Costume Con 32

As I'm now officially "on hiatus" from conventions, it's probably high time to catch up on a few con reports, huh? Let's start with Costume Con 32. Words at the top; all the photos at the bottom.

This was my first ever Costume Con, because even though what I love most about all the cons that I go to is the costuming, when they're not remotely local to me it's difficult to attend. When Kaijugal and Sarcasm-Hime announced that Toronto had won the bid to host CC32 three years ago, I had grand plans for a really impressive costume... and as things are wont to do, those plans totally collapsed in on themselves. When it came down to it, I had nothing to enter in any of the competitions and not even anything new and cool to bring out for photos. But I pulled some of my favourite costumes from my closet to wear in the halls and headed out anyways.

Elemental and I arrived Thursday night thanks to a ride from Kurumasha. I was too late to pick up my badge, but luckily there was time to make a trip to the hotel pool with Kurumasha and Calamity before totally crashing for the night.

After getting my badge on Friday morning, I spent most of the day wandering the con out of costume. Ok, not completely out of costume, but close. I needed to assist with costume assembly and also do a fitting myself during the day so there didn't seem to be a point to cosplaying until after those were taken care of. The costume construction portion was prepping Kurumasha's "Single Pattern Contest" entry, which was a very literal interpretation of "using the pattern creatively". There were supposed to be several of us assisting but unfortunately the others got stuck in traffic so it was down to just 'Sha and I taping tissue paper to her XD. In the end, I wore my Alice in Wonderland costume to the Friday Night Social, and she won an award for her "Best Literal Interpretation" LOL. The social itself was fantastic, and every detail was monster/horror themed! Our local maid and butler cafe groups did an amazing job with everything. After leaving the social to get some pizza for a late, late dinner, my friends and I spent the evening hanging out and finishing last-minute details on our costumes... or in my case experimenting with Worbla (more on that in a future blog). 

Saturday started with a hilarious (and informative) workshop about drafting bunny suit patterns ("bunny suits" like playboy bunnies, not like Easter bunnies XD) run by Gillykins and Gina G. (and friends). I wouldn't count on seeing me in a bunny suit anytime soon since the corsetry parts are way beyond my experience level, but it was a good learning experience and I came home with the beginnings of another pattern for my stash. Once that was done, it was costume time: Pepper Potts so I could hang out in character with KW Iron Man and Iron Girl XD. 

I attempted one more event in the afternoon, a swap meet, for which I brought 5 bags of fabric and notions and only managed to get rid of 3 small pieces. That was disappointing. It seemed that everyone who stopped by the room was looking to get rid of things and nobody wanted to take anything home. Unfortunately, that's been consistently my experience at convention cosplay swap meets, so maybe they need to be marketed differently. *shrug*

After that was watching the masquerade, and I just want to say WOW. I've never seen such a consistently strong show, both in costume quality and staging. I did not envy the judges' job. It made me both glad that I didn't have the pressure of entering, but also disappointed that I wasn't even trying. Big props to all my friends who entered and even bigger to winners Calamity, Kudrel, Melting Mirror, Vickybunnyangel, Elemental, Melanie, and Iron Girl! (other thanks go to Kia and Gord for grabbing us awesome seats)

I had hoped to go to some of the room parties Saturday night, but since my friends and I decided to stay in the main room to wait for the judges' deliberations and because the awards ran so late, I missed out (or was too tired).

On Sunday my one and only real obligation at the con had me up bright and early. OK, maybe just early. I had volunteered to model for Andrea Schewe, who is a pattern designer for Simplicity, which meant i had to have my makeup and hair done and be at the greenroom far too early, in order to get into costume for the fashion show of some of Andrea's recent designs (which was the half-time show during judges deliberations for the Future Fashio Folio). Andrea is a really lovely woman and the costumes were so exciting to get to wear - I doubled up and got to wear both Galadriel's dress from The Hobbit and one of Cersei Lannister's gowns.  As a Game of Thrones fan, I was particularly happy about that second one ~_^  I wish I could have kept Cersei... to the point of going out of my way to pick up the pattern recently even though I don't know when I would have the time to make it. Sadly, I had to return the dresses right away so I only have the photos of the Game of Thrones dress on stage, and the hall shot of Andrea and I.

After the fashion show, I had planned to wear my Goth Kim Pine costume but plans changed when I heard that Empress of Squee was going to be wearing her Cheshire Cat, because I wanted to try to get some photos with her. When I  found her, to my delight, she was hanging out with Ani-BEE's Red Queen! how perfect??? No professional photos of the group, sadly, but I did get some awesome creepy 'out of character' pics with Eleventh Photograph. I went to the photography panels run by Elemental and Solar Tempest before getting ready for Sunday night's plans - Kurumasha's birthday party! (unfortunately this meant skipping watching the Historical Masquerade in favour of dinner and cleaning up our hotel room) The party was awesome, however, and a great way to wrap up the bulk of the weekend playing games and talking cons & costumes with new and old friends.

Monday was really chill after checking out of the hotel I wore my sloth kigu around the con, stopped in at the Game of Thrones costuming panel, registered for Costume Con 35 (which will be back in Toronto!), and generally socializing. When my friends and I did leave, we decided to continue taking advantage of having the day off by plaing board games at my place followed by a visit to the Video Ninja for our weekly Monday-night routine of watching Game of Thrones. Was a pretty good extended convention weekend overall and I loved getting to see so many of my friends again.

.... You may have caught that I mentioned Costume Con will be heald in Toronto again - we (well, more accurately the ConBravo team) won the bid for the next available location with write-in votes! So if you are at all interested in checking out a Costume Con but can't make CC33 in Charleston SC or CC34 in Madison WI (because the majority of my readers are also in Ontario), it'll be back in the GTA in 2017. Pre-registration is available now if you're ready to snag a badge really really early ^_^

And now, ont to the photos... almost entirely taken by other people. Credits labelled on each pic :)