all others are number three or lower!
I'm posting a con report less than a week after the con ended? WHAT IS THIS CRAZINESS!?
So yeah! We went to WonderCon for the first time ever, yay! We've wanted to go for years but the timing just hasn't worked out. This year the timing was still not spectacular, what with it being Easter weekend and Baby Donut's birthday, but we'd committed to go and so we did, and I'm really glad we did because it was ~AWESOME.~
I wore four costumes this time: Yvaine, Penny from The Big Bang Theory, my Rebel cheerleader, and the Bowler from Mystery Men. (Our Masquerade skit this year was MM-themed and there were actually 8 of us dressed as identical Bowlers!) After Dragon*Con, having only one suitcase apiece seemed so...strange. We did, however, forget our camera, so most of the pics I'm linking to are Corli's; a few are Glenn's, and a few are Jess's husband Scott's. All the tiny pictures can be clicked to be embiggened.
We flew into San Jose on Thursday night because we were staying with Corli for the weekend (because Corli ROCKS!). She picked us up and we went to Chili's for Rogue's birthday dinner. Of course we chattered about costumes and skits the whole time! I actually don't remember if we did anything else that night? Probably not, other than a little costume work.
Friday
Con didn't start until noon on Friday so we had a late-ish morning and then picked up Taco Bell and Angie, who was carpooling with us all weekend. (Yay, Angie!) Of course it was raining that morning and there was only parking available on the roof of the parking garage-- so the others held up a blanket so I could change into my Yvaine costume once we got there. ;-) (I didn't want to wear it in the car for the hour it took us to drive there.) We ran into a bunch of Mandos and Jedi on our way to the elevator; we later found out they were in the Masquerade too.
We had a bit of shenanigans when I discovered that the paper with our registration barcode must have fallen out in the car, so Rogue went back to get it, but then his cell phone died and he couldn't find us, and it was this whole thing, but eventually we found each other and I had my whole costume on and we got our badges and could wander the floor. Yay! I was actually amazed by how many people recognized our Stardust costumes! To me, it seemed like way more people than had actually recognized us at Dragon*Con last year.
So there we were, walking through the aisles, and suddenly we hear the Spice Girls' "Wannabe" coming from the general direction of the Dante's Inferno booth. At first we thought it was actually coming *from* the DI booth (because that could certainly be a level of hell) but then we discovered it was coming from THE MOST AMAZING BOOTH EVER, the "Just Dance" booth. Just Dance is a Wii game where you hold the wiimote in your right hand and copy the dance moves that are being done on screen. There are 20 or so songs to choose from. And they had a stage and you could go up there and dance in front of everyone.
...this was of course the greatest thing I've seen at a con in pretty much ever.
I really wanted to get up there and dance but I was worried I'd step on my long skirt and rip it. But then we actually had someone ask us if we'd get up there and dance in our costumes, and they promised us pictures, and I was like OKAY! So the four of us (me, Rogue, Corli, Angie) got up there and danced to "Wannabe." I have no pictures of that yet but we've been in contact with the photographer and he's promised us we'll get the images.
We wandered over to the Browncoat booth to see Kim, and discovered that Racebending had a booth right across the way, which was GREAT and we spent awhile talking to them. Then at some point we went over to Masquerade checkin to get our forms and say hi to Martin et al. I also met Roxana, another Masq entrant, who was dressed as Black Cat, and she loved our Stardust outfits and we made friends and promised to hang out backstage.
At 4:30 Corli, Rogue, and I went downstairs to the "Art of Princess and the Frog" panel. We just *barely* made it in, and I am so so glad we did. It was FASCINATING! They had both directors there, the art director, a supervising animator, and the head of effects. They each gave a short presentation about different aspects of how the film was developed and made-- it was so, so cool. I know almost nothing about the process of making a hand-drawn animated movie and I was absolutely amazed by the work they do. One of my favorite parts was when they talked about developing the color palette of the movie, and the way the color palette progresses though a scene. Completely fascinating.
We met back up with Angie and decided to see if we could find the off-site Tron event and check it out. We found it, but there were no people around, and it was cold and windy and we were wondering what the hell was going on:
Finally, one of the other few people wandering around mentioned something about a hotel ballroom, so we went to check it out, and of course THAT was where everyone was and where they were handing the swag out. And this is why we can't go on the Amazing Race. :-P We did get a pretty sweet picture out of the whole thing though:
We kind of wanted to stick around for the rest of the event and see what else happened, but as mentioned, it was cold and windy and we were *starving.* On the way home, Rogue and Angie discovered they both played WoW and immediately struck up a conversation that might as well have been in Chinese for all Corli and I could understand of it! :-P (By the end of the night, Rogue had made a new character: Facepunch the orc, named after the best part of the New Moon movie.) Corli had been craving New Orleans food since the Princess and the Frog panel, so after we got back to San Jose, we changed into civvies and went to a local place she knows which had *delicious* food. Rogue got a giant meat sandwich thing:
Of course I ate way too much and couldn't even make a dent in my pasta. Those sweet potato fries were soooo good though...and the beignets...nom nom nom. We all repaired back to Corli's place for the evening and worked on the last bits of costume stuff while watching a bunch of Big Bang Theory episodes and old Masquerade entries. I love my friends!!!
Saturday
Soooo, I didn't get *quite* as much sleep as I would've liked that night, but eh, whatever, it was enough. Saturday morning, we scurried around making sure we had everything we could possibly need for Masq that night, then went to pick up Angie. Our costumes for the day were from The Big Bang Theory-- I had been planning to dress as Penny in her Cheesecake Factory uniform, and when I told Corli the week before, she was like "Ooooh, can I be Sheldon? As the Doppler Effect?" and I was like "GET OUT OF MY BRAIN CORDELIA" because I had thought the exact same thing. Rogue threw together a closet cosplay and slouched down to be our Leonard. I got recognized by a few people-- Corli was much more recognizable in her Doppler Effect costume.
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(We tried to cover all the ships in our pictures...although I suppose for that to be true, we ought to have had a pic with just Rogue and Corli. *g*)
Many, many thanks to Corli for loaning me her Sharpay wig, since I didn't have anything that would work for Penny. ;-) My skirt isn't right, but I'll build one by SDCC, and I'll get my own wig too. That's the exact top though-- fear my Google skills!-- and I made my very own Pennyblossom. (I have a ton of leftover supplies from making this one, so if you want a Pennyblossom, let me know and we can work something out.)
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Aaaanywho, we lugged all our stuff to the Masquerade practice room, and then Rogue and I took off for the Disney animation demo, which we once again barely squeaked into. (Phew!) It was one of the guys from the previous day's TPATF panel, the supervising animator, and basically for an hour, he showed us how he does what he does. He showed us short clips (very very short) from the movie, and then explained how the scenes were made-- how they make the bones of the scene (the key frames), and then the in-between parts, and how they synchronize all the sound and movement and music, and how they go about drawing characters, and just everything. I think my thoughts on this are pretty clear, but I'll reiterate: utterly, completely fascinating. I could have watched him all day. At the very end, he took suggestions from the audience and drew us our very own cartoon character-- a fat, depressed unicorn ballerina. It was adorable. And amazing.
The floor was packed on Saturday (see picture above), in marked contrast to Friday, but we braved it anyway. Rogue really wanted to stop by Jason Palmer's booth, which we couldn't do on Friday since he wasn't there. For those unfamiliar, he's the guy who did that Padme print everyone bought. We both lovelovelove his art-- in addition to the Padme print we also own his Shindig Kaylee print and his Serenity cast print (now fully signed! except Chiwitel Ejiofor of course)-- and we always stop by to see him and Yelena every time they're at a con we go to. ANYWAY. He has also done a Serenity portrait set that Rogue has been coveting for years and years. And they just happened to have a full set of the prints, with coordinating mats, with them at the show. And Rogue's birthday was Thursday. And so...we now own the full set of 12 prints. With coordinating mats. Rogue was so happy he was bouncing. (Not an exaggeration.)
Okay then after THAT, we had been texting back and forth with Dave (and The Hair) about meeting for lunch, so we took our new prints out to Corli's car and met Dave for a very quick lunch at Mel's Diner. It was great to see him again! But he was on his lunch break from work so he had to rush right back-- sadface. Back at the con, it was time for our first full rehearsal with the group. Because Corli is awesome and had planned everything so well, rehearsal went completely smoothly and all 13 of us integrated pretty seamlessly. That took a little over an hour, and then we had a break until 5:30, when we had to move our Masq stuff to the green room. So I turned to Corli and said, "Want to go back to the Just Dance booth?" You get one guess what her answer was:
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Dear God, this con report is getting ridiculously long. I did not think we did this much stuff! GAH.
Right, so 5:30 rolled around and we hauled all our Masq stuff up to the green room, which was behind the big ballroom where Masq would be held. It was actually the green room where all the con guests had been-- so there were still the remains of all the food spreads, accompanied by little signs saying "Warner Brothers" and "DISNEY ONLY!" We claimed a big round table in the back of the room and got to work! You always think you have all the time in the world, but it goes by amazingly fast. It was a smidge stressful for me because I had to finish winding Rogue's Blue Raja turban (I ended up sewing the fabric together while it was on his head; it was the only way to make it work) and then tell him how to put his costume on, since he'd never put the whole thing on before! Luckily my costume was really simple to put on. Corli and Kelly did my makeup, bless their hearts, and Kelly pinned in my green "hair" in.
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Then of course, after rushing to get ready and have our judges' picture taken, we had a ton of time to wander around, eat Peeps, and take our own pictures (note the Invisible Boy in the third photo):
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We had a Space Girls reunion, minus Ginger of course, who left to pursue a solo career:
Here's Angie, our "main" Bowler, showing off the gloves she made for all of us. Leah hand-painted all of the logos on the back of our capes, and Nina did all of the skulls in our "bowling balls" (drawn on with Sharpie. SHARPIE!!!). Corli handled the making of the Bowler dresses, capes, and boot covers, with assistance from the rest of our group. I have such amazingly talented friends!!!
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Of course we took our obligatory jump picture:
And here is the full cast!
We were #11 in the running order-- they put us early because three of our castmembers had to run away as soon as we were done because they do Rocky Horror. Masq went really really fast! There were fewer entries than SDCC, of course, but even considering that, the show really clipped along. We had a video feed in the green room, but there wasn't any sound other than what filtered backstage, so we had fun guessing what was happening in different skits and making up our own narration.
Our skit went as perfectly as it could have gone, which is always what you hope for. We really had no idea how many people even remembered Mystery Men, but there was a loud cheer when the emcee announced our entry title, and a louder one when Mr. Furious, the Shoveler, and the Blue Raja made their first entrance. And they seemed to enjoy our song and dance. That's all we ever want, to entertain the audience, so I'm glad we succeeded. So far, there are two YouTube videos of our skit-- one by Nina's boyfriend and one by a random audience member. There is also a third on ACParadise here, where you can see the whole stage, but you'll need to register/login to view it. The YT videos:
Here's a great picture of us onstage-- look at that awesome window action!
After we got offstage it was pictures as usual, and then we went back to watch the rest of the video feed. They were letting us go sit in the audience if we wanted, but I decided to stay backstage so I could chat with other costumers. I found Roxana (she and her bf had done a great Black Canary-Green Arrow entry) and we talked for awhile-- I love making new friends!
Even though the Masq was much shorter than SDCC and there were many fewer awards, the judging seemed to take as long as ever! They played SW fan films during the judging (including my favorite ever, Star Wars Retold) but it wasn't the same without the sound. When they started giving out awards it was pretty confusing-- they were yelling names/numbers as the awards were being announced, and no one was quite sure what was going on. Finally someone came with a full list and called all the numbers of entries that had won, and they called us! YAAAAY! We didn't know what we'd won until we got onstage and they said we had won Judges' Choice, or as Glenn puts it, "the award for being awesome without actually winning a category." Or, to bastardize a quote from the movie: "We are Judges' Choice. All others are number three, or lower."
We took some pictures with our new trophy:
"Quick! Everyone look serious in a different direction!"
And then we dragged ourselves back to the car (we wanted margaritas, but Chevy's was closed) and finally got in around 1 am and COLLAPSED. But not before we scrawled a little bit of bathroom graffiti! (Backstory: Friday night, I couldn't find the Blue Raja's fork holder thingy, so Cordelia told me to write it on the bathroom mirror so we wouldn't forget about it. In the morning, Rogue came out of the bathroom, and said, "Is this a slur? Some kind of racial slur?" and we realized that "FORK HOLDER" was still written on the mirror.) So Saturday night, I replaced it with "SPOON THROWER!" and Cordelia added "Imperialist Limey Go Home!" and an anti-fork sign. The frowny face is from when Rogue found it the next morning. Like I said...we were really really tired.
Sunday
We got up earlier than we would have liked on Sunday, because Corli was on a panel and I had promised to do a Rebel Cheerleader photoshoot at 12. But we still got there on time! We were wearing our Mystery Men costumes, so I was a stealth cheerleader:
When I got to the Rebel Legion booth for the cheerleader gathering, I just pulled off my Bowler dress and cape and took off my bootcovers. It was pretty funny-- whenever we do the Sith cheerleader shoots, everyone else is all gothed and punk-rocked out and I'm the perky normal blonde one, and this time for the Rebel cheerleader shoot, where everyone should be sweetness and light, I was in black tights and stompy boots and heavy eyeliner.
I love this picture of Jess and Kathy tying my hairbows:
Then we got down to business:
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After the shoot I ran over to Cordelia's panel, which was about fan costuming. Jean was moderating, and the panel also included Brian and Metta who'd won Best in Show the night before with their amazing Doctor Who costumes. I think they gave a lot of great tips, things that costumers don't often consider or don't know about until it happens to them and they're unprepared. I also changed right back into my Bowler outfit in the room-- just pulled it over the cheerleading outfit and then wiggled out of my cheer skirt. *g*
Reunited with Corli, Angie, and Rogue, the four of us went back to the floor to meet up with Nina so that all four Space Girls could dance to Wannabe at the Just Dance booth, just like old times. ;-) We looked pretty snazzy in our matching Bowler outfits!
Of course Rogue got video of the whole thing:
We also ran into the Who group in their costumes:
And took a crossover picture:
At the end of the day, we went up for the Buffy musical singalong in the big ballroom, and we came up early enough to catch the very end of the Chuck panel and wave at Zachary Levi and Adam Baldwin. The singalong was lots of fun, although it's really missing something when Buffy's revelation that she'd been in heaven isn't accompanied by a chorus of mournful kazoos. And that was the end of the con! It was raining pretty hard so we had to make a run for the garage, and then it took us forever to get back to San Jose. We stopped at Angie's to change into civvies, because we were having dinner with Julie (an old theater friend) and her husband. We had tasty Mexican food, and then went for dessert at a different place-- mmm, Boston cream pie and caramel cheesecake. We couldn't stay too long though, because we had to rush back to Corli's, throw our stuff in suitcases, and hightail it to the airport to catch our flight! And just like that, the weekend of fun was all over.
And to close this post-- HUGE CRAZY MASSIVE THANKS to Corli for opening her home to us, driving us to and from the con every day, choreographing a fantastic and fun skit, and putting in so much work on the Bowler costumes. Now I have one, and I didn't have to do anything to get it! (You bet your ass we're bringing these to D*C this year!) Much love to all my fellow Mystery Men-- thanks for making our first WonderCon so great for us.
So yeah! We went to WonderCon for the first time ever, yay! We've wanted to go for years but the timing just hasn't worked out. This year the timing was still not spectacular, what with it being Easter weekend and Baby Donut's birthday, but we'd committed to go and so we did, and I'm really glad we did because it was ~AWESOME.~
I wore four costumes this time: Yvaine, Penny from The Big Bang Theory, my Rebel cheerleader, and the Bowler from Mystery Men. (Our Masquerade skit this year was MM-themed and there were actually 8 of us dressed as identical Bowlers!) After Dragon*Con, having only one suitcase apiece seemed so...strange. We did, however, forget our camera, so most of the pics I'm linking to are Corli's; a few are Glenn's, and a few are Jess's husband Scott's. All the tiny pictures can be clicked to be embiggened.
We flew into San Jose on Thursday night because we were staying with Corli for the weekend (because Corli ROCKS!). She picked us up and we went to Chili's for Rogue's birthday dinner. Of course we chattered about costumes and skits the whole time! I actually don't remember if we did anything else that night? Probably not, other than a little costume work.
Friday
Con didn't start until noon on Friday so we had a late-ish morning and then picked up Taco Bell and Angie, who was carpooling with us all weekend. (Yay, Angie!) Of course it was raining that morning and there was only parking available on the roof of the parking garage-- so the others held up a blanket so I could change into my Yvaine costume once we got there. ;-) (I didn't want to wear it in the car for the hour it took us to drive there.) We ran into a bunch of Mandos and Jedi on our way to the elevator; we later found out they were in the Masquerade too.
We had a bit of shenanigans when I discovered that the paper with our registration barcode must have fallen out in the car, so Rogue went back to get it, but then his cell phone died and he couldn't find us, and it was this whole thing, but eventually we found each other and I had my whole costume on and we got our badges and could wander the floor. Yay! I was actually amazed by how many people recognized our Stardust costumes! To me, it seemed like way more people than had actually recognized us at Dragon*Con last year.
So there we were, walking through the aisles, and suddenly we hear the Spice Girls' "Wannabe" coming from the general direction of the Dante's Inferno booth. At first we thought it was actually coming *from* the DI booth (because that could certainly be a level of hell) but then we discovered it was coming from THE MOST AMAZING BOOTH EVER, the "Just Dance" booth. Just Dance is a Wii game where you hold the wiimote in your right hand and copy the dance moves that are being done on screen. There are 20 or so songs to choose from. And they had a stage and you could go up there and dance in front of everyone.
...this was of course the greatest thing I've seen at a con in pretty much ever.
I really wanted to get up there and dance but I was worried I'd step on my long skirt and rip it. But then we actually had someone ask us if we'd get up there and dance in our costumes, and they promised us pictures, and I was like OKAY! So the four of us (me, Rogue, Corli, Angie) got up there and danced to "Wannabe." I have no pictures of that yet but we've been in contact with the photographer and he's promised us we'll get the images.
We wandered over to the Browncoat booth to see Kim, and discovered that Racebending had a booth right across the way, which was GREAT and we spent awhile talking to them. Then at some point we went over to Masquerade checkin to get our forms and say hi to Martin et al. I also met Roxana, another Masq entrant, who was dressed as Black Cat, and she loved our Stardust outfits and we made friends and promised to hang out backstage.
At 4:30 Corli, Rogue, and I went downstairs to the "Art of Princess and the Frog" panel. We just *barely* made it in, and I am so so glad we did. It was FASCINATING! They had both directors there, the art director, a supervising animator, and the head of effects. They each gave a short presentation about different aspects of how the film was developed and made-- it was so, so cool. I know almost nothing about the process of making a hand-drawn animated movie and I was absolutely amazed by the work they do. One of my favorite parts was when they talked about developing the color palette of the movie, and the way the color palette progresses though a scene. Completely fascinating.
We met back up with Angie and decided to see if we could find the off-site Tron event and check it out. We found it, but there were no people around, and it was cold and windy and we were wondering what the hell was going on:
Finally, one of the other few people wandering around mentioned something about a hotel ballroom, so we went to check it out, and of course THAT was where everyone was and where they were handing the swag out. And this is why we can't go on the Amazing Race. :-P We did get a pretty sweet picture out of the whole thing though:
We kind of wanted to stick around for the rest of the event and see what else happened, but as mentioned, it was cold and windy and we were *starving.* On the way home, Rogue and Angie discovered they both played WoW and immediately struck up a conversation that might as well have been in Chinese for all Corli and I could understand of it! :-P (By the end of the night, Rogue had made a new character: Facepunch the orc, named after the best part of the New Moon movie.) Corli had been craving New Orleans food since the Princess and the Frog panel, so after we got back to San Jose, we changed into civvies and went to a local place she knows which had *delicious* food. Rogue got a giant meat sandwich thing:
Of course I ate way too much and couldn't even make a dent in my pasta. Those sweet potato fries were soooo good though...and the beignets...nom nom nom. We all repaired back to Corli's place for the evening and worked on the last bits of costume stuff while watching a bunch of Big Bang Theory episodes and old Masquerade entries. I love my friends!!!
Saturday
Soooo, I didn't get *quite* as much sleep as I would've liked that night, but eh, whatever, it was enough. Saturday morning, we scurried around making sure we had everything we could possibly need for Masq that night, then went to pick up Angie. Our costumes for the day were from The Big Bang Theory-- I had been planning to dress as Penny in her Cheesecake Factory uniform, and when I told Corli the week before, she was like "Ooooh, can I be Sheldon? As the Doppler Effect?" and I was like "GET OUT OF MY BRAIN CORDELIA" because I had thought the exact same thing. Rogue threw together a closet cosplay and slouched down to be our Leonard. I got recognized by a few people-- Corli was much more recognizable in her Doppler Effect costume.
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(We tried to cover all the ships in our pictures...although I suppose for that to be true, we ought to have had a pic with just Rogue and Corli. *g*)
Many, many thanks to Corli for loaning me her Sharpay wig, since I didn't have anything that would work for Penny. ;-) My skirt isn't right, but I'll build one by SDCC, and I'll get my own wig too. That's the exact top though-- fear my Google skills!-- and I made my very own Pennyblossom. (I have a ton of leftover supplies from making this one, so if you want a Pennyblossom, let me know and we can work something out.)
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Aaaanywho, we lugged all our stuff to the Masquerade practice room, and then Rogue and I took off for the Disney animation demo, which we once again barely squeaked into. (Phew!) It was one of the guys from the previous day's TPATF panel, the supervising animator, and basically for an hour, he showed us how he does what he does. He showed us short clips (very very short) from the movie, and then explained how the scenes were made-- how they make the bones of the scene (the key frames), and then the in-between parts, and how they synchronize all the sound and movement and music, and how they go about drawing characters, and just everything. I think my thoughts on this are pretty clear, but I'll reiterate: utterly, completely fascinating. I could have watched him all day. At the very end, he took suggestions from the audience and drew us our very own cartoon character-- a fat, depressed unicorn ballerina. It was adorable. And amazing.
The floor was packed on Saturday (see picture above), in marked contrast to Friday, but we braved it anyway. Rogue really wanted to stop by Jason Palmer's booth, which we couldn't do on Friday since he wasn't there. For those unfamiliar, he's the guy who did that Padme print everyone bought. We both lovelovelove his art-- in addition to the Padme print we also own his Shindig Kaylee print and his Serenity cast print (now fully signed! except Chiwitel Ejiofor of course)-- and we always stop by to see him and Yelena every time they're at a con we go to. ANYWAY. He has also done a Serenity portrait set that Rogue has been coveting for years and years. And they just happened to have a full set of the prints, with coordinating mats, with them at the show. And Rogue's birthday was Thursday. And so...we now own the full set of 12 prints. With coordinating mats. Rogue was so happy he was bouncing. (Not an exaggeration.)
Okay then after THAT, we had been texting back and forth with Dave (and The Hair) about meeting for lunch, so we took our new prints out to Corli's car and met Dave for a very quick lunch at Mel's Diner. It was great to see him again! But he was on his lunch break from work so he had to rush right back-- sadface. Back at the con, it was time for our first full rehearsal with the group. Because Corli is awesome and had planned everything so well, rehearsal went completely smoothly and all 13 of us integrated pretty seamlessly. That took a little over an hour, and then we had a break until 5:30, when we had to move our Masq stuff to the green room. So I turned to Corli and said, "Want to go back to the Just Dance booth?" You get one guess what her answer was:
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Dear God, this con report is getting ridiculously long. I did not think we did this much stuff! GAH.
Right, so 5:30 rolled around and we hauled all our Masq stuff up to the green room, which was behind the big ballroom where Masq would be held. It was actually the green room where all the con guests had been-- so there were still the remains of all the food spreads, accompanied by little signs saying "Warner Brothers" and "DISNEY ONLY!" We claimed a big round table in the back of the room and got to work! You always think you have all the time in the world, but it goes by amazingly fast. It was a smidge stressful for me because I had to finish winding Rogue's Blue Raja turban (I ended up sewing the fabric together while it was on his head; it was the only way to make it work) and then tell him how to put his costume on, since he'd never put the whole thing on before! Luckily my costume was really simple to put on. Corli and Kelly did my makeup, bless their hearts, and Kelly pinned in my green "hair" in.
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Then of course, after rushing to get ready and have our judges' picture taken, we had a ton of time to wander around, eat Peeps, and take our own pictures (note the Invisible Boy in the third photo):
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We had a Space Girls reunion, minus Ginger of course, who left to pursue a solo career:
Here's Angie, our "main" Bowler, showing off the gloves she made for all of us. Leah hand-painted all of the logos on the back of our capes, and Nina did all of the skulls in our "bowling balls" (drawn on with Sharpie. SHARPIE!!!). Corli handled the making of the Bowler dresses, capes, and boot covers, with assistance from the rest of our group. I have such amazingly talented friends!!!
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Of course we took our obligatory jump picture:
And here is the full cast!
We were #11 in the running order-- they put us early because three of our castmembers had to run away as soon as we were done because they do Rocky Horror. Masq went really really fast! There were fewer entries than SDCC, of course, but even considering that, the show really clipped along. We had a video feed in the green room, but there wasn't any sound other than what filtered backstage, so we had fun guessing what was happening in different skits and making up our own narration.
Our skit went as perfectly as it could have gone, which is always what you hope for. We really had no idea how many people even remembered Mystery Men, but there was a loud cheer when the emcee announced our entry title, and a louder one when Mr. Furious, the Shoveler, and the Blue Raja made their first entrance. And they seemed to enjoy our song and dance. That's all we ever want, to entertain the audience, so I'm glad we succeeded. So far, there are two YouTube videos of our skit-- one by Nina's boyfriend and one by a random audience member. There is also a third on ACParadise here, where you can see the whole stage, but you'll need to register/login to view it. The YT videos:
Click to viewHere's a great picture of us onstage-- look at that awesome window action!
After we got offstage it was pictures as usual, and then we went back to watch the rest of the video feed. They were letting us go sit in the audience if we wanted, but I decided to stay backstage so I could chat with other costumers. I found Roxana (she and her bf had done a great Black Canary-Green Arrow entry) and we talked for awhile-- I love making new friends!
Even though the Masq was much shorter than SDCC and there were many fewer awards, the judging seemed to take as long as ever! They played SW fan films during the judging (including my favorite ever, Star Wars Retold) but it wasn't the same without the sound. When they started giving out awards it was pretty confusing-- they were yelling names/numbers as the awards were being announced, and no one was quite sure what was going on. Finally someone came with a full list and called all the numbers of entries that had won, and they called us! YAAAAY! We didn't know what we'd won until we got onstage and they said we had won Judges' Choice, or as Glenn puts it, "the award for being awesome without actually winning a category." Or, to bastardize a quote from the movie: "We are Judges' Choice. All others are number three, or lower."
We took some pictures with our new trophy:
"Quick! Everyone look serious in a different direction!"
And then we dragged ourselves back to the car (we wanted margaritas, but Chevy's was closed) and finally got in around 1 am and COLLAPSED. But not before we scrawled a little bit of bathroom graffiti! (Backstory: Friday night, I couldn't find the Blue Raja's fork holder thingy, so Cordelia told me to write it on the bathroom mirror so we wouldn't forget about it. In the morning, Rogue came out of the bathroom, and said, "Is this a slur? Some kind of racial slur?" and we realized that "FORK HOLDER" was still written on the mirror.) So Saturday night, I replaced it with "SPOON THROWER!" and Cordelia added "Imperialist Limey Go Home!" and an anti-fork sign. The frowny face is from when Rogue found it the next morning. Like I said...we were really really tired.
Sunday
We got up earlier than we would have liked on Sunday, because Corli was on a panel and I had promised to do a Rebel Cheerleader photoshoot at 12. But we still got there on time! We were wearing our Mystery Men costumes, so I was a stealth cheerleader:
When I got to the Rebel Legion booth for the cheerleader gathering, I just pulled off my Bowler dress and cape and took off my bootcovers. It was pretty funny-- whenever we do the Sith cheerleader shoots, everyone else is all gothed and punk-rocked out and I'm the perky normal blonde one, and this time for the Rebel cheerleader shoot, where everyone should be sweetness and light, I was in black tights and stompy boots and heavy eyeliner.
I love this picture of Jess and Kathy tying my hairbows:
Then we got down to business:
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After the shoot I ran over to Cordelia's panel, which was about fan costuming. Jean was moderating, and the panel also included Brian and Metta who'd won Best in Show the night before with their amazing Doctor Who costumes. I think they gave a lot of great tips, things that costumers don't often consider or don't know about until it happens to them and they're unprepared. I also changed right back into my Bowler outfit in the room-- just pulled it over the cheerleading outfit and then wiggled out of my cheer skirt. *g*
Reunited with Corli, Angie, and Rogue, the four of us went back to the floor to meet up with Nina so that all four Space Girls could dance to Wannabe at the Just Dance booth, just like old times. ;-) We looked pretty snazzy in our matching Bowler outfits!
Of course Rogue got video of the whole thing:
We also ran into the Who group in their costumes:
And took a crossover picture:
At the end of the day, we went up for the Buffy musical singalong in the big ballroom, and we came up early enough to catch the very end of the Chuck panel and wave at Zachary Levi and Adam Baldwin. The singalong was lots of fun, although it's really missing something when Buffy's revelation that she'd been in heaven isn't accompanied by a chorus of mournful kazoos. And that was the end of the con! It was raining pretty hard so we had to make a run for the garage, and then it took us forever to get back to San Jose. We stopped at Angie's to change into civvies, because we were having dinner with Julie (an old theater friend) and her husband. We had tasty Mexican food, and then went for dessert at a different place-- mmm, Boston cream pie and caramel cheesecake. We couldn't stay too long though, because we had to rush back to Corli's, throw our stuff in suitcases, and hightail it to the airport to catch our flight! And just like that, the weekend of fun was all over.
And to close this post-- HUGE CRAZY MASSIVE THANKS to Corli for opening her home to us, driving us to and from the con every day, choreographing a fantastic and fun skit, and putting in so much work on the Bowler costumes. Now I have one, and I didn't have to do anything to get it! (You bet your ass we're bringing these to D*C this year!) Much love to all my fellow Mystery Men-- thanks for making our first WonderCon so great for us.