cosplay « tofublog

October 24, 2009

2009 Seattle SteamCon Saturday wrap up

Filed under: cosplay, steampunk — edpete @ 8:11 pm

I went to the inaugural steampunk symposium, Seattle Steam-Con today with Carter, Tim and Kevin. As a crew we were probably not ideal demographic for this event, but it was still fun. Carter digs the steampunk in the abstract, but hasn’t really read any of works yet. He just really likes the crazy clockwork weapons and outfits. Tim has probably read the most steampunk fiction of the 4 of us. I liked have read The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling and enjoyed it, but I don’t think that makes me “into” steampunk. Kevin likes to take pictures.

None of us were dressed up for the even, which put us very far into the minority at the event. Add to that Kevin and I were walking around shooting photos with our DSLR’s and we were feeling a little out of place.

As this was the first Steamcon I have to cut the organizers a little (lot) of slack. They did a good job of getting a decent number of guests (Tim Powers, Paul Guinan, and Abney Park), having a lot of panels, and just getting a convention off the ground. That said, the venue, the Seattle Airport Marriott was probably not the ideal location. A little cramped, the panels were all standing room only, but I supposed that is probably a good thing for the panelists. It would certainly suck to stand in front of a room of 4 people.

The biggest initial roadblock for us was just registering, they closed down the online preregistration several days ago so we had to buy our tickets this morning. Knowing how messed registration can be (PAX, Emerald City, SakuraCon have all sucked in the past) we arrived 45 minutes early. We were about 40 people back and it still took 2 hours to get a badge. I’m sure they will figure this out next year. The line behind us was massive so feel bad for the people who showed up after us. And the single day passes sold out later this morning.

On the plus side, some of the outfits were really amazing. The people really put a lot work into their Mad Scientist Victorian Garb. We saw a lot of Leather, Copper, Feathers, Bowlers and Girdles. Had I put a little work into making an outfit I wouldn’t have felt so odd about taking photos of people. Kevin and I were a little timid about taking photos. Live and learn.

Next year I promise to wear a pith helmet if they promise to speed up the registration process. Nice work SteamCon.

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October 11, 2009

Zombies attack the Seattle Center! Seattle Zombie Walk – 10/10/09

Filed under: Flickr, cosplay, vegan, zombies — edpete @ 5:58 am

From Wikipedia:

A zombie walk (also known as a zombie mob, zombie march, zombie horde, zombie lurch, zombie shamble, zombie shuffle or zombie pub crawl) is an organized public gathering of people who dress up in zombie costumes. Usually taking place in an urban centre, the participants make their way around the city streets and through shopping malls in a somewhat orderly fashion and often limping their way towards a local cemetery or other public space (a series of taverns in the case of a zombie pub crawl).

So, Carter, Tim and I went to the Seattle Zombie Walk at the Seattle Center (Home of the Space Needle) yesterday. We had an amazing time… Not sure what the count of zombies turned out to be, maybe ~300? Before the walk Carter and I went to John Kieltyka’s apartment downtown and he shot some pictures of us in his photo studio.

This was our 2nd Zombie walk and we recognized quite a few undead from our previous walk last year. Once downtown we met up with Brent and his wife – Made up like freshly turn reporters… After shambling through the Seattle Center and Lower Queen Anne for a couple hours we broke off and had dinner at The Bamboo Garden – Awesome Vegan Chinese food. We definitely got a few looks in the restaurant as we sat to eat covered in fake blood and gaping wounds.

Good Times.

My Photos!
John’s Photos!
Brent’s Photos!

John’s Portrait of Carter – Link to SET.

Zombie Elvis.

I just love this picture of Carter.

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September 6, 2009

PAX09 Wrap Up – 3 days at the Penny Arcade Expo

Filed under: Comics, Video Games, conventions, cosplay, games, gaming, pax — edpete @ 10:18 pm

Carter and I went to the Penny Arcade Expo for the 3rd year in a row this weekend. Super fun as always. We spent a ton of time in the Wizards Of The Coast RPGA area doing “Dungeon Delves”. Yeah, playing D&D. I think we ended up putting in about 13 – 15 hours playing Dungeons and Dragons. The WOTC area was run great, the people working their are super nice. The main organizer, who seemed to work from ~9:30 am to about Midnight even remembered Carter and I from last year… I wish I could remember her name, sorry…

We spent so much time in D&D land we really didn’t see too many panels, we hit the final round of the Omegathon… 6000 people cheering on 2 guys playing Skee-Ball was something that might seem weird anywhere else, at PAX? Pretty normal. We saw a development panel on independent game design as well.

Expo floor highlights; Left 4 Dead 2, Arcane Legions (a warhammer type turn based game, we bought the starter set), Scribblenauts (DS game).

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July 26, 2009

San Diego Comic Con 2009 Wrap Up

Filed under: Comics, comic-con, conventions, cosplay, nerd!!!, vacation — edpete @ 12:16 am

It occurs to me that I used to think I was pretty nerdy being able to identify comic book writers and artists from sight walking the halls of comic cons. Now… Now I think I’m might be super nerdy because comic book writers and artists can spot me. Matt Fraction is one of my (and Carters) favorite writers; Invincible Iron Man, Casanova, The Immortal Iron Fist… Carter and I were walking the floor on Thursday and Matt spotted us, came over and chatted for a couple of minutes in the Marvel booth. Matt won an Eisner Award for best new series on Saturday night.

Thursday was our 15th Wedding anniversary, so I picked up a copy of Invincible Iron Man #15 at the Con and had Matt Fraction sign it, he drew a little EP + VP heart and wrote Happy Anniversary… What wife wouldn’t love a Signed comic book for her anniversary, right!?!

This year Carter wanted to spend some money on sketches that he could frame and hang in his room. So we walked through artist alley several times checking out the different styles. Carter picked out a couple of guys he like and plunked down some cash. Alex Ruiz was super cool. Carter got a sketch on Friday and he like it so much he went back today and got a second one. The second artist Carter got a sketch from was Neil Winn. Both Neil and Alex do fantastical type creatures and they both did some really cool work for Carter.

One of my big missions was to find Art Baltazar and get a sketch for Claire. Mission Accomplished. Again, Art and his partner Franco could not have been cooler. They do sketches for free, color them in with crayon, and smile and talk to everyone the whole time they are doing it. Oh, and Art and Franco won an Eisner as well for their super awesome book Tiny Titans! Aw Yeah, Titans!

Saturday was all about panels… Our buddy Troy also came down Comic Con this year, and he is a huge Lost fan. So like about 3000 other Lost fans he decided to camp out from midnight Friday in line for the Hall H panel Saturday morning. We got a text at 6:30 Saturday morning saying he held a spot… So Carter and I were able to get amazing seats in Hall H with out the 12 hour wait. Awesome! Thanks Troy.

I will probably do a seperate post about the panels we saw… Too tired now.

Thursday Panels:

Mondo Marvel

Friday Panels:

Robert Rodriquez: Shorts
Image: Robert Kirkman

Saturday Panels:

LOST
Solomon Kane
Extract
2012
Zombieland
Iron Man 2

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April 15, 2009

Sakura-Con 2009 Wrap-Up – Manga / Anime / CosPlay Craziness…

Filed under: conventions, cosplay, sakuracon — edpete @ 8:05 pm

Sakura-Con was last weekend, and it was as crazy as ever… Probably more so in fact. The crowd was huge. Cosplay insanity everywhere. The intersection of my interests and the Sakura-Con are actually really low. I don’t read much manga or watch many anime shows and I’m not real big in the furry culture. I guess there is a certain train-wreck appeal. Some of these people really go all out…

My only major complaint was the registration. Carter and I went on Saturday, waited about 30 minutes in a pretty massive line and didn’t move. We left. A friend stuck it out and it took him over 3 hours. 3 Hours! Carter and I went back Sunday, the line was tiny, it still took over 40 minutes. They had 2 staff registering people and 5 staffers standing around chatting. I don’t know the difference between Emerald City and Sakura-Con but the line went super quick at Emerald City and it just crawled at Sakura-Con. I really hope they fix the process going forward.

This was 3rd convention I have been to in 2 months; Wonder-Con San Francisco, Emerald City Comic-Con and Sakura-Con. Now about 3 months of rest before San Diego with the whole family. Then PAX.

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July 30, 2008

Flickr Photo Stats After Comic Con

Filed under: comic-con, cosplay, denial, photography — edpete @ 7:52 pm

Stats page for my flickr account… Note, there is a bit of a spike right after Comic Con. My daily views hover around 50 – 100 a day, usually. Comic Con related queries shot that number up to ~3600… Funny. This picture accounted for 651 views… It is now the most viewed picture I have ever posted. The best picture? Hmmm… Maybe not.

I have posted pictures after each of the cons I have gone to and getting bumps is pretty common. Jumping to 3600 views is not super common.

Here are my Con Sets…

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July 27, 2008

Speeder Trooper and Baby Darth

Filed under: Comics, comic-con, cosplay, nerd!!! — edpete @ 2:09 am

Apparently some nerds do have sex. I took this picture on Saturday at the Comic Con in San Diego.

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March 29, 2008

Seattle Sakura-Con 2008… Cosplay Insanity!

Filed under: Flickr, anime, cosplay, sakuracon, zombies — edpete @ 11:48 pm

I went to Sakura-Con this weekend with Carter and Chad… It was just crazy… Probably more crowded than last year, but maybe a bit more fun. I ran into Tim, BJ and Jonathan from work…

There were tons of pretty amazing cosplay costumes… Carter and Chad went as Light and L from DeathNote. They were stopped on Saturday about 15 times to get their picture taken. Carter got hugged from 2 girls who really liked his costume. I didn’t get hugged. Sad. Maybe it was the handle bar moustache.

We are going back tomorrow for the final day… See you there?

Oh yeah, and we were going up the escalator and I saw this guy. Twice.

Check out my Flickr Pool for More pics.

L – Ryuk – Light