with her and her friends for a little while before we headed our separate ways to do some more shopping.

Meanwhile, we stopped every so often to be evil geniuses. Muahahahahhaha, Yeah, we didn't get as many spotpasses as we'd have liked today as we arrived in the early afternoon and by then most people were beginning to leave. A lot of people go on the Sunday just to get their photos signed by the actors and other media guests as many of the autograph sessions were today. Still, I got about 40-50 passes, which is pretty decent.

While we were stopped in the place I took the 3DS photo, this fellow arrived. He was identified as "Brotherhood of Steel" to me, which is from Fallout 3. Never played the game (not yet), but it was still a sweet costume.

Companion cube <3

Oh and giant, expensive airsoft guns. Because why not?

We met up with some other friends and did a little more shopping together. I was very sad for this giant Yoshi in the corner by the boxes. He just looked so lonely. Guess no one had the space or money to take him home. That said, he was extremely top-heavy with his massive melon of a head.

A place offering "crystal healing" and "energy matrix recalibration" and "angel readings" among other services. I think this is all some kind of conspiracy. I mean, why else would there be a G-man sitting in their booth?

Another picture in the unfortunate timing series. I met up with my friend Loki here who we spent the rest of the day with. She was looking menacing while my other friend took a picture with my crackberry. She took a little long so her menacing face turned into a "have you taken it?" face. Meanwhile I was trying to look scared by her face, and ended up just looking like she had done something unpleasant instead. I REALLY apologize for this one, but it was just too funny.

Anyway, the con overall was great. Nerd Christmas is always one of my favourite times of year. The organization this year was leaps and bounds greater than last, and I met so many amazing people. Next year I'm hoping to see a lot of them again, and maybe try out some new cosplay ideas that we have. Thanks to everyone who ran it, all of the media guests, exhibitors and vendors that came, and to all the fans who make each comic con so much fun for me. See you all next year!

Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo 2013: Saturday

As most of my pictures contain Tank Girl, I really could have dubbed this day the "Adventures of Tank Girl (and Jet Girl)." Jet Girl was just the photographer.

I stay up fairly late into the night working on a helmet that I think will be an essential part of my costume. It wasn't. Regardless, I was excited to be Jet Girl the next day. I'm not sure why I look like a serial killer.

I wake up and get ready for what would be one of the longest, most tiring days of my life. I'm definitely feeling it today as I write this. Especially in my legs and feet. It was a good day, but it was exhausting. I spent my day with Sarah aka "Tank Girl" who has upgraded her costume every year for the con. This year she added a RPG launcher and a couple of grenades to her costume in addition to a new coat of paint on her... torpedoes. My costume was certainly in the shadow of hers, but some people really appreciated that we had dressed up as two of the characters from the comic.

We immediately made our way to the centre of the exhibition building to sign in for the costume contest later that evening. Sarah had missed it the past two years (last year due a long admissions line and a lot of people wanting to take her picture), so we made sure to get there for her first. After being stopped about once every five feet for photos, we finally arrived at the booth. Somehow I figured that entering the contest as a team would be awesome and she liked the idea, so we registered together and were set to be in the contest. As I have stage freight and a lack of confidence, I really don't know what came over me. Regardless, we were in it. After leaving the booth we met Red Skull in the picture above. We saw him last year and it was good to see him out again. His costume is magnificent. 

We wandered around for most of the day taking pictures, doing some broken, ineffective browsing and shopping, and meeting up with people we knew at the con. Tank girl had a lot of connections, meeting up with volunteers that she knew while she looked for the friend that made her torpedo top and RPG. He is a part of the 501st Badlands Garrison group, making movie-quality props and costumes. I don't know if she ever met up with him, but we didn't see him while I was travelling with her. We did, however, run into another Tank Girl sporting a target top and fish net stockings. Wasn't sure what she thought of the rocket boobs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLdGo892gqs

I know what most other people thought however. We were very entertained by all the comments we heard such as "that's different," "that's interesting," "oh my god," "that, is awesome," "nice rockets," "are those real," and "wow." Tank Girl's catch-phrases were "lock up your sons," "bang bang," "p-p-p-pow," and "yup, these are real." We encountered this fellow here, which unfortunately I have no idea what he is from, but I liked the shiny lights and music. His shoes were also platform and had crazy lightning circles. A lady at a kiosk next to me said someone should be videoing it. Ironically enough, I was already getting the camera ready on my crackberry. My favourite part is when she just turns and poses for a guy taking a photo.

The random glitches in the video are from the flashes in people's cameras. I kind of wish some of them didn't put the flashes on, especially when we would stop in an area for a few minutes and a lot of pictures would be taken. I was blinded more than once. One funny instance was after about five photos were taken, I couldn't see for a few seconds, but when my eyes recovered the person standing right in front of me was someone I knew. So I must have looked super dazed before I said "OHI."

Met up with Captain Jack Sparrow, who would eventually go on to win Best Performance in his category later on in the contest. With good reason, he was in character all day. I love how later on we were sitting in the room waiting for the contest to start and I say to Tank Girl, oh look, Jack Sparrow is here. Without looking she says "what, the good one" and turns to see him looking surprised at her. Then she says "yup, the good one" to which he laughed. The woman next to him said "well at least he was the good one or that would have been awkward." And then we all laughed. And laughed. And promptly went back to ignoring each other for the time being.

Meant to get a picture of this guy on the Friday, but I missed my opportunity and the volunteers were shooing us out of the hallway. Found him again on the Saturday and asked for his picture. The Doctor from Assassin's Creed had a spring loaded needle that would pop up when prompted, He also had a cool detail on his back with vials filled with different coloured liquids. Was pretty fantastic. I love the little "Strange" sign above his shoulder for an added unintentional touch.

And then we blew up Lego Star Wars land. 

First of a couple photos taken with incredible (and accidental) timing. Wolf Cop came along to get a picture and they were in the middle of figuring out a pose as I snapped a picture. The facial expressions here are just priceless. Especially Wolf Cop. 

As Wolf Cop and Tank Girl finished getting their photos taken, this duo was pointed out to me. As Oliver put it: "Dad of the Year." I thought it was adorable, though I'm not sure why the kid was doing the splits. He was doing a bunch of poses before he decided that this was the best one. Clever idea regardless, and the kid seemed to be having a lot of fun.

One of two amazing Optimus Prime costumes that we saw that day. Both entered the costume contest later on, though I don't believe either one of them won anything as far as I can recall. Too bad too. They were both excellent and one of the guys broke a leg (an Optimus Prime leg) as he excited the stage. Thankfully some people were there to catch him as he fell while his costume dismantled itself. 

Later in the afternoon I start to hear horns and drums as the Vikings entered the exhibition hall and began marching around the outside aisles. They all stopped in the autograph building where we encountered the group of them. I asked Tank Girl if she wanted a picture with them, which resulted in one of the greatest costume contrasts I saw all day. Snapped the first one with her camera and moved to get mine just in time to get her leaving the group. I found the picture amusing as it looked like some epic confrontation or battle was about to begin. I believe these fellows were also demonstrating sword and shield combat outside throughout the day. 

One of my favourite moments yesterday was when we passed the Space booth and two men were in the midst of a discussion or interview when in the middle of a sentence the one guy yells "OH MY GOD IT'S TANK GIRL" and then continues with the conversation. The camera person looked so confused as she wasn't sure whether to turn the camera to look at Tank Girl or continue holding on the people talking. I look forward to seeing that interview sometime...if they don't edit it out. Anyhow, we passed the booth again later and these fellows that we did an interview with earlier (much to my dismay as I was part of said interview) spotted Tank Girl and asked if she'd like to do an introduction to their program. I got a lot of enjoyment watching her say the lines. I did get a video, but the voices are incredibly hard to hear, so I decided not to post it.

Shortly after we met Skeletor from He Man, so we got a few candid shots with him. The first is one of my favourites from the entire day as I just love Skeletor's facial expression. You can probably tell from the picture, but Skeletor was super tall. One of the tallest people I saw at the con, so he really stood out. Oddly enough, he also turned out to be one of the judges for the contest later. The child in front was getting his picture taken with a bunch of cosplayers at the time and he kept getting in all the pictures. Wasn't a big deal. At least he was a cute kid.

On our way outside Tank Girl had another battle, this time with Iron Man. Tank Girl insisted that she was winning (obviously). Iron Man ended up being at the con all three days. Kudos to him and his stamina. I cosplayed one day and now I feel like a truck hit me, ran me over a few times and then dumped the contents of the cabin's ash tray on my head before leaving me in the dust as road kill. Point is, the costume and the cosplayer was awesome. 

On our way to the Big Four building while Tank Girl was getting pictures taken I shuffled off to the side to get a picture of some characters from The Hobbit. There were a few good Saurumans running around the con, but this is the only Gandalf I ever saw. I did have the opportunity to have a couple pictures taken with Gandalf's staff (no comment) as I mentioned earlier, but I have yet to track down who has that photo. 

Had some supper in the food court, which thankfully wasn't packed full wall to wall with people as it was last year. It was rather spacious and included a bouncey house for the children. Though I couldn't help but imagine some of the cosplayers in there. I doubt the house (or some of the costumes) would have lasted long. Tank Girl also found another use for her torpedoes as a table/napkin holder. What was really nice about the food court was that people almost universally understood it to be the "we're taking a break here so don't bother us to take photos" zone. Was nice to sit down and take a break, especially for someone who doesn't normally wear heels. My feet were killing me. The salad was fairly tasty if not stupidly expensive.

Tank Girl and I split off for awhile at this time as I had a photo op to go to. I was so excited to meet Misha Collins, Mark Sheppard and Mitch Pileggi and get my picture taken with them. I'm not normally the squealing fangirl type, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't super happy to be there. They were all really nice, though saying I "met" them was stretching it a bit. The person I split the photo op with went back on the Sunday in the autograph line just to meet him and shake his hand. I was happy enough with the photo, though it would have been nice to say hello with her. 

So, as I mentioned before, Tank Girl and I had entered into the costume contest, of which we had to check in for at 6. My photo op was at 5, and the HIGHLY INTELLIGENT volunteers outside told us that no one was being allowed to line up for it. We asked twice and got the same answer. At 5 we approach another volunteer and he tells us that people began lining up 15 minutes before. We go in and end up being 5th last in line for the photo op. So I end up arriving JUST in time for the contest, running on my already destroyed feet, nearly breaking my ankle a couple times and we were ushered into a side room for pre-judging. 

Inside we had a chance to talk with a bunch of other cosplayers, some of which I have already mentioned. I was so impressed by all the costumes in the room and how friendly everyone was, even after a day dealing with hot, sweaty costumes, over-enthusiastic fans and annoying comments. I overheard the man who cosplayed Dr. Manhattan recalling all the ridiculous comments that he had received all day. The top three were "who were you in Avatar?," "are you one of the guys from the blue man group?" and something along the lines of "you're not a very silver silver surfer." (I can't really remember the last one). The one woman in a Samus suit (with lights and everything!) was saying how next year she'll be installing a fan because she was overheating in the suit (a common problem). She won the Novice category in the contest, so hopefully it was worth it. A man dressed as Flin Rider chatted with us (and scared us half to death) about his skit on stage. He was saying how he hoped his lines would be good enough to carry him through the competition. We thought we had to do a skit as well, and we hadn't prepared anything, but we were told we checked the "walk" option on our entry form, which meant we only had to do a couple poses. Anyway, I think he made a good Flin Rider. A guy playing Jack Frost from the Legends of the Guardian also talked to us about the con and some of his experiences with cosplay, which was interesting. We also met a new friend dressed as Cloud from Final Fantasy 7. She had an awesome home-made buster blade. Apparently she had cosplayed Shadow Link the day before and switched to Cloud for the Saturday contest. I want to be able to switch costumes like that some day. Regardless, we exchanged contact information and suggested that we look for each other in future cons. 

 Waiting to go on stage. First picture was for the judging and individual walks. Second picture was for the finale when we walked out as a group so the audience could take photos. Top photo includes one of the organizers in the Link costume, the kid in an R2D2 suit who was telling us how it started as a salad bowl and ended up as a Halloween costume out of control. I also had a good chat with his father about the Flames and their prospects for next season. On the right was a female assassin who won the Master level category of the competition. Her suit was fantastic. Bottom picture you can make out the Samus I mentioned earlier in the middle. To the left of her was Haytham, one of my favourite costumes of the con that I unfortunately didn't get a good picture of (or less blurry in the case of my camera). The red blob in the front was a custom Spiderman costume. The guy bought the base materials and did the designs and details on the suit himself. To put it in context, it looked almost exactly like the suit from the most recent Spiderman movie. 

Sitting, waiting for the photo session to come to a close and to find out the winners of the contest. As we waited a group of people working with the con did some stand-up and improv to entertain us. Look closely and you can see the giant sword Cloud was carrying and the light sabre of Darth Maul. Darth Maul, if I heard this correctly, took 7 hours to prepare his costume that day. He had to paint his body, glue horns and other aesthetic objects onto himself and ensure he had all the pieces to his costume. A lot of effort goes into these costumes that I never really knew about. Tank Girl herself took 2 hours to get dressed and ready for the con.

Probably my favourite picture overall from the con this weekend. Cloud, Tank Girl and Jet Girl unite! It was a long, tiring day, but we had a lot of fun, learned a lot about people and their costumes, and made a couple friends along the way. YEAH COMIC CON.

Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo 2013: Friday

I'm posting this after two days at the expo and I'm exhausted, so I'll have to see how much I remember. I went to the con alone at first, mostly just to do some shopping on my own while people still had merch and because I didn't want to drag around people (or worry about losing them which is EXTREMELY easy with is many people). Unfortunately most of my photos are terrible quality because a) I have poor quality cameras, b) I couldn't stop long a lot of the time due to the amount of people and the level of patience of those I was taking the pictures of and c) because I'm an awful photographer. That and the flash was off for the benefit of the people I was taking the pictures of (seriously, I'll come back to this later in the Saturday post).

Walk into the con and the first thing I see is good old Gollum at a promotional booth for The Hobbit where they were carrying replica movie props. I ended up getting a picture (today actually) with Gandalf's staff...though I need to track down the picture as I have no idea whose camera it ended up on....

After my close encounter with Gollum, I head through the autograph and media room, grinning like a fool because I had been looking forward to this weekend for many months. I noted, with a great deal of thanks, that the con was a lot more open, less crowded and a lot more organized this year, which is a HUGE improvement off of last year. I could actually breathe and move my arms in the aisles at the expo! Last year was awful, especially with the number of people stuffed into the autograph, photo op, food court, media room (yes, all of those were in the same room). ANYWAY. Much better this year. I can say a lot about the organization of the con, especially after some unfortunate experiences in previous years involving a missed photo op, holding a sign for an hour and being bored out of my mind volunteering (after being given a shirt three times too big for me even though I ordered a small) and nearly suffocating in the throngs of people. But I digress.

The swords you see above, which I was intending to mention before I launched into a mini rant, was from one of the first booths I visited. I love swords and weapons. Especially ones from games and shows that I can drool over. Top is the swords Kratos uses in God of War, bottom is a mix of Altair's Sword from Assassin's Creed, a Halo sword, one of those Klingon swords and two weapons I can't really remember or make out from the picture. And I'm sure I'm wrong or being dumb about something in that picture.

I turned around and continued looking at booths until I ran into this fellow with a Portal Gun. I was mostly excited about the Portal gun (which they were selling at another booth for a ridiculous amount of money though I considered it for a moment before I realized I wasn't spending too much money this time and walked sadly away and continued to see people carrying them around all day tearing bits of my soul out with every encounter). Props to the costume though. This isn't the first time I wished I had better costume design and construction skills. 

I wandered a bit and spotted my first Altair. Poor guy was buying a lemonade so I left him be for the moment. He stopped by a booth for awhile nearby a display I was looking at so I figured I'd try to snap a picture. He didn't seem too happy about putting his drink down for a snapshot, so I tried to take it as fast as possible, which resulted in me taking the photo faster than he was ready. I also think he was part of a group doing professional photos so I felt even worse. So after I took this I was so embarrassed that I slipped back into the crowd blending in with the rest of the nerds to become incognito again. I tried to avoid him the rest of the day. Shouldn't mess with an assassin.

Wandered around for a long time afterwards and picked up some of the graphic novels and t-shirts that I wanted. Met some of the creators of webcomics that I like and oggled the booth with leather cuffs, leg and waist belts/pouches and a beautiful vest. As I returned to the other side of the room I spotted Barf and Dark Helmet and took a horrible, blurry picture of them. Wasn't the last I'd see of them as they entered the costume contest with us the next day. They were a pretty wicked duo.

Yay Lego. Also pieces of it moved.

Found two Ezios who were less grumpy about their picture being taken. Maybe this is because they were not trying to enjoy lemonade. Or maybe....they were all just acting in character....HMMMM.

One of quite a few Iron Mans (Iron Men?) that I saw wandering around. This was one of the two better ones that I saw over the past two days. One was a man, one was a woman. I THINK this was the man, but I cannot be 100% certain. I only say that because I think the woman Iron Man arrived later and I think she had a triangle glowy part, not a circle glowy part (see the technical jargon I used there?). These sections of the centre were some of the best to take pictures with plain backgrounds and a little extra room away from the crowded aisles. Only problem is that the staff and volunteers were shooing us away from the doors and edges of the building as they created fire safety hazards. We all thought this was extremely dumb until I heard from one of the workers there that after last year the fire department was not happy with the organization and concentration of people in the buildings. This year, if they did not ensure the safety requirements were met, the con would not be allowed to be held on the grounds next year. So I was a little more sympathetic after that. I'm just glad I got away with sitting and eating my sandwiches in front of one of these areas so I could rest my feet and process my spotpasses on my 3DS in peace (and I felt like an evil genius raking in the spotpasses until I realized everyone else in the room with a 3DS was probably an evil genius as well). Well relative peace. About halfway through a bunch of cosplayers happened to be in my corner and all began lining up to get their pictures taken right in front of me. As I was stuffing my face with jam, peanut butter and bread. Playing my DS. So I photobombed about six pictures there. You're welcome.

More excellent cosplay to be seen after lunch. Funny story with this one. Involves me being fairly braindead, but in my defence I had a reasonable excuse. Woman on the left is a friend of the person I cosplayed with this year. Last year she went to the Calgary con as a demon hunter from Diablo III. She won the contest in her category. I see her both Friday and today, but don't clue in on Friday that I have met her before, complimented her on her last year's costume and five-finger shoes and that she knew my close friend. Then on Saturday (still today I suppose) I see her again and don't clue in until a few minutes later that I had seen her Friday, taken her picture, and had thus looked like an idiot. On the bright side, I was in costume today so she probably had no idea I was being an idiot. Yay.

Took this picture three times and the best one is STILL BLURRY. Maybe I was just nervous to be in the presence of such dastardly looking villains. 

Tee hee hee it's a blurry furry. There were only two booths focused on furries this year. And I only saw one. Maybe it's finally a dying trend. Doubtful. Though...the horse head trend appears to be on the rise. I swear they were multiplying. I spotted two of them at first. Then suddenly there was around five. Then I came across a bench of about twelve of them. I wandered around puzzling and puzzling the strange occurance until I passed a unicorn horse head person hopped up on top of a regular horse head person in the artist's alley. Suddenly everything became clear.

 Point of the story is there were less furries this year.

I come across this handsome little group every year I go to the con. Always a pleasure to see such good costumes.

My favourite costume of the day. I saw him again today in line to get a picture with Misha Collins, Mark Sheppard and Mitch Pileggi (=D), but I am glad that I got such a good, clear picture the first time. At any rate, it's my shot of the day.

Last cosplay picture of the day. Katara from Avatar was rockin' the water bending. I am super upset that I missed getting a picture of Toph today. Unfortunately the need to re-hydrate myself slightly overpowered my need to wait for a break in the crowd to run over and ask for a picture. More on that later though.

And of course there's all the merch, merch, merch. There is a reason why I'm significantly poorer after this event. I just found these particular pieces amusing yesterday. I just love that Sonic's drink says "speed" on the outside and that a face hugger is getting a little friendly with him in the final photo. As for the middle...well I know a couple people that might appreciate it. 

To end the day I had the opportunity to attend the Weird Al Yankovic concert. The above photo is the opening band, "Kirby Krackle," a self-styled "nerd band." The music was decent, though I couldn't figure out why all the tunes sounded so familiar. I came to the conclusion that this was also a parody band, though I still can't be sure....I think they lyrics about "cosy pants time" and "grandma's house" kind of threw me off. They were fun though, and I really enjoyed the lead singer's voice. They're a fairly talented group of musicians...even if their lyrics did confuse me some.

Then of course was the concert. It was amazing. I was laughing almost all the time with the parody songs and little comedy videos in between. Weird Al seems like a cool guy, and while I liked him before, he forever has my respect and admiration for poking fun at Michael Bay, Meghan Fox and the Transformer movies. After that little bit, I wished I could just run up, tip my hat and say "kudos to you sir." I also appreciated "Smells like Nirvana" where Weird Al spit water all over the place and threw the bottle into the audience. Brings back some hilarious memories of a metal concert I went to some years ago. Also, some poor sod almost got in deep trouble when Weird Al was singing one of his songs around the audience. Guy ran over to get a picture and then suddenly there were six bodyguards and security surrounding him. He took one look at them and scurried back into the audience. Friend of mine got to see Weird Al up close as he was singing cheesy pick up lines in that same song on the floor. Though I'm not sure what he thought of the tiger-print suit and hip gyrations. Regardless, was a two hour show with four encore songs. I must say it was one of the best concerts I've been to.

All in all, a fantastic day. My feet were very sore afterwards. I would write about Saturday, but I'm already pretty exhausted and I have one more day of comic con left. I will write more tomorrow.