​Last year I had a good time at YetiCon despite being in a terrible mood because of bad cosplay juju, and this year I had a good time despite being constantly rained out so I think that says a lot about the awesome people that I went with (both years). I was much more ambitious than usual going in: I attempted to make 3 new costumes for the con (Kevin for Mr Stark, and Professor Burnet and Milotic for me), and while Kevin was the only one that got 100% finished, my other 2 were more than wearable, so that was a good start.

Since Mr Stark doesn't get to attend many cons with me, we picked our costumes to coordinate all weekend - we figured Wendy and Robbie from Gravity Falls would be location-appropriate for Friday (though I don't think we ended up getting any snaps with Ragz's Dipper or Logan's Gruncle Stan, who were both also around); Professors Kukui and Burnet (from Pokémon Sun/Moon) for Saturday's Pokémon Snap hike, followed by Milotic and Blastoise for our friends group of water-type Pokémon for the pool party; and Ghostbusters with Elemental on Sunday.

I did try to do more convention activities this year than last - but somehow that didn't really work out... I partially blame the rain, which I got caught in at least once... every day. We attempted cosplay bingo, rode the mountain coaster, played about half a round of mini golf before getting rained out, and went on the Pokémon hike (which not only ended in Mr Stark, the Video Ninja, and I soaked through and temporarily stranded at the top of the mountain, but also the Celebi supposedly at the top had already been stolen). Sadly, pretty much everything else that I had planned or attempted to do was rained out, or missed because I was spending quality time with friends XD

So big props to all my hotel roommates (and extended roommates) for the awesome company, great food, cosplay groups, game nights, and not-so-pool-party water Pokémon; to the other friends I saw and played games with and hung out with over the weekend; to Amaleigh for shooting with Mr Stark and I (not to mention the adorable and awesome addition of 50 Shades of Fandom); and extra props to Kiirokeishi and Dan for picking up the camera unasked ^_^

My photos are below, along with some of my faves that other people took... and as usual, full gallery updates with photos from private shoots will be coming later... as soon as I finish all the con reports!

​And while I’m posting photos of Wendy Corduroy, how about some bonus photos? In April I shot her at Celebration Square with Dream Land Photography, and I also had some fun back in February with a thrown-together “Weirdmageddon” Wendy (worn with my friends’ assorted other Gravity Falls costumes) to watch the series finale. My Gravity Falls gallery has been updated with the new photos!

​Well, the “picnic” last weekend was… interesting. It seems that a couple of local groups who like to organize these kinds of things have started a feud and are now going out of their way to prevent other cosplay hangouts from happening. It’s immature and unfortunate, and even though I’ve only been directly affected by the most recent blow-up, I’m officially done with these events. From now on, I’m only doing cons and private on-location photo shoots. I don't like to be so negative and dismissive, but it’s not worth the hassle and I’m too old for this stuff.
 
Fortunately, we were able to find a second location nearby after getting ejected from the first spot and although I was shivering cold all afternoon (so glad I decided not to wear Tizzie!) I got some nice Wendy Corduroy photos with Dream Land Photography. 

October is here! Despite being on hiatus from attending conventions, Halloween parties and prepping the costumes for them means I'm back to making-mode this month. There are 3 "Zombie Walks" happening this month that I could conceivably attend (Toronto, Kitchener, and Waterloo), but after looking at all my other conflicting obligations and travel/costume budget, I ended up deciding not to attend any this year. That's OK though, because I still have a Halloween party thrown by a friend, the Silver Snail party, and a cosplay picnic day to plan costumes for!

So here's what's been keeping me crafting? I have been actively working on so many things lately. The first isn't cosplay-related at all; it's a light fall/spring jacket! I have needed to replace my ugly old windbreaker for years, and I ended up having awesome timing in terms of having it ready to wear for the autumn cool-down. The jacket is based on a Simplicity pattern with no alterations except for lengthening the sleeves (which still aren't long enough gurrr....) made out of a water-resistant coated nylon and lined with Kasha lining because I'm always cold. I have never actually fully lined anything like this before and lining wasn't part of the pattern, so that was an adventure, but I think it turned out pretty great in the end.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was re-vamping my old Sin City costume, but it's not the only one. I bought a new wig for my Wendy costume since the ones I had been using is now in the process of being styled for Midna. I also picked up new pants for the costume because I have, er, outgrown the old pair :( It's still not exactly the right colour, but I think that this red is a lot closer than the orange I was using before. I'm going to be straightening out most of the curl in the wig, but this is how it looked straight out of the bag ^_^
I really want to get together a Gravity Falls group for the Nov 1 cosplay picnic for more awesome and fun photos XD

How about new costumes? Since The AnarCHris forced me to take home a copy of Saga Vol 1 after NYCC 2012, I've loved the comic. Thus it follows that I need to cosplay from it. And 3 novels in, I was choosing between Izabel and The Stalk; decided to go with the character who doesn't have any legs vs. the one who doesn't have any arms XD. I've been collecting pink things for months in preparation, and started in earnest by knitting the hat. It's a relatively simple slouchy hat so I figured I was better off just knitting the hat from scratch than wasting time trying to find something in both the right colour and style. Aside from a mistake on the gauge which led to a mistake in the pattern which led to having to kind of make up the design at the end, I think I was right hahaha. 

With the hat done, I figured I should probably make sure that everything coordinated like I hoped it would, which meant doing a makeup test! This costume will involve a couple of prosthetics - ears which I bought from Malabar, and a nose which I'm going to try to sculpt myself. I couldn't wait until the nose was done to make sure the make up would work, so I just painted up the ears, added earrings, and then went to town on my face. The rest of the costume is still in progress, but here are my notes on the makeup:

• make nose prosthetic
  
• blend ears with latex instead of just spirit-gumming them on
  
• more purple tones in the lips
  
• cover eyebrows properly
  
• false lashes
• get better at shading or find a different way to do it (Oct 3: bought makeup to do this today!)
  
• cut/style wig

All that having been said, I'm really happy with this and if I didn't have time for improvement, I'd be quite pleased with going to a con in this look. 

Stay tuned for Part 2 of my massive progress post next week!

It's taken absolutely forever, but this wraps up my cosplay photos from 2013. GRAVITY FALLS. So many photos, so many amazingly awesome times. And videos too. I have the best friends a cosplayer could ask for, really. Because I have so much super awesome GF content, I moved my Wendy stuff from "Not-Costumes" into it's own gallery page, which you will find here. It's full of photos from the past year, as well as video projects based around the show. And now I can finally move on to even newer and shinier things - cross your fingers for more frequent blog posts in the future!

Above you will find a little introduction to Con-G, and my participation in the convention this year.
And below is immediately after I got home from the weekend:

As for what happened in between those videos...

   As I mentioned in the video, the Greyhound bus which my friends and I took to Guelph ran late, which means that Friday became much more of a rush than I had wanted. By the time Dan (The Video Ninja) and I had checked into our hotel room, I barely had time to unpack my supplies for my mask workshop, unpack the decorations for my birthday party, and throw on my costume before I had to run out and find my panel! Luckily I have awesome friends, so Featherweight picked up my badge for me while I was running around in a panic and Dan set up the decorations I didn't have time for while I was teaching my workshop.
   The workshop itself went well, I think! There were a few hiccups of course, like taking a little while to set-up all the materials and equipment, no tables for people to work on their masks, and ironing boards with legs that would't lock, but we managed. Having learned a lot from doing previous mask-workshops, I started with a demo and provided templates for everyone to use for their own designs. Featherweight was a fantastic help by monitoring irons and keeping people on track for which step came next. Unfortunately, since we had people dropping in throughout the 2-hour block and I didn't actually count how many pieces of foam and Steam-a-Seam I had pre-cut I don't know how many people ended up making a mask, but we're guessing 15-25. I wish I'd gotten photos of everyone's work, but I was too busy keeping things running to take pictures before people left. Featherweight did record the demo portion of the workshop panel though, so that might go up as a video later this year.

   Saturday brought on another full day of panels! One thing that I liked about Con-G this year was the flexibility of panels (at least in terms of the cosplay track; I can't speak for the rest). Because it's a (relatively) small convention and almost all of the guests and panelists have been cosplaying and attending conventions together for years, we know each other's strengths and we help each other out whenever there seems to be a need. Sometimes it's pre-planned (like Featherweight being my assistant for the mask workshop, and I being his assistant for his puppet demo) but sometimes it's not. When it appeared that I was going to be the only panelist for "Masquerade 101", my friend and all-around awesome cosplayer Brian volunteered to join me, and Jo (the panel coordinator) managed to snag Mark of ConBravo! to share his advice as well. While I could have handled Masquerade 101 on my own, it's always better to have more than one perspective, so I'm quite grateful to the guys for jumping in with no notice. And I got to pay the favor forward immediately afterwards by sitting on the Props Q&A panel with Featherweight, just being back-up, since Kudrel was running a few minutes behind. 
   Right after props was GillyKins's spandex panel which I attended, after which I got an hour's break (trading Olivia of Olivia's Atelier the use of my glue gun in exchange for pizza XD) before cutting felt with Featherweight for his puppet demo. This year's puppet was Yakko from Animaniacs, which we got done in time, and was presented to Rob Paulsen on Sunday - he loved it! (photo snagged by Fazeman). Had a very slow dinner (what's with the service at hotel restaurants during cons??) with good company including Dan, Jackie, Elemental, The Letter Jay, and Trish before heading to the main room to watch the masquerade. Which was great, and you can watch right here.  
   The last panel of the night was shortly after the masquerade ended, so I had just enough time to grab my hoodies from my room before meeting up with Brian and doing my "Hats Hoodies and Kigus" panel. I think it went well, but I was also pretty tired by that point. We had about the attendance I would have expected for that time slot. People asked lots of questions and we had lots of examples to share, and I sketched out one hat and one kigu design by request. I pretty much hermited in my hotel room for the rest of the night, not having the energy left to deal with energetic dancing people or drinking party people. Several people came to visit me though, which was really nice.

   I didn't have any more programming to do on Sunday, so I saw a lot more people! ^_^ Sunday included going to panels about masquerade judging, how to crochet, Rob Paulsen's Turtles panel, and the closing ceremonies. I wore Crystal Entropy, which is an under-used costume because of reasons, and did a shoot with SolarTempest as well as a quick interview with Dan. I had a delicious lunch with friends at Cora's, and got a lovely thank-you gift from the Con-G staff <3. The big news from the closing ceremonies is that Season 6 (2014) will be the last year for Con-G. So if you've thought about checking out the con but haven't had a chance - make time for it next year! Let's make the last Con-G the best Con-G! ^_^