Armageddon! Cosplay! A Dalek!
Oct. 17th, 2010 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeThis weekend was marked by some kind of sporting event involving horse racing, and a media convention. You can imagine which one took up my time, right?
A couple of months ago,weaver, myniamh and I came up with the EPIC and BRILLIANT idea of cosplaying the Kyoshi Warriors from Avatar, an all-female group who wear kimonos with armour and dramatic facepaint, and whose primary weapons are fans. We've spent ... lots of weekends since then sewing things, while piecesofalice asked helpful questions like, "Is this going to be culturally appropriative? Am I going to have to pretend I don't know you?" Which is an awkward question when you've just spent a lot of money on fabric and greasepaint.
We eventually answered, "No. Well, um, we hope," because while obviously the Avatar-verse is notably devoid of Europeans, the Warriors themselves accept outsiders through the course of the story (even though Suki claims otherwise), and since we're playing a group rather than individual characters, we hoped -- well. For that reason, I didn't wear a wig or do anything to disguise my gingerness. Not that the Avatar cosplay community seems to care, but we care. Maybe it would be less of an issue if the movie hadn't erased the Asian-ness of the characters.
(If anyone managed to miss the wankstorm, the movie adaptation -- titled The Last Airbender to avoid confusion with the James Cameron film about blue people -- cast white actors as the Inuit and Tibetan heroes, and cast an Anglo-Indian -- Dev Patel, who deserves better -- as the villain. WOW, THAT'S NOT PROBLEMATIC AT ALL.)
(I did see a rather ugly meme on cosplay boards, that goes, "The movie cast is so hot. Except Zuko. Why's he so dark?" UM, YEAH.)
Anyway, as far as I could tell from the reading I did, the cosplay community in general is a bit split on cosplaying across race, and whether cartoons are an exception, and whether Avatar is an exception from the cartoon exception.
After all that prep, and after giving myself a sewing needle callous, the con itself was amaaaaazing. I've done cosplayed before, so I was totally unprepared for being stopped and asked to pose for photos every few minutes. It started before we even got to the ticket booth, and continued until we left. Turns out that you're a lot less self-conscious if you're effectively in disguise, but the whole thing took up a lot of spoons.
This was a commercial con, so aside from guests, the main occupations were people-spotting and shopping. There were lots of really awesome guests -- Paul McGann! Sophie Aldred! Sylvester McCoy! -- but they were accompanied by massive queues, so we didn't get anything signed. Claudia Christian had no queue at all, but I'm not a huge fan, and I didn't want to pay $30 for an autograph. (She walked right past me at one point, and I have to say, she has had a fair amount of work done. I don't mean that in a bitchy way -- "ACTRESS GETS PLASTIC SURGERY" isn't really news -- but her face looked all hard and plastic.)
We didn't get a chance to take many pictures of other people on Saturday, because ... well. You know.
We met another Kyoshi Warrior! And a Joker! This photo's from his Facebook album; he was photographed with pretty much everyone there on Saturday. We were pretty excited to meet that Warrior, becausemyniamh had seen her at other cons, and we'd all admired her costume.
weaver strikes a pose.
BE MORE AWKWARD, LIZ!
We found a Katara! I posted a picture of her to Twitter, andmystefaction replied that she looked like the sister of one of her friends. Turns out that she is that friend's sister, and we have another friend in common, as I discovered when I met her this afternoon, in company with mystefaction herself. TORTUROUS SENTENCE IS TORTUROUS. Turns out that Melbourne, in its way, is just as incestuous as Brisbane.
myniamh. This is honestly the cutest thing I've ever seen.
weaver is lovely.
Fans make really handy props.
I did not enjoy meeting a Dalek.
It said to me, "Do! You! Like! My Fez!?"
"Please don't kill me," I answered.
"Fezzes! Are! Cool! I! Knitted! My! Scarf! With! My! Plunger!"
At the end of the day, in defiance of all established laws, we were fanboyed by a Stormtrooper, who regretted that he'd never gotten around to completing his Sokka costume.
FLASHBACK! A week ago, making the gauntlets.
Purchased yesterday: a Weeping Angel action figure (coming soon toweaver's desk at work!) and the Journal of Impossible Things, which came with the Master's Ring.
We didn't have our third warrior for Sunday, and just having two seemed a bit sad, so I decided to go as Time War!Romana. Out of vinyl, I made the corset of Rassilon (with handy pocket for sonic screwdriver!) and some gauntlets featuring the New Seal of Rassilon. And I had a fobwatch, for emergencies, and thanks to Character Options, I now had the Master's ring.
Sadly, I was kept from achieving True Awesome by the original seal of Rassilon, which is really buggering hard to turn into a handy stencil. New seal? Easy - I did it freehand in chalk on the gauntlets, and then went over it with gold paint. After three failed attempts to turn the original Seal into a stencil, I just got my last print-out, painted it gold, coloured the rest in with Sharpie, and stuck it to my corset with double-sided tape.
Oh yeah, baby.
Then, because it turns out you can't make gauntlets and eat toast at the same time, I realised at the train station that I'd gotten the press studs on one gauntlet the wrong way around.
On the other hand, I don't think I looked totally ridiculous, but at least, judging by this photo thatpiecesofalice took, I half-achieved my goal of creating a look that was half Joan Holloway, half Lara Croft.
Let's all take a moment and thank Christina Hendricks for making my figure sort of fashionable.
This Angel was very nice, and had small children to hold her bag and camera while she posed. I need to get me some of those!
HE ALWAYS DRESSES FOR THE OCCASION!
There were, in fact, two Roberts!Masters wandering around -- Epic Torturing Master and Black Leather Coat Master. But only one was around at the moment I had my phone ready.
You can't tell here, but this Fire Nation soldier is actually a young boy.
A whole lot of Avatar cosplayers! We spoke to them yesterday, when they were in other costumes, and they were really nice. Blurry photo because they were being filmed for something, and I didn't want to interrupt. Also, it was insanely crowded today, much worse than yesteday.
An Azula, with the soldier from earlier.
After a while, I started collecting Elevens.
Other costumes I spotted:
- a River-as-Cleopatra
- the Second and Third Doctors
- a second Second Doctor, complete with recorder
- about four different Tenth Doctors
- several Fours, including two in the burgundy variant
- a Romana II, who I think waselyssadc's friend Denise, but it was so crowded I didn't get a chance to talk to her
- about half a dozen Amys
- two "Idiot's Lantern" Roses
- Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann, both looking quite magnificent
- a whole family of DC heroes, including the children in prams
- a Batman whose costume was superior to George Clooney's
- a very tall Darth Vader and practically the entire Imperial armed forces
- three Kathryn Janeways, one of whom was a little girl
- the usual troupe of Disney princesses
More pictures can be found at the Flickr feed, including a recreation of an iconic Star Trek: TOS publicity shot with a minor addition.
Purchased today: naught but a postcard-sized publicity picture of season 1!Zuko, autographed by Dante Basco. The store had most of the cast, but I was running short of money and didn't even dare look at the others. One day, my precioussssss.
A couple of months ago,
weaver, myniamh and I came up with the EPIC and BRILLIANT idea of cosplaying the Kyoshi Warriors from Avatar, an all-female group who wear kimonos with armour and dramatic facepaint, and whose primary weapons are fans. We've spent ... lots of weekends since then sewing things, while piecesofalice asked helpful questions like, "Is this going to be culturally appropriative? Am I going to have to pretend I don't know you?" Which is an awkward question when you've just spent a lot of money on fabric and greasepaint.We eventually answered, "No. Well, um, we hope," because while obviously the Avatar-verse is notably devoid of Europeans, the Warriors themselves accept outsiders through the course of the story (even though Suki claims otherwise), and since we're playing a group rather than individual characters, we hoped -- well. For that reason, I didn't wear a wig or do anything to disguise my gingerness. Not that the Avatar cosplay community seems to care, but we care. Maybe it would be less of an issue if the movie hadn't erased the Asian-ness of the characters.
(If anyone managed to miss the wankstorm, the movie adaptation -- titled The Last Airbender to avoid confusion with the James Cameron film about blue people -- cast white actors as the Inuit and Tibetan heroes, and cast an Anglo-Indian -- Dev Patel, who deserves better -- as the villain. WOW, THAT'S NOT PROBLEMATIC AT ALL.)
(I did see a rather ugly meme on cosplay boards, that goes, "The movie cast is so hot. Except Zuko. Why's he so dark?" UM, YEAH.)
Anyway, as far as I could tell from the reading I did, the cosplay community in general is a bit split on cosplaying across race, and whether cartoons are an exception, and whether Avatar is an exception from the cartoon exception.
After all that prep, and after giving myself a sewing needle callous, the con itself was amaaaaazing. I've done cosplayed before, so I was totally unprepared for being stopped and asked to pose for photos every few minutes. It started before we even got to the ticket booth, and continued until we left. Turns out that you're a lot less self-conscious if you're effectively in disguise, but the whole thing took up a lot of spoons.
This was a commercial con, so aside from guests, the main occupations were people-spotting and shopping. There were lots of really awesome guests -- Paul McGann! Sophie Aldred! Sylvester McCoy! -- but they were accompanied by massive queues, so we didn't get anything signed. Claudia Christian had no queue at all, but I'm not a huge fan, and I didn't want to pay $30 for an autograph. (She walked right past me at one point, and I have to say, she has had a fair amount of work done. I don't mean that in a bitchy way -- "ACTRESS GETS PLASTIC SURGERY" isn't really news -- but her face looked all hard and plastic.)
We didn't get a chance to take many pictures of other people on Saturday, because ... well. You know.
We met another Kyoshi Warrior! And a Joker! This photo's from his Facebook album; he was photographed with pretty much everyone there on Saturday. We were pretty excited to meet that Warrior, because
myniamh had seen her at other cons, and we'd all admired her costume.
weaver strikes a pose.
BE MORE AWKWARD, LIZ!
We found a Katara! I posted a picture of her to Twitter, and
mystefaction replied that she looked like the sister of one of her friends. Turns out that she is that friend's sister, and we have another friend in common, as I discovered when I met her this afternoon, in company with mystefaction herself. TORTUROUS SENTENCE IS TORTUROUS. Turns out that Melbourne, in its way, is just as incestuous as Brisbane.
myniamh. This is honestly the cutest thing I've ever seen.
weaver is lovely.
Fans make really handy props.
I did not enjoy meeting a Dalek.
It said to me, "Do! You! Like! My Fez!?"
"Please don't kill me," I answered.
"Fezzes! Are! Cool! I! Knitted! My! Scarf! With! My! Plunger!"
At the end of the day, in defiance of all established laws, we were fanboyed by a Stormtrooper, who regretted that he'd never gotten around to completing his Sokka costume.
FLASHBACK! A week ago, making the gauntlets.
Purchased yesterday: a Weeping Angel action figure (coming soon to
weaver's desk at work!) and the Journal of Impossible Things, which came with the Master's Ring.We didn't have our third warrior for Sunday, and just having two seemed a bit sad, so I decided to go as Time War!Romana. Out of vinyl, I made the corset of Rassilon (with handy pocket for sonic screwdriver!) and some gauntlets featuring the New Seal of Rassilon. And I had a fobwatch, for emergencies, and thanks to Character Options, I now had the Master's ring.
Sadly, I was kept from achieving True Awesome by the original seal of Rassilon, which is really buggering hard to turn into a handy stencil. New seal? Easy - I did it freehand in chalk on the gauntlets, and then went over it with gold paint. After three failed attempts to turn the original Seal into a stencil, I just got my last print-out, painted it gold, coloured the rest in with Sharpie, and stuck it to my corset with double-sided tape.
Oh yeah, baby.
Then, because it turns out you can't make gauntlets and eat toast at the same time, I realised at the train station that I'd gotten the press studs on one gauntlet the wrong way around.
On the other hand, I don't think I looked totally ridiculous, but at least, judging by this photo that
piecesofalice took, I half-achieved my goal of creating a look that was half Joan Holloway, half Lara Croft.
Let's all take a moment and thank Christina Hendricks for making my figure sort of fashionable.
This Angel was very nice, and had small children to hold her bag and camera while she posed. I need to get me some of those!
HE ALWAYS DRESSES FOR THE OCCASION!
There were, in fact, two Roberts!Masters wandering around -- Epic Torturing Master and Black Leather Coat Master. But only one was around at the moment I had my phone ready.
You can't tell here, but this Fire Nation soldier is actually a young boy.
A whole lot of Avatar cosplayers! We spoke to them yesterday, when they were in other costumes, and they were really nice. Blurry photo because they were being filmed for something, and I didn't want to interrupt. Also, it was insanely crowded today, much worse than yesteday.
An Azula, with the soldier from earlier.
After a while, I started collecting Elevens.
Other costumes I spotted:
- a River-as-Cleopatra
- the Second and Third Doctors
- a second Second Doctor, complete with recorder
- about four different Tenth Doctors
- several Fours, including two in the burgundy variant
- a Romana II, who I think was
elyssadc's friend Denise, but it was so crowded I didn't get a chance to talk to her- about half a dozen Amys
- two "Idiot's Lantern" Roses
- Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann, both looking quite magnificent
- a whole family of DC heroes, including the children in prams
- a Batman whose costume was superior to George Clooney's
- a very tall Darth Vader and practically the entire Imperial armed forces
- three Kathryn Janeways, one of whom was a little girl
- the usual troupe of Disney princesses
More pictures can be found at the Flickr feed, including a recreation of an iconic Star Trek: TOS publicity shot with a minor addition.
Purchased today: naught but a postcard-sized publicity picture of season 1!Zuko, autographed by Dante Basco. The store had most of the cast, but I was running short of money and didn't even dare look at the others. One day, my precioussssss.
