Arisia!
Here's my report on the Arisia convention this past weekend: I was a panelist on the Joss Whedon panel Friday night which went fine, then I did some other stuff blah blah blah, then I won "Best in Show" at the Masquerade Saturday night!!!!!!! :D
I'd made a steampunk costume inspired by the "Girl Genius" web comic, http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/ (but not specifically recreating any one character). I made the dress, collected the accessories (especially the belt-of-many-things), and altered an off-brand Nerf-type gun by painting it and adding tubes and bits to it to make it into my mad scientist's ray gun.
Several pictures are available starting here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/batwrangler/3204665249/in/set-72157612699241564/
(these are not my pictures, but they are better than what's on my camera)
The one thing I left until the last minute was actually figuring out my stage presentation. I kept trying to just describe the costume; then, the morning of the contest I hit on the idea of declaring that the entire audience would be part of my latest science experiment! Here's the script, which was read by Marty Gear, the emcee (you cannot speak from stage, so either you have to bring a CD with your speech recorded or you have the emcee do it, and Marty is very good at this sort of stuff):
"Welcome, students, to Transylvania Polygnostic University, home of adventure, romance, and mad science. Doctor Wilhemina Von Fishbottle thanks you all for volunteering to assist with the initial testing of her new Rodentian Transmuting Ray Gun, which will turn you all into large hamsters. Please sit still - this probably won't hurt!
(Contestant will pretend to fire at the audience, but the audience does not transform into hamsters.)
Oh well, back to the drawing board!"
Short and sweet is the way to go with these things, I believe -- get on stage, drop the joke bomb, get off stage.
Anyway, I won a workmanship award for my ray gun and accessories (workmanship awards are for the details of a costume that the audience can't see). Then the judges started giving the presentation awards for what happened on stage. I did not get a presentation award in my division, but I hadn't been able to see all the other presenations, so I figured fine, I got something for workmanship and that's what I expected. Then the judges called out the Best in Show award, which goes across all divisions, and they called me!! I really was stunned. After talking to people later, it sounds like it was the presentation that did it -- short, funny, and people could understand it even if they weren't familiar with Girl Genius.
I wore the costume all day Sunday as well, because they were having a "Steampunk ball." Here are photos from the ball if you care to look:
http://s218.photobucket.com/albums/cc95/AuntRadegund/Arisia09_steampunk/
Edit: here's a video I took at the steampunk ball - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR8uiJyfvBo
I'd made a steampunk costume inspired by the "Girl Genius" web comic, http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/ (but not specifically recreating any one character). I made the dress, collected the accessories (especially the belt-of-many-things), and altered an off-brand Nerf-type gun by painting it and adding tubes and bits to it to make it into my mad scientist's ray gun.
Several pictures are available starting here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/batwrangler/3204665249/in/set-72157612699241564/
(these are not my pictures, but they are better than what's on my camera)
The one thing I left until the last minute was actually figuring out my stage presentation. I kept trying to just describe the costume; then, the morning of the contest I hit on the idea of declaring that the entire audience would be part of my latest science experiment! Here's the script, which was read by Marty Gear, the emcee (you cannot speak from stage, so either you have to bring a CD with your speech recorded or you have the emcee do it, and Marty is very good at this sort of stuff):
"Welcome, students, to Transylvania Polygnostic University, home of adventure, romance, and mad science. Doctor Wilhemina Von Fishbottle thanks you all for volunteering to assist with the initial testing of her new Rodentian Transmuting Ray Gun, which will turn you all into large hamsters. Please sit still - this probably won't hurt!
(Contestant will pretend to fire at the audience, but the audience does not transform into hamsters.)
Oh well, back to the drawing board!"
Short and sweet is the way to go with these things, I believe -- get on stage, drop the joke bomb, get off stage.
Anyway, I won a workmanship award for my ray gun and accessories (workmanship awards are for the details of a costume that the audience can't see). Then the judges started giving the presentation awards for what happened on stage. I did not get a presentation award in my division, but I hadn't been able to see all the other presenations, so I figured fine, I got something for workmanship and that's what I expected. Then the judges called out the Best in Show award, which goes across all divisions, and they called me!! I really was stunned. After talking to people later, it sounds like it was the presentation that did it -- short, funny, and people could understand it even if they weren't familiar with Girl Genius.
I wore the costume all day Sunday as well, because they were having a "Steampunk ball." Here are photos from the ball if you care to look:
http://s218.photobucket.com/albums/cc95/AuntRadegund/Arisia09_steampunk/
Edit: here's a video I took at the steampunk ball - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR8uiJyfvBo