Event Report: Star Wars Celebration 6

I know, I know. I'm waaaay far behind in updating. But, I'm trying at least! *chuckle* This will mostly be the post for C6 itself; I'll probably do another one about the trip in general since there was a lot of fun stuff during that.

I have to admit, I did find it kind of amusing that the first time I'd been back in my birth state in probably about 21ish years (we left when I was 2 or 3. . I'm not sure which) happened to be on my birthday. I'll also say, I honestly do not want to go back. :/ I mean, I will because I still need to visit Disneyworld and Universal and pretty much every other tourist destination there that I haven't been to. And Celebration 7 in all likelihood. But omg the humidity is terrible (and the driver's aren't much better). I'm not just complaining because my glasses would fog up stepping outside, or because it was like stepping into a shower, but also because it most likely killed my camera. After day 2 or so it was starting to focus weird and since we've gotten back it's developed bad lines across photos.

That first day we mostly spent getting our stuff organized in the room and geeking out with our roommates. Second day was the start of the convention, and I did my usual recon in civilian clothes to see how things were laid out. (Plus I had Merc's booth duty.) It was kind of like a really weird scavenger hunt since I kept stopping random mandos to ask where our booth was, each one pointing in a direction where I'd end up stopping another and so on until I finally figured out where the booth was. lol Even though it was the first day and I was out of kit, I did bring my sexy new Night Owl helmet from Skirata Arms since I wanted to show it off before Saturday when I'd wear the entire kit. Ceric was awesome enough to have snagged me some birthday hats on his way to the convention, so my helmet spent the day on the Merc's table with it's swag on.

And I got to be all "pewpewpew!" in the speeder bike:

Spent the rest of the day wandering around looking at the legos and cars and Make a Wish Foundation helmets, and that night it was the Merc's Birthday Bash (5 years!). Love the swag we got (mugs, stickers, patches, bookmarks) and the food wasn't half bad. Though I'm pretty sure most of us ended up going out to the hotel convenience store to buy drinks 'cause $3 for a glass of soda that was almost all ice was not cool (neither was the $8 for a tiny martini glass of whatever they were mixing). Speeches were given, prizes and awards were handed out, and Jeremy Bulloch told Tom he was fired. lol Uloadus of Terentatek Clan (my guys ^_^) got the party started after all the presentation stuff by dragging people out on the dance floor. After the party ended quite a few of us invaded the pool and the hot tub; I can honestly say that's the first time I've been in a bathing suit since 8th grade. I felt awkward and have totally forgotten how to swim, but Miss Tori convinced me to go with her. I have to admit, I am very glad for friends who drag me to things sometimes.

Friday (ie, second day of con, third day in Orlando)


Started off the day by working at The Dark Empire's table even though I'd left my sith and sith recruitment scout at home. (Sadly with the weight I've gained I didn't want to wear either of them.) I did pull on my SRS sash at least, so I had that.

Even though my Early Crusader Beast Master mando wasn't approved (I had a moment of really stupid and forgot to make knee armor), I still pulled it on for a test troop on Friday. I have to say, it actually held up pretty well (I can't say the same about during the trip back. . .it's on my table with stuff to be repaired). I did some wandering up to the Droid Builder's room where I ran into a guy with a really awesome Endor Trooper costume. The only picture I got with him does not do his costume justice; the detail was fantastic. After that room Pere and I wandered back down to the main floor so I could get my picture with Roxy the Rancor, something that had pretty much been my goal since I saw the first posts about a life sized rancor being made for the con. (And really the biggest reason I did the test troop at all, otherwise I would have just left the costume at home.) I haven't got much more in the way of pictures that I took that day since Pere went off to some panels he wanted to see while I spent time wandering some more and posing for pictures for random con goers.

Saturday

For the record, I was up until probably about 5-6 am working on stuff to try to finish my purple kit. My purple stomach wraps weren't working so I ultimately just pulled on my beast master's red ones (they sort of work. . .well, at least enough that I don't know people would realize they were the wrong ones unless they knew I was making purple ones). The boot armor took the longest since I hadn't realized just how long it was going to take me to get the laces through the set up for the armor plus the lacing area itself. Long story short, I ended up missing the Merc's official member photo, but I got there in time to step in when they got everybody (official or not) into the shot, plus the females only photo. Most of this day was spent wandering around posing for pictures while I killed time until my 4 pm Honor Guard Duty at Jeremy Bulloch's table (of course I'm pretty sure I'm in a fair amount of people's photos of him and his table. . .lol). Pere was off at more panels so I've only got a couple of pics of my kit since I had to hand the camera off to others. I did find out I can kneel in this kit, it just popped one of the straps on my shin armor (which is honestly ok. . I was going to redo all the straps on the boot/shin armor anyway). All I needed was for my kit to last until after my guard duty, and it did. Now it's kind of tucked away where I can fix it up.

Sunday (last day of con)

Pere had planned on having his Royal Guard to wear at C6. He'd ordered a new helmet off ebay (his old one is a Don Post that he's fixing), but it got here too late for him to do all the correction work and painting on it before we left. So he tried to get the painting done while we were stopped in TN on our way down at my parent's house. That probably would have worked except the paint was still too tacky to put it in the car, so he left it for my mom to overnight down to us at the hotel with the thought that the paint would be fine. Unfortunately (either due to the thickness of the paint or to the humidity in TN), the paint wasn't cured enough, and when he opened it at the hotel the paint was too badly damaged to be usable. Thankfully Rubies had their new Royal Guard helmet for sale at their booth, and thankfully it's actually a pretty damn good helmet. I'm not so happy about the price. . . .but he really wanted his costume for his photo op with Ian McDiarmid. So he got that, and I ended up buying one of the crappy Anakin gloves and cutting the straps off so he'd have at least a glove to use. His actual glove didn't get sewn in time because the hotel carpet ate my sewing needle. -_- He got his photo and autograph though, plus he kept getting stopped for pictures as we were walking around.

While he was waiting in line to get his photo taken with McDiarmid, I wandered off and got Jeremy's autograph since I figured given this is the third time I've met him I should probably actually get it for once. Got both a picture autographed and one of the old convention exclusive Boba toys that Pere gave me autographed. After Pere got his stuff we just wandered among the booths (with mostly Pere buying stuff and me unsuccessfully looking for a nexxu toy) until convention close (which was waay too early in the day if you ask me).

No idea who the guy in the chair is; he just wanted Pere to pose with him for his picture. lol

 SWAG

 'Cause I like showing off.

Not so much swag as thing I had to buy because omg cute (AT-AT bag from Thinkgeek):

Lightsaber poster tube. Because why not?

Merc's C6 exclusive patches (Left - Volunteer patch, Right - Birthday bash patch):

Merc's exclusive C6 print by Brian (dude, I can never remember how to spell your last name):

And the R2-KT patches I picked up (one is the C6 one, the other is one of the St. Patrick's Day ones):

 

Event Report: Emerald City Comic Con 2012

Whew. Hectic last couple of days, but I'm finally able to take a little bit of time to get this written up.

So. ECCC 2012. It was awesome. Peregrinus and I were both Minions (the convention volunteers) and worked several hour shifts each day. Long story short, I ended up not bringing any of my own costumes since I didn't want to have to haul them over to the hotel then back over to the ferry only to get to wear them for a tiny amount of time. Probably for the best anyway since my feet were killing me just after day one from all the standing you do as a Minion.

Friday I only had a little bit of time after con open to hang out. Spent most of it hanging around in the skybridge since I needed to meet up with a Merc recruit so he could try on my commando helmet to see how the fit would be on him if he bought one. Minion shift was mostly spent working the door to the Exhibitor's Hall helping people if they had direction related questions. I'm pretty sure I did something for a little bit after that but can't really recall what. I had about 15 minutes after my shift ended to run through the vendors, and luckily I ran into a couple of Merc's recruits, one of which was able to direct me to the booth that had some Jango Pez dispensers still (I only ever had the Boba so I got Jango to go with my Mando toy collection). Pere and I spent some of that night after the con up at the Ltd. Art Gallery for their "Mint Condition" comic con art show (also, their mixed drinks were kinda awesome. . .fufu berry Jones soda with vodka ftw).

Saturday I spent about 30 minutes in Adam Baldwin's line to snag his autograph (this also meant I had to spend 30 minutes listening to the guy behind me explain his My Little Pony/Thundercats fan fiction to somebody else). But, hey, I've only been waiting to get his autograph since D*Con 2008. So, that completed my trifecta of Firefly/Serenity autographs that I absolutely had to have (got Fillion's and Tudyk's at D*Con '08). If I'd had the money I would have gotten Summer Glau's, but, alas, no monies for that. Pere and I hoped into Christopher Judge's line so I could get his autograph for my brother, and Pere gave him a box of Jaffa Cakes he found at Central (we were in the store and he picked them up and started laughing; I was pretty much like "you're bringing those to ECCC for Christopher Judge, aren't you?"). We spent the last little bit before our Minion shift started going through some of the dealer's and the artist's tables. Met up with one of the local artists we'd actually first met at D*Con '11 then stopped by the Girl Genius table so Jonah could inquire about getting the rest of their signatures on the newest Volume One omnibus, and I went ahead and snagged their adorable little steampunk heart pin. Because I've been wanting it since it came out. :D Minion shift I spent the first half of standing up at registration directing people, then I got to go work the line control for both one of the DC artist's booths then over at the Image booth for Kirkman's autographing session. I would like to take this time to strongly suggest if you don't want to have your fellow con-goers murder you, don't bring every single issue of a comic ever made plus all your friend's copies to have signed. He singed stuff fast, but I still had to listen to the other people in line start complaining every time somebody got up there with a ton of stuff.

Saturday night we had fun at dinner down in the Elephant & Castle with some of the 501st and a couple of the other TK Merc's clan members. The fish and chips there is awesome, btw. Since Thaxos was rooming with us, we also spent that night in the room making the rest listen to the podcast. XD

For the record, I'm pretty sure none of us got much in the way of sleep. We kept saying we should go to bed then always ended up staying awake until around 3 am talking. On the bright side, I have a potential romance novel title out of it all. "Between the calves of two men." I think it'd be a best seller. lmao

Anyway, with Sunday as the last day we ran over to check out the gaming section (I got my brother a nifty Drizzt print) then were back to work as Minions. I got a chance to work panel entry, which wasn't too bad actually. Though the artist for the first panel ended up canceling and it sort of turned into a Minion Q&A. XD After that I was put on line duty up in the voice actor's section. For the record, I pretty much felt like a horrible person because I was the line cap for a My Little Pony actress' line and had to turn away a crying little girl. :/ But other than that it wasn't too bad. Though I am still sad I missed Wil Wheaton since I got down to the celebrity room a little too late.

So, in parting, some of the few pictures I managed to take while running around like a chicken with its head cut off:

Event Report: "The Phantom Menace" 3D Premiere

Small event but worth noting anyway.

Kibiri and I hit up the Episode One 3D premiere at the Pacific Place AMC theater here in Seattle. Peregrinus was with us, but the outfit he was been sewing was just barely not finished in time (seriously, if he had had a couple more hours it would have been done >_<). So guess that just means he'll have to premiere it at ECCC.

Kibiri was there as THE Jodo Kast, and I just went in my force user's smuggler outfit (which will eventually just be a plain old smuggler but I didn't want to rush finishing the chest box or helmet). We had a lot of fun posing for pictures with other patrons and theater staff, plus talking with the other hardcore nerds who were there. Kibiri also had the crowning moment of actually having somebody see his costume and NOT say "Hey, Boba Fett" but instead go "Jodo Kast!?!" lol

Event Report: Ltd. Art Gallery, Star Wars Exhibit Opening (12/8/2011)

The Ltd. Art Gallery over in Seattle has a Star Wars art show going until early 2012 (I can't recall the exact date they said so I don't want to misquote), and they sent a request to Garrison Titan to have people show up for it. I, having just spent D*Con wondering why there weren't many art galleries with pop/nerd art, jumped at the chance. And I am so glad I did. The owners are awesome, it was a really fun event (despite the couple of people that almost gave me "drunk late night D*Con" flashbacks lol), and there is so much there I wish I had the money to buy. Really, I think everybody needs to check them out and buy stuff. Because everybody needs more Star Wars art.

Myself, Kibiri Foxx, and Kraysh showed up in our mando gear, and three other 501st people showed up in their kits (I do know their names, but I don't know how they feel about even their forum names being posted in my blog. . .Kibiri and Kraysh can at least find me and swat me upside the head if they want me to remove their names lol).

We had a couple people taking pics, but here are some of the ones I like that Pere took (since he used my camera and I don't like reposting other people's pictures without being able to link back to them.  . .and I've honestly not got those links handy).

Event Report: Portland Comic Book Show 2011

On November 13th I went down to Portland, OR for the Portland Comic Book Show. First troop I'd done since D*Con, and I already had the excuse of going down to visit my brother. *chuckle* 'Sides I figured it'd be fun to go a convention with him since he's had to miss out on a lot due to his helicopter training (btw, he just got CFI certified recently :D ).

It was, in a word, great. I didn't stay kitted up for very long, but that was partially because I realized I couldn't even kneel down to dig through some of the Star Wars action figure boxes several of the vendors had out. XD Seron Clan of the Mandalorian Mercs officially inducted Andy Mangels as an honorary member of the Mandalorian Mercs. I'm glad to have met him, especially as "Twin Engines of Destruction" is probably the only comic that has stuck with me since I was a little kid. (I, um, do feel kind of bad admitting that it initially stuck with me because I saw the cover up on the wall of my local comic shop and it just stuck with me so much that I hunted for that comic cover until I finally found a copy in the back issues section of the same store many, many years later. . .2008 or 2009 actually.)

Pere managed to score a signed trading card of the character based of Andy Mangels thanks to his obsessive encyclopedia mind of Star Wars knowledge. lol Don't have a picture of that, but it was amusing to watch him and the others standing around wracking their brains trying to remember the character in order to get the card.

Anyway, I sadly didn't have my brother's steampunk jetpack done in time (the foam didn't set up at all at first. . it mostly collapsed and didn't get hard until days later so we've got to put some more in before we can finish it). We still had a lot of fun; I picked up a new pin for my SRS sash, a new pin for me in general, and found the K-Mart exclusive Jodo Kast figure for Pere. Afterwards we headed over to Voodoo Donuts since, while I've had donuts from there I'd never been, and I've been telling Pere we needed to take him since, well, pretty much since I moved to this coast. lol (Needless to say, he's now kind of hooked on them.)

So, now that the typey typey is over with, here are some of my favorite pics that Pere took:

Event Report: Star Wars Exhibit: Member Preview Day

I can honestly say I don't know the last time I was as happy with a purchase as I have been with my PacSci membership. Friday was the Preview Day for the Star Wars exhibit (which I plan on trooping in April and perhaps May). Though short, I did enjoy the exhibit (though perhaps not as much as the Harry Potter one which had AWESOME presentation), and it was entertaining to go through with Pere and listen to him point out which costumes they had labeled wrong. XD Yes, I am simple minded at times. A lot of times lately as it's what keeps me sane.  Since I had well over 100 pictures, only some of them will be actually in this post. I'll put a link to the photo album itself at the end of the post (and I apologize in advance for the glare on some of the pictures, the lighting was not good for taking pictures through glass).

We had the 1:15 time slot entrance (I had mistakenly been saying 1:30 previously so it's a good thing I double checked). We stayed in there for, oh, probably an hour? I admit, we pretty much ignored the real world analogies stuff they had up; I'm not a kid, I know most of it already. As this was the first time I've gotten to see any of that stuff up close (costumes/props/models) it was a pretty interesting experience for me. I'm always amused by how certain costumes look on screen vs in person (really, I was a little 0_0 at the fact that they used fleece for the stormtroopers and at how simply made some of the belts were, things like that).

Because I'm very much still a giddy little kid at heart, I have to include a brief blurb about the gift shop. First, really guys? Really? You're going to charge $20 for action figures that I can find at Walmart for 8? Yeeaaah. There were some reasonably priced things (posters, framed film cells, mugs, coasters, etc), but most of it was the usual way over-priced gift shop fare. As with the Harry Potter exhibit, I was disappointed that they had absolutely nothing special for the exhibit itself. Seriously guys, I can buy all this other stuff in stores or online; is it too much to ask for just something as simple as a key chain for the exhibit itself? Walked away with the set of wooden coasters you can find online. With shipping figured into buying them online, the price came out about the same so I didn't feel too bad. Several other things I badly wish I had an income so I could justify (like some of the film cells, another set of coasters to act as a display set, some of the posters, the Vader t-shirt and. ..yeah).

After we finished up there, we headed back to the butterfly house, which is really not relevant to any of my nerdery/costume stuff, but it's what came next in the flow of things. We didn't take long in there; I'm not ashamed to admit that Pere handles humidity far better than I, somebody born and raised in the south, does. It served as an excellent reminder of one of the reasons I left. lol Got in line for the Millennium Falcon Experience about 3:10 or so. And from there we waited. . .for about an hour. Yes, it's only a short little 5 minute video, but they can only fit four people in at a time as you're supposed to be seated in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. I'm wondering if, when I troop the event, if I've got a ticket purchased for the "ride" if they'll let me have a quick picture snapped while I'm sitting in the cockpit in armor. I'm also enough of a nerd that when it made the hyperdrive failure sound I, from my position in the pilot's seat, blurted out "They told me they fixed it!" It got a chuckle at least. :)

Now to stop my rambling for the time being and give you the pictures:

And the rest of the images can be found here: PacSci Star Wars Member Preview Day