aerinea_faerie

We finally got our Comic-Con pictures up! Between the two of us, we got over 300 photos, most of them having been taken by my husband.

http://www.mobenloft.com/pictures.asp?pictureID=107

Steampunk Gallery:
http://www.mobenloft.com/subpictures.asp?subPictureID=160

My doll pictures are here:
http://www.mobenloft.com/subpictures.asp?subPictureID=158

And I'm really tired. I still have Con Fatigue, and I've been home since Monday night. I need more sleep. Ugh. So, in no particular order on the days, here is a short report.

Comic-Con was awesome, as always. Even on days I dressed in more casual Steampunk-light, I had my picture taken, but costumed days were the best. On Sunday, I wore my green Agatha costume and had minions. I liked having several people dressed as Jägermonsters running around, as well as a Zeetha. I also was interviewed by a guy dressed as Torgo from Manos, the Hands of Fate, who even had the theme music playing around him. I think that may have been one of the more awesome parts of the convention for me.

Saturday was the day of the big Steampunk meetup and panel. The room was too small and I felt lucky to get into the panel at all. The big photo shoot we did after was also a lot of fun. I want to go to another Steampunk convention.

Thursday was a good day for starting to pick stuff up, and I found a set of Re-Ment miniatures at a booth that had some parts that would work for little Theophilus and his tea party table. I bought four boxes and got three of the sets that work for me, but I still need some other things. I also ended up giving my husband a lot of permission to buy Transformers that he wanted.

Friday was a Cosplay day for me, and I was in my Agatha Paper Doll costume. We got the ticket needed to stand in line at the Hasbro Toy Shop that morning and Chris stood in the line, not only to by the toys we wanted for ourselves, but also to pick up things for David Willis, who draws "Shortpacked" and other comics. For ourselves, we bought two of the exclusive My Little Ponys (one for me, one for Evie), and the Soundwave exclusive they had.

Sunday was not only the day I had minions, it was also the day of the doll meet. I was originally planning to bring all four of my dolls to the meet, but by Sunday morning, I was so tired and didn't want to have to keep track of a rolling suitcase all day, so I only brought Theophilus because he is tiny. I ran into some friends I never get to see at the meetup and was happy to ask how they did at the Masquerade the night before. They had won yet another award this year.

I'll have pictures up later, hopefully.

Well, it's time to get ready for Comic-Con. I need to finish packing. I didn't get any new costumes made because all my money vanished into dolls! Maybe next time.

I look forward to seeing people there. I will be bringing dolls, but I won't be carrying all of them with me each day.

I believe that we had a successful convention weekend. I went to the convention all three days, as did the rest of the family. Evelyn spent most of the convention confined to her stroller, but we had both an experiment in letting her be free on Saturday, and we let her walk at the end of the convention on Sunday.

Friday was a costumeless day for the family, with me wearing my normal amount of Steampunk gear, Chris being in his work clothes, and Evie in her favourite dress.

Saturday, we were a Steampunk family with Chris and myself wearing outfits inspired by the Girl Genius paper dolls. We looked awesome. It resulted in us getting a lot of pictures taken. Of course, we were outshone by the exquisite La Legion Fantastique. They are always a lot of fun, and they had a Moon Suit. My costuming just cannot compete with that kind of amazing. Nonetheless, it was a wonderful day. I got to look at far too many cool items, picked up a few comic collections, and found a wonderful skirt with adjustable bustling that I plan to wear to the opera on Friday. We also discovered that even with one of those toddler monkey backpacks with the long tails, Evelyn is far too easily distracted, and exhausted far too easily, to let her stay on her feet at a convention, and Chris had to go home to get the stroller.

Sunday was a quieter day, and Chris and I wore our more standard Gil and Agatha costumes from Girl Genius. Even then we were easily identified as into the whole Steampunk thing and were photographed more than a few times, occasionally with declarations of amazement. I looked for things for my dolls all weekend, but I may have to go to an Anime convention to really get a good selection. Almost every thing for dolls there was for smaller ones. We picked up a few more books, and we bought a gun from Steam Alchemy, blowing what was left of our convention budget. It was worth it.

Afterward, we went to dinner with friends. I really like going out with friends and wish it happened more often. I had a lot of fun.

Of course I spent a lot of time at Studio Foglio's booth. It is always nice there; I can point people directly to the comic I am dressed as, I can get away from the crazier press of people, and I can get into conversations with other Girl Genius fans. The most important thing is that Phil Foglio doesn't mind my hanging around.

I guess that is all for now.

Like my title says, things don't always go as planned. Tomorrow is the beginning of Wonder Con, and nothing that I was hoping would be put together by now is going to happen. Although I plan to dress up both Saturday and Sunday, I do not have anything new to wear to the convention. Plans for a day where I have Jaegers to command fell through. It looks like it will just be a regular convention. At least I have more tools to wear when I'm dressed as Agatha, and now I have a nice gold pocketwatch.

On the other hand, the Steampunk issue of Make arrived today, so I'll soon be gathering parts for my Whimshurst machine. I'll be able to have the buttons all the same on one of my outfits instead of the cheat I did to make it look good. And I already have tickets to see Abney Park in March. So there are good things.

Na ja, it balances I guess.

I haven't really taken the time to organise my thoughts from Steam Powered, but at least we have the pictures up. We have whole, new costumes that I made, some great pics of the Foglios (all of them), and a very cool machine made by Jake Von Slatt that I really want one of and plan to build.

I really enjoyed riding in the bus to see Abney Park with Phil and Kaja, and also had fun sitting next to them during the show.

Oh, yeah, a link to pictures.
Pictures!

It's the Monday after Steam Powered, and I am so tired. I have wonderful stories of getting to see Abney Park with Kaja and Phil Foglio, getting pestered about Dickens, PEERs, and other dance events, and cool looking crafted stuff. But I want to organise my thoughts first, and let myself wake up a bit.

So, Convention report coming!

Only one bad thing happened at Comic Con; my wonderful, beautiful goggles began to fall apart!  By the end of Friday the magnifier was refusing to stay on, and my clockwork gear had fallen off.  Luckily, Thomas, who had the most intense Steampunk outfit at the whole convention and the apparent maker of just about everybody's goggles, was there.  He had taken the order for my goggles at Comic Con last year and has improved his techniques since then, probably because the man had been making Steampunk gear nonstop since.  Even the Foglios, who had been selling their own sets of goggles own sets by him.

He was very understanding of my predicament, told me not to worry and to bring him my goggles before I left on Sunday.  I did just that.  He took my information as though I was buying a pair fresh, told me that he'd be making me a brand new set of goggles, and not to be offended that he was going to put my old pair up for sale.  Which he did, and they sold before I had even left.  Wow.

Comic Con has always been a good meeting-people-I-admire convention, even more so than the Creation Entertainment (Star Trek and X-Files) conventions I used to go to as a teenager.  Unlike Creation cons, Comic Con has many professionals just wandering around or sitting at easily reached booths.  If the person you want to meet is a little on the obscure side, it's even easier.  This year was no exception.

I, of course, spent more than my fair share of time hanging around the Studio Foglio booth.  I did the same thing last year and was disappointed to find that Kaja did not remember me.  Apparently she was trying to hide the fact she was ill during Comic Con 2007.  But she did remember me from the photo Cheyenne took of my family at WonderCon.  She insisted on giving me a ribbon on Preview Night, even though I was only really wearing my goggles on my favourite hat.  Granted, the combination of Perkygoth, Victorian riding hat, and Steampunk goggles really does give the impression of Steampunk Finery, even when it isn't.

I got to meet Rebecca Guay, who is one of my favourite fantasy artists.  She is prolific in game artwork, but the first place I saw her work was in Cricket Magazine.  I was surprised to discover that Cricket was the first professional job she got, even before WotC hired her for Magic:The Gathering.  I even have a copy of the first issue she was published in.  January 1993.  Story: "The Spider and the Prince" by Mies Bouhuys.  I'm going to be looking out for her at future conventions and I'll bring that issue.  I've been planning on having her sign an issue of Cricket for a while, now I know which one.

I also got to meet Phil Plait, someone who doesn't really have anything to do with comics or gaming but is really cool anyways.  He's probably my favourite science and skepticism oriented blogger.  He's fun and funny.  He reminds me of some of my best teachers, al of whom were positively in love with the subject they taught.  It's obvious from his blog that he loves Astronomy.  I really thought that the only chance I was going to have to see him was right after the panel he was part of about Science in Science Fiction.  That was on Thursday.  But on Friday he was wandering around the convention taking pictures and came up to me and Gen, who was dressed as Kida that day.  I got to chat with him more, and probably lost Gen in the conversation.  On Sunday he came by the Studio Foglio booth while looking for books to get for his daughter.  He decided to hold off on buying any Girl Genius that day, but I really hope he looks at it and likes it.

Now, the crazy stuff that happened at the convention mostly centered around Studio Foglio.  The Webcomics area tends to be a lower traffic spot compared to the high-decible craziness that surrounds Hasbro, SciFi Network, Warner Bros, and a bunch of other loud media that only has a tangental, if any, connection to comic books.  The crowds can be really thick there, and I don't like excessive crowds.  Add to that the fact that I really, really love webcomics, and I'm more than happy to park myself around Studio Foglio for most of the day.  On Thursday I met Gen, who was dressed as Maxim.  I don't remember if she figured out that I was the Agatha with a baby or if I told her, but we began talking about costumes, Girl Genius, what day I had planned to wear my costume, and whether or not she was willing to dress as Maxim on Friday because I wasn't planning on dressing up more than once.

On Friday, we had so much fun posing for pictures together and talking that she was able to convince me to dress up again on Sunday.

On Saturday, Chris and I took Evelyn to the Wild Animal Park to avoid Saturday crowds at the convention and to spend some time with our daughter.  Up until then, we had been sending her to the daycare at the convention.

Sunday was great.  I didn't get to spend as much time exploring the convention as I had originally planned, but Gen and I did act out the scene where Agatha knocks Maxim's hat off in front of the Studio Foglio booth.  And posed for pictures.  And had a lot of fun.  And talked WonderCon.

I loved dressing up as Agatha and plan to do more costumes for the character, perhaps even having three days worth of them by February.  And maybe I'll have the Initiate's Costume that Zeetha makes her wear for next year's Comic Con.  Then I can spend a day vaguely comfortable.

They are up! Chris has uploaded the pictures from Comic-Con 2008 onto his site. They are neatly placed into four categories.
Costumes, Professionals, Steampunk, and Miscellaneous.

Enjoy!

Edit: link insert in Rich Text wasn't working, so I had to redo in html.

Well, I'm finally here after resisting for years. This past Comic-Con pushed me over the edge, and now I've finally got a LiveJournal.

After a long drive home on Monday, Chris and I are taking the day off to recuperate. He's spent some time today updating the galleries on his site, http://www.mobenloft.com, but the only one with this years Comic-Con pics is Evelyn's 24-month gallery.  So far.  He'll probably put up a Comic-Con specific gallery later today.