Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Six Weeks (ish) to Dragon*Con!

Ok, so it's really like five and a half weeks, since Dragon*Con is six weeks from last Friday. And I apologize for those of you who don't care about geeky things like conventions that this is my second post in a row about a science fiction/fantasy convention. But after an entire weekend of reading every article posted by the people at ComicCon and watching videos of Robert Downey Jr hang out with little kids dressed as Iron Man, the Firefly 10 year reunion, and Zachary Levi make out with every hot person in the room, I'm just really in the mood for it to be time for Dragon*Con now.

Five and a half weeks until Dragon*Con, it's time to get serious about preparing for it. Prepare, you ask? Why yes, prepare. There is a lot of thought processes that go into attending a Con. Of course there is the obvious preparations like scouring the panel list to figure out your entire schedule for the weekend. And then there are the cosplay preparations (cosplay being a fancy word for costume). 

Last year I wore two costumes, which I will re-wear this year with some minor modifications. I will be breaking out my steampunk costume. Since I never posted photos last year, below is a photo of my friend Michael and me all steampunk-ified. It's great.

Basically my outfit is a Victorian suit, an oculus (that thing on my glasses), and a pocket watch (but worn as a necklace). This year, I would like to add a cool hat, that I'm planning on making. It would be a hat that is essentially a clock. But I'm not going to reveal any grand plans yet because I don't know if I'll be able to pull it off. But I will post pictures here if I do manage it. 

My other outfit last year was a Harry Potter Ravenclaw student outfit. It was great, but oh my lord was it hot. Sooooo hot. That's what happens when you're wearing a wool sweater in Atlanta at the beginning of September. Over a shirt that buttons up all the way to your neck so you can wear a tie. And the Hogwarts students wear cloaks over this business? (Which I didn't). No wonder Hogwarts has to be in Scotland. Anyway, my outfit was great, but the shirt I bought was pretty big. Like long. Like hung down to my knees so I always had to wear it tucked in. And it looked really awkward when I had to take my sweater off. So this year I would like to find a more fitted, appropriate length shirt, so that when I have to take my sweater off I don't look completely ridiculous. 

So both of those outfits will be seen again. But this year I will be debuting a new outfit. One I'm really excited about. What outfit, you ask? Come on guess. What other character have I written six blogposts about? Yes! You guessed right. Loki!

What's that you say? I'm a short, light haired girl, and not a tall, broad shouldered, beautiful man.......
Focus! Yes anyway, back to the question. How am I going to pull this off? Well, I'll never be Tom Hiddleston, but I'd be far from the first girl (or guy for that matter) to cross dress for a character they truly love who has an awesome outfit. And let's be honest, Loki has some awesome outfits. Seriously, all the heroes on the Avengers change clothes maybe twice. Loki has a ridiculous number of different outfits and they're all awesome. 

I'm going for the outfit in the picture to the right, what I like to call "Loki's lounging outfit" because he only wears it when he's just hanging around Asgard. It's one of his simpler outfits that doesn't involve a good deal of armor. And doesn't involve his helmet, which I'd rather not wear for twelve hours. Basically it's easier to create.

And create is what has to happen here. In the past I've been able to buy ready made pieces online, but all the Loki outfits available online pretty much suck. So I've contacted a local designer who does cosplay outfits and we're working together to make this outfit happen, to make it fit me, and to look awesome. (I wish I could say I'm making from scratch all by myself but seriously, I can't sew to save my life. There is like one item I might have to sew. It's pretty simple and I still might manage to mess that up).

But putting this together is going to take a lot. I'm going to have to do something to turn my light brown hair black (temporarily) and manage to slick back my crazy curly hair. In this outfit Loki doesn't have any staff, but Loki can't be without a weapon, so I'm making throwing knives, which is Loki's battle weapon of choice in the movies (outside of his staffs). I'll need to make some sort of sheath for these throwing knives, which I'm probably going to make so that they slide into the boots I bought for this outfit. It's going to be crazy. And it's going to be awesome.

Basically there is a lot to get done. And every Tuesday from now until Dragon*Con we're going to talk about my Dragon*Con prep. I'll show you how I make my throwing knives and steampunk hat. We'll talk about the different temporary hair dyes I'm going to try that hopefully don't do weird things to my hair. And when they release the schedule we'll talk about the different panels I'm excited about. 

So Tuesdays are now Dragon*Con days! Wooooo! Be excited. And tune in on Thursdays for non-Dragon*Con related programming.

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