DragonCon 2014 Wrapup

I haven’t gone over DragonCon yet, so even though it’s been three weeks, I’ll do a quick recap now.
I had a very different convention than usual. I participated in two large photo shoots and did the autograph lines for the first time.  I also wore five different costumes. When you put all that together you end up with some serious con fatigue.
During a normal convention I’ll go to three or four panels a day, so I’m used to sitting one hour out of every three or so. This year I only made it to four panels total. Standing around in a corset all day really wears you out!
The panels I did make it to this year were “Arming the Written Word,” which was about writing fight scenes. Jonathan Maberry was one of the panelists and, as always, his advice was very helpful. I don’t no recall the other panelists, but they had some

This was one of the panelists on the Regency & Baroque panel. Her gown was AMAZING!!

cool things to talk about too.  I went to another late night panel with Jonathan on a new X-Files anthology that’s coming out next year, I think. That was fairly interesting too, but taxed my somewhat old knowledge of the show.

The next panel I went to was on Rococo and Regency costuming and it was fantastic! The panelists were informative and the audience asked interesting questions. They didn’t have any slides, which I believe was because one of the panelists didn’t make it, or possibly the projector was broken? I don’t recall now, but it was still a very valuable panel.  The last one I made it to was on Monday. I went to a panel on Plus-Size Costuming. That had some great information, but there wasn’t time to get into too many specifics that I didn’t already have some ideas about.  I’m at the point now where I’m at least vaguely aware of most of the information at the more general costuming panels. I may not have a good handle on implementing that information yet, but I am aware of it.

I had a special project going on; I’ve got a friend in Afghanistan who has a birthday coming up, so I wanted to get some birthday cards signed for him. Jonathan Maberry was on my list, although I’m not sure my friend is a huge fan, but I am, so I had to get him. I also got some of the Whedon cast that was there. I didn’t have the time or money to get Ron Glass or Adam Baldwin, but I did get Julie Benz, J. August Richards, and Amy Acker. They were all super nice, although I think I caught Mr. Richards just as he was hoping to get a break. I hope I didn’t delay him too much! Julie Benz is brunette right now, which was somewhat disconcerting. You know actors and actresses change their hair all the time, but it always startles me when they go from blonde to brunette for some reason.
I got Billy Boyd’s signature and one of his band’s recent albums. He’s in the band Beecake if you didn’t know and I think they’re rather great.

Courtenay Taylor

Kimberly Brooks

The real standouts from the signings though were the Mass Effect voice actors. I got to talk briefly to Tricia Helfer, who is just as gorgeous in person as she is on Battlestar Galactica. She also spends a ton of her time working with Katie Sackoff and their organization Acting Outlaws to raise money for charity. So, I really admire her for all that. She was very gracious. But the two most amazing ladies that I met were Courtenay Taylor who voices Jack and Kimberly Brooks who voices Ashley. They were both amazingly nice and willing to spend time chatting with me. Mark Meer, the voice of the male player character, was at the con too, but I never managed to run into him when he seemed unbusy, so I didn’t luck out there. He was out on the floor in his Mass Effect armor most of the time having fun.

The other major highlight of my DragonCon experience was that I got to meet three of my cosplay idols; Bill Doran of Punished Props and Maery Morrison and Sam Witlox of Anatamoy of Cosplay. Bill is awesome and he does (mostly) weekly google hangouts called PropLive, during which he and a guest answer cosplay and making questions. He helped me out with some ideas for one of my costumes. Bill also has a very active YouTube channel and an ebook on armor construction.
Mae and Sam, have also done some hangouts as well as an amazingly helpful serious of YouTube videos on the making (from scratch) of their AMAZING Shiala costumes for this year’s DragonCon. Maery and Sam are total inspirations for me and I have a giant, giant cosplay crush on them both. So, I was very proud that I managed to meet them and not fumble all over myself. Bonus points for social poise!

Photo by Brent Allen Thale (@BattyBlogger)

So, onto my costumes. I had an awesome Wonder Woman costume with a scale male top and belt that my friends at Back to Earth Creations made for me, but… I didn’t get any pictures of me in it. So… I’m stupid.
But, here are my other costumes:

Pinup Wonder Woman
Breastplate by https://www.etsy.com/shop/HeroStyles

Steampunk Ursula

Dieselpunk Baroness
Harness by http://silvercicada.net/
Original design from http://www.bkartonline.com/

Morrigan from Dragon Age: Inquisition
Corset by Skye Geerts
Dress by my amazing next door neighbor
9 gazillion studs on the corset by me.

And yes, I’ve already bought my membership for DragonCon next year. ^.^