The Gallifrey One 2011 Con Report - Part One!
Hey Gang,
Well at long last here's my Gally 2011 report. It was a bit harrowing, a bit sleep deprived, a bit of a costume flurry and a bit stressful. A lot of bits in there. It was also tons of fun. As always, I highly recommend this convention!
Androids have feelings too. Photo by Scott Sebring.
More Pics and Info
I find it interesting to see the evolution of how I experience a convention has changed over the years. When I first attended comic book and SF cons back in the late 80s/early 90s it was all about getting the STUFF. You know in those pre-internet days when one practically lives in the dealer's room, because that's where the RARE goods were. You were guaranteed to strike some merchandise gold and probably be quite poor for the following months as a consequence. Then as we move into the tail end of the 90s and early 2000's I became 'all about the panels.' Being a poor college student, I couldn't afford to blow a ton on the STUFF (plus amazon and ebay were now coming into the picture so these things could be found outside of the con circuit). So instead I got my autographs, I planned out my day and basically ping-ponged to every cool guest or discussion panel that struck my fancy. It was cool. Although being only a panel goer means you end up with a rather passive experience. Finally we get into the mid-2000's and beyond with the cosplay thing. Thanks to this hobby, I find I'm much more engaged with con going than ever before. It's a way to become an active participant, get in the mix, and really interact with other fans. Honestly, I think it's the best way to attend a con. I've made so many friends because of this that every year becomes more and more like a mini-reunion, a nice hang out with old faces as well as the new. It feels pretty rewarding on a lot of levels.
Soooooo Gallifrey. Right. Well in the weeks leading up to Gally I had a lot on my plate costume wise. I also almost had a lot on my plate Masquerade wise. There wasn't room for everything.
Back in August and September, I suggested to my GF Teri and flibertyjibitz about either doing Romana I (Armegeddon Factor) with the Rani (a character who certianly deserves some cosplay love) from Time and the Rani. That didn't grab them. So then I suggested the 70's disco goodness of some Movellans instead and that got thier attention.
Movellan duo The Originals
Movellans Duo action Photo by Scott Sebring.
flibertyjibitz lucked out on finding some ruffled fabric for the tunics and some cornrow wigs for the hair fairly quickly and they were off and running. I'll probably have to confer with them about a proper breakdown of those costumes but suffice to say there were unexpected hurdles. Primarily this consisted of the Belt Buckle Breakdown and the Movellan Gun Limitation Effect.
flibbertybibitz does the Movellan in action pose. Photo by Scott Sebring.
Movellan - The original classic
Teri recreating the Publicity pose. Photo by Scott Sebring.
In the middle of this ceejay10 was hard at work finishing his Judoon trooper costume with the cunning use of chicken wire, paper mache and motorcycle outfit bits. A Judoon Trooper? Awesome. I knew we'd have to incorporate him for the Masque.
ceejay10's Judoon.
While they toiled on those Monsters, I was off trying 1) to upgrade my Eight costume with the new Vest fabric, new cravat fabric and finally getting the coat re-made in green velvet. 2) get my Season 14 Four costume rolling as I slowly acquired elements there and ran into headaches (again) on the houndstooth waistcoat pattern and 3) finally get my VOC Robot costume off the drawing board. Well there was only about 10 weeks to go. Only so much time, and only so much money - The great enemies of the cosplayer. Something had to give.
Movellan tweaks!
Death by cornrows
Due to complications on said waistcoat pattern I reluctantly set aside the Season 14 Four. I'll get back to that one, it's postponed, not forgotten. All that time and toil throughout the fall on it will not be for nought.
Season 14 Four waits for another day
I also was forced to bench the new Green Eight coat (the new vest and cravat were finished in time for Gally though). But it's actually coming together now as I write this. I did all of this to put priority on the one with the most 'cool factor,' namely the VOC Robot which had been on my wish list for the last 2 years.
New Eight Vest and Cravat from the Fabric run.
ceejay10 models my Eight costume
Eight Meets Four
Showing off the new vest from the group fabric run. Photo by Scott Sebring.
I'll also go into greater detail on how this was put together on a later breakdown but the VOC also had some interesting complications. I managed to get a helmet from a friend back in December. It was a sculpt apparently taken from an original that a seller had in the UK many moons back. This needed painting, ventilating and some minor repair work. I had originally planned to do the standard Green VOC but I just couldn't find a fabric I liked for it so I defaulted to the Dum class black version, because finding black cotton just made my life easier. Plus you know, black is cool.
On the two year wish list
The VOC Helmet in it's original state
VOC mock up stage 2
I was referred to a new totally awesome local seamstress who was up for the challenge of both projects and we worked together for the next ten weeks putting together most of the elements while I worked on the Helmet and the boots. The Movellan project had a happy spillover when we discovered the silver/chrome mylar being used for the belt/neck/boots of those costumes worked pretty well for the general trim of the VOC Robot. Although cutting and sewing with it proved.... tricky. My seamstress' husband worked with props a lot for film and television and he and I worked out an arrangement to put together the tricky breastplate which is essentially a rubber mat with some sliced tubing superglued on. A big thanks to drwhotrident from Gallifrey Base for help with determining the measurement of this (and in turn figuring out scale for the quilted diamond pattern of the fabric). It all got pushed a little to the wire but it all came together quite well in the end. But that wasn't all.
Finished Mylar trim
Determining Breastplate dimensions
There was also the matter of the 30-40 minute Masquerade half time show that we were tapped to do since it was learned early on Paul Cornell wouldn't be attending which left 'Just a Minute" in jeopardy. So I started brainstorming and writing that. I was looking forward to cracking out our "lost" RTD skit from 2010 on that one as well. Wait though, hold the phone, then we were told in early January the Masque was back more or less to the set up last year, another person was found to host Just a Minute, so no half-time show for us. We were asked to do another skit to close the show. Yet again due to electing exhibition status and having a group of 14 people, we were granted a time extension but we were forced to go pre-record again on the audio. I understand the necessity of this for Masque entrants and the larger ballroom we're in now, but I'd hoped we'd earned the stripes to ask for live mikes. Not the case. Hopefully next year.
Waiting backstage.
We wait to try for next year for the half time show.
So I abandoned plans and got writing/re-drafting on another solo skit. Then my head got away from me and before I knew it I was committing us to a sketch which required 3 new costumes (The Valeyard, the Dream Lord and a "Guy in a sack") in addition to the ones I knew we were all planning. Oh yeah and large handful of props including an Evil K9 eyepatch/goatee and a mannequin arm. Where was I going to get a Mannequin arm? Do I really need another tweed? and most importantly can I find a good blanket/sack in just the *right* shade of Classic Who green?
Guy in a Sack - He's MEANT to be tan!
Finally as an addition to the skit and also as a promise to myself to finished an abandoned project from last year, I told myself I was finally going to finish my gold Sash of Rassilon by hook or by crook.
The little Sash that could
Luckily I was armed with posterboard, velcro, apoxy sculpt, multiple cans of spray paint, scissors, buckets of super glue, an old pair of shoes, painter's tape, and a veritable ton of leftover L-200 foam from my Cyber upgrades of 2009.
For once I got ahead of the game and finished the draft of the skit a little over a month prior to Gally. Getting prepared for a full 30 minute show scares you into doing things early, what can I say? Also I knew I'd need the time to assemble props. Assembling the Dream Lord and Valeyard proved easy-ish. $25 got me a new tweed jacket. The rest was cobbled from my Three, Nine, and Eleven outfits.
Dream lord thrift costume
The Valeyard was made for a quick n'dirty "it'll look good on stage from over 10 feet away" total of $50.00. Cheap scuba cap, costume gloves, used graduation robe, a ton of leftover foam, painter's tape, paint and some cheap white 'on-clearance' satin and we were rockin' it Trial-style in the '86 baby.
Low End Valeyard Robe
Quick and cheap Valeyard
Valeyard on Stage
Dream Lord on stage
I never did find a good green blanket for the 'sack.' Well I did, but I refused to pay more than $25.00 for what amounted to a 30 second joke on stage. Who pays over $90 for ugly slime green flowery blankets? Anyway, it had to be large to cover an adult; thin, to not swelter them and allow for bubble wrap application; and cheap. Well after some shopping around I settled on a tan king sized duvet cover for $17.00. I thought about dying it green but it was mostly polyester so...ehh. Yeah never mind. Tan telegraphs the Five reveal. It'll do. I'll tell everyone I *meant* to go tan. Yeah that's the ticket.
Kevin shows his enthusiasm at being a henchman
A couple of weeks prior to the con I found a mannequin arm at a place near where I work in Burbank. Granted they charged a proverbial arm and a leg (alright fine, pun intended) to sell it but luckily they also rented them from a 'graveyard of parts' (I guess this is where the Autons go that don't make the cut!) for only a few dollars. So I arranged to rent an outstretched left male arm for the week of Gally.
Happy to hold a rented Auton Arm. Photo by Scott Sebring.
Then I had the EVIL and WANTED posters knocked up through help of a co-worker aiming to mimic a the Obama HOPE and old West posters respectively. For quick jobs they turned out well. I nearly added on the WANTED posted that Hartnell was 'Doc Holliday'. But I figured that might be one obscure reference too far. Plus it's not like The Gunfighters is all that well loved by fans. The Western motif would have to remain the subtle nod there.
EVIL - Inspiring for all monsters
WANTED Doc Holliday
I stayed up late the next Sunday knocking my VOC Boots together while letting the best of the Bee Gees gently brainwash me with thier disco and R&B lullibies. (Sorry Van, that's where all my bad random singing started!) I couldn't get it out of my head! I had my doubts but the boots worked in the end. Teri insisted I use a pair of 10 year old Sketchers I had for the base as apparantly they were unfit for a person under the age of 65 to ever be seen wearing sensibly. So if the shoes must be worn they might as well be completely covered and disguised. 1 point for recycling I guess.
Jive Talkin' some foam and shoes on a Sunday Night on Broadway
Finished VOC boots
Finally I took a night to start prelim work on editing together the audio for the skit. I had most of the voices/soundbytes which were sampled or recorded the week prior. As an added 'epic' bonus I asked up the 'con channels' to ask if John Leeson himself would voice K9 for the skit (since it was only 4 lines). To my surprise and delight, Leeson agreed and I got my K9 recorded audio files in my e-mail the day prior! Woo-hoo! Bonus. So I edited together an 'as scripted' version and was in horror to find it ran close to 12 minutes. I guess that's what I get for putting everything and the kitchen sink in for Who references into it. I pruned it back to about 6 and half minutes.
Evil K9 prop kit
Now I was juggling things. I'd talk to Scott Sebring aka batfriend about the overwhelming paint fumes while on my way for a super glue refill while he shared the glory and wonder of sawing plastic discs and spitting out plastic shards for Movellan guns. I'd wake up to paint a fresh coat of silver on all of the Cyberman parts, go over cutting a Valeyard sash with Teri, work out the wearability of the Pratt Master mask (I had to discreetly carve out extra bits to make it more visible and breathable than it's first outing), and start working out how to apply an 'evil' flag to K9. (For Gally vets, they'll notice I went back and used the Pirate Dalek/Cyberman version of the Skull N Bones image for K9's flag from Gallifrey 16 circa 2005)
Rehearsal outfitting K9 (Photo by Aubrey West)
Approves the new mask
This all went well until I found myself with four days to go and I still hadn't touched the Sash of Rassilon. Rather than leave it to the night before as it was destined to become... I forced myself into an all-nighter early on Monday and spent about 15 straight hours measuring out 22 neck shapes and 13 sash shapes, cutting the former from posterboard and the latter from foam, glueing them into shape and
finally into place.
Master Models the new sash
I did all of this while marathoning the final 70's groovy season of Mission: Impossible. I was so high from the glue fumes by the end of this I was starting to think it was 1973 and the IMF was real. Trust me there's nothing more humbling than waking up with your face superglued to a couple of foam pyramids thinking you've just let down Jim Phelps by blowing a misson and you couldn't remember what that taped message said before it self-destructed anyway.
Sash: Impossible
Master Plots the demise of the IMF
This now left me Wednesday night to finish editing the skit audio and applying music. I finished it in the nick of time, allowing me a couple of precious hours to run last minute errands and pick up my now completed VOC Robot suit at my seamstress. I also had to grab my 2 posters which were fresh off the press from being mounted on foamcore. It got pushed to the wire but I had my signs ready for stagework! Oh yeah, and I had to buy donuts. Real ones. Can't skimp on the stage donuts. Glazed & chocolate of course, because it's what the Kandyman would do.
I met up with batfriend, flibertyjibitz, azarsuerte, ceejay10, whispersecho, Teri, and a few others for our weekly Who night. I got some feedback on the skit audio which we felt much more solid about than our initial reactions to the Brig skit the previous year. We all tried on our various outfits for 'test runs' and admired 'Battlefield' swords and Giant Clams. You had to be there.
Costume 'test runs'
Afterwards we did some minor last minute tweaks and boot repair work before taking about 2 hours to pack up and load up the car. In order not to fight the groggies and rush hour traffic, Teri & I drove down late on Thursday, getting to the Marriott at about 2AM. The traffic was never better! lol. Unloading and getting into the room was painless. I realized I was far too late for the Thursday Cosplay photoshoot summoner_lenne9 planned. I hope that turned out well. I tried to be proactive and run down to start putting up the Cosplay Schedule and flyers but I could see NO sign of Gally whatsoever. Man they really do get this thing going in like four hours on Friday morning! Sooo I held off there. I swung through the Lobby for a bit of the Lobbycon which was going strong. I spoke to Matt Hearn who described the 'pool dunked' Raggedy Ten he had planned, mrtonylee said his hellos, and summoner_lenne9 showed off her already long list of badge ribbons (around 90 and it was only THURSDAY.). It was too much. I needed to head for bed.
Packing up the car... just your regular costuming luggage
Okay so that was a long lead-up. Just bear in mind this con took a lot more prep on my end than normal and consequently in many ways Gallifrey felt like it had really started in Dec 2010 for me.
On to the Con Proper!
Friday:
I woke up to my alarm around 8AM. Teri and I shared some breakfast tangerines/cuties which turned out to be the life saving food of the con for me.
I suited up in my Seven outfit after replacing the hatband for the 4th time. I grabbed my stack of flyers/schedules and of course, the TARDIS interior wall backdrops and made my way down to the con floor which even at 9AM was already bustling with folks setting up.
http://static.zooomr.com/images/9825802_3212732a47.jpg
Seven!
I set up the various flyers I brought, including one promoting the various online Who Cosplays sites (including this comm of course), a flyer promoting the 2nd Seven Sweater group run (which you can still read and join here: http://community.livejournal.com/dw_cosplay/638346.html), and the Cosplay Panel Track/Cosplay Hall Meet-Up schedule.
The Final Cosplay Schedule can stil be seen here:
http://community.livejournal.com/dw_cosplay/731601.html
The quickly knocked together Seven Sweater Run flyer.
Once that was was done, I was a little disappointed to see that the new Cosplay Hall was in fact half the size I expected it to be from the plans on the Gally Website. Bascially the 2nd half of the room was partioned off to be the Guest Green Room. Now for Panels and general meet-ups we were fine, but once you factor in the portrait photography it got a bit cramped on Sat. We made due of course, but I hope we get our old room back next year or at least have a heads up on proper size next time around so we can plan accordingly.
Ten cosplayer in the hall
Anyway, I used this time to arrange the chairs in the most 'panel like' fashion I could while leaving some room for picture taking. Then I got to putting up the Classic 80's and RTD era new Series TARDIS wallpapers. A big thanks to azarsuerte and her friends here. They were a big help and between the 4 or 5 of us we got the backdrops up in about an hour. They were a MASSIVE help. The Classic Wallpaper is getting worse for wear but on the whole it still photographs well so I'll keep it in circulation until it can go no more. In the middle of this, I said my hellos to Shaun Lyon (the main man and primary organizer for all things Gally) who seemed to be doing a run through of all the con areas at that point.
The TARDIS Walls up in the Cosplay Hall- Hustling and Bustling during the Green Room Period.
The room came with four tables, 2 of which I set aside for panel moderation, and the other two were quickly snapped up by the Cosplay sewing/repair station folks who were graciously volunteering time in the room courtesy of some of the other gally committee members. ellipticcurve had also delivered her 'sewing machine of Rassilon' for use as well.
In the midst of all this set up, I ran into scifileslie in her ‘Caves of Androzani’ Peri outfit and I also bumped into a great looking Mags and Whiz Kid from the Greatest Show in the Galaxy. It was nice finding Seven era characters so early in the day though.
Mags From Greatest Show in the Galaxy
We were then given our set of Cosplay Hall Island stickers to hand out about this time. Now a new thing for Gally 22 was an Islands of Mystery game where every room or event at the con has specific stickers we would hand out to be collected by attendees to win a prize at the end of a day/con. I have to say this sounded alright on paper, but it never quite worked as well as it should. Wrangling time from my group of friends who help me watch the Cosplay Hall in order to be on sticker duty was headache inducing. Add to the fact that the Coplay Repair station people were always there, looking 'official', so they were the ones hit up about these stickers. Eventually the towel was thrown in by late Saturday and the Repair folks nicely took over this duty. I think some folks were ultimately disappointed by this game as the 3 or 4 people I know who duly collected all 22 stickers were rewarded only with a ribbon and a raffle entry. It felt anti-climactic. On the other hand, from what I hear the under 20-somethings enjoyed the scavenger hunt aspect of it. So it had it's ups/downs and was a nice experiment for expanding the con, but I'm personally voting for a non-repeat at Gally 23.
River Song
Seven is confused by the Ironside Dalek
Seven inspects the tea… which is getting cold
Ten stands in awe of the Judoon.
Eight holds up a bust of Pertwee. I took a picture with this as well but it’s not on my camera. Staggering Stories were using this as a promo piece for their podcast.
The Master disapproves of the Pertwee head bust.
At about 10:30am one of our roommates, vandonovan showed up to our room to change into Two and drop off luggage. Teri suited up as catsuit Zoe Herriot to join him. They picked up thier badges and shortly after I did the same. My badge still has my haggard Sunday photo from 2009 though, ugh.
My Cosplay Staff badge
Teri as Zoe
Teri as Zoe take 2
Around 11AM batfriend and flibertyjibitz arrived and used the Cosplay Hall as a temporary make-up room. batfriend was putting the finishing eyebrow touches on a Peter Cushing "Doctor Who" costume he'd knocked together mostly from vintage shopping and some careful modifications afterwards. The wig ended up being the toughest part! It looked great and it was nice to see an under-represented 'Doctor' join the ranks. flibertyjibitz was making another outing of her fab Novice Hame costume as well.
Peter Cushing gets some cosplay love at Gally. Photo by Scott Sebring.
After batfriend was ready, we made the rounds, checking out the other rooms, and the vibe. We ran across one of three Daleks at the Con - appropriatly the 60's style Dalek. When batfriend was told to step back from the Dalek the operator explained to him it was the Cushing Movie version which he might not have seen... and then he finally registered batfriend's costume and said "actually you probably DID know that. Nevermind!" Anyway we got some better pics later when they were less rushed.
“It’s a 60’s Dalek… but then you would KNOW that…”
Dalek on the Move!
As Seven talking to Bryan Little
I tried to run to grab an autograph ticket at that point (in the spirit of "get it out of the way on Friday" but the line was insanely long). Sadly this foreshadowed a lot of the autograph troubles to come for a lot of attendees. I understand the autograph 'flyaway' system was the main thing that fans complained about at this con. Many people didn't get a ticket let alone an autograph all three days. This was mainly a result the con getting at least a good 700 more people than last year and just not handling the higher numbers. I'm sure it'll be examined/corrected for next year, but in the meantime it was unfortunate the way this didn't work for everyone.
Cosplay 101 Panel
batfriend and flibertyjibitz
Now it was 12 Noon, and time for batfriend, wicked0witch, flibertyjibitz, britgeekgirl and I to moderate the Cosplay 101 panel. I felt we covered a good base of topics here. Wigs, fabric hunts, vintage clothing stores, 'casting yourself', popular vs obscure costumes, color theory, buying vs making costumes, reference materials (ie "stalker books"), where to find feathers for boas and wings, and re-applicance of household items were all topics that were touched on. I felt we hit all the good starting points.
Not sure why I look so perplexed here and wicked0witch looks so bored
Cosplay 101 Wrapping up
Afterwards, we swung through the Dealer's Room where I met up with Dale Santos who thanked me for helping him score a bunch of Dr. Who Magazine back issues so he cut me a nice deal on a Radio Times McGann poster, a vintage 1978 PBS Tom Baker promotional item, and a very cool 1965 Spainish Dr. Who and the Daleks poster. That's getting framed for sure! Here I didn't even think I'd spend any real money in the dealer's room this year!
McGann Radio Times poster
cushing poster
1978 PBS Promo
I saw a lot of other great cosplayers like jazzynightowl as Reinette, a Vampire of Venice, another very good Ten cosplayer (he had the hair down I'll give him that!) a few River Songs, cheapasair as Eleven, Two, various Eights, multiple Fives, Ironside Dalek by AZdavros, Qchan as Stewardess Tegan (and later that night Planet of Fire/Bikini Peri), slytherinquoll as pink 'Attack of the Cybermen' Peri and a femme Ainley Master!
Amanda as a Vampire of Venice
Jody as Rosanna Calvierri
AZDavros Ironside Dalek "I Am Your Soldier!"
Jazzynightowl Reinette
Seven meets River
Two and Eleven - bow ties are cool
Femme Master and Delgado Master
Five!
batfriend and I stopped to shower compliments on a woman who did a very good One costume. Nice to see the Hartnell love, she had a great cloak, some great fabric finds for the vest & trousers and even had the spiral cane. Very impressive.
Hartnell!
Cushing and Hartnell friends at last
We swooped through the TARDIS Lounge to chat with TARDIS_tara aka Tara Wheeler and her husband and take some shots with the Police Box of course! The 60's Dalek swept back through by this point and we made sure to get some better shots with Cushing & Dalek this time! I know batfriend was a bit aggrievated that the spectacles he got for his costume were not properly repaired in time so he could only briefly wear them for quick shots before he'd have to put them away.
Cushing and Dalek
Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD
Standing in front of TARDIS
As it was nearing 2:30PM it was getting close to the time I'd pre-purchased online for a photo with Gareth Thomas. Blake of Blake's 7 would be there to fend off the Federation for us! So I popped up to the room and changed into my trusty Season 12 Four costume. I felt it more appropriate to have some kind of 'Four meets Blake' kind of picture.
Two and Cushing
Amy Pond- The single most popular character cosplayed at Gally 2011 (Cosplayers Chloe, Amanda and wicked0witch)
Imagine my shock to learn as I walked to the photo studio that there was no line... and no more Gareth Thomas on the schedule!!! Blake was still missing from the crew!!! Was this a Federation Coup?
Blake Still Missing in Action
Avon and Servalan Search for Blake!
Apparantly a medical emergency came up and he'd had to cancel last minute (as last minute as he was added really). Man, that was a blow. So with no refunds, I switched my photo session to Sarah Sutton instead for Sunday. I'd also pre-booked with John Leeson though and that was coming up shortly.
Gold Dalek in hover mode!
Two Peris - scifileslie and slytherinquoll
Zoe on the spot
Peri, Charlie and Erimem (Photo by azarsuerte)
Prior to this, I stepped back in the Dealer's Room to get Matthew Waterhouse to sign my 500 Year Diary picking up where Michael Jayston left off at Time Quest the previous March. Matthew was very nice and polite. He thanked me for watching the show all these years and complimented my costume. I tipped my hat and moved on to John Leeson who I caught with about ten minutes to spare before his photo session. He signed my Diary and I thanked him profusely with his help in our skit. "Oh? Was it alright?" He was too humble for words.
My 500 Year Diary back in Action for Gally 2011
I swept back through the TARDIS Lounge for some pics with dragoniching as Seven, a Five, Femme Master and Lela from the Happiness Patrol Podcast.
Four, Five and Femme Ainley Master
Lela, Seven, Five and Four
Examining the scarf!
Lela with Five, Four and Seven
I sold TARDIS_tara my spare red Six necktie and she promised me the cash later. This saved my bacon on Sunday. More on that later. She offered to sell any other spare Who items I had which I eventually took her up on by eventually leaving her with my two spare Six tweed jackets and a spare Six cat badge.
(One of two Series 6 ep 4 / Xmas Special style Eleven jackets Tara helped me try to sell at Gally… and this one is still available)
Tara was also happy to see me sporting the new Season 13 scarf she'd knitted me with some improved colors. I posed for a few shots for her website on illustrating one of the ways to wear the scarf. I then had a nice chat catching up with Lewis Bailey also of the Happiness Patrol around this time. We'd missed crossing paths about a month prior when I was originally due to guest speak on the Who cosplay scene. Hopefully we'll reconnect on that for a future podcast.
Posing for Tara
Finally it was time to have my photo with John Leeson at 3:15PM. Thanks to reading the SOS on the forum I put Froggy in touch with AZDavros so they could have his nice K9 prop in the photo during his session. It made for some great pics! So being appropriately dressed as Four I asked John if we could both be whispering instructions to K9 and he happily agreed. The pic came out terrific and he signed it for me later that day.
K9 hears in stereo
After this I popped in the tail end of the Dressed to Scream: Companion cosplay panel with violet_lane, wicked0witch, aimeekitty, 1ucifer, and kgaleway. It was well attended and they seemed to be covering good ground. I saw a great femme Jack Harkness, Arc of Infinity Time Lord here! I also had a nice chat catching up with John Reid Adams aka farflav about his fan film "A Survivor's Triangle" which I'd enjoyed on youtube. It was nice seeing more of the Eight waistcoat material going to good use in his Eight outfit as well.
rickman_101 as Femme Jack and turkfox as Arc of Infinity Time Lord
Companion panel
Farflav as Eight
I left, bumping into a sal_the_ref as a Five who was sporting one of stevericks' coats and S21 trousers. Looked smashing.
Four with sal_the_ref as Five
roberty88 and jemzamia Ten and Amy
Four and K9!
For further Five goodness, I also bumped into ellipticcurve who was modeling her Silouttes Five coat with added piping. I took some ref pics for those considering taking the plunge on this option.
ellipticcurve Silouettes Five coat
I also stopped in the photo studio again to get some shots with a Dalek when I ran into an Eleven who had seriously good Matt Smith Hair. He cracked out a Jammie Dodger and I did the same with my Jelly Babies. We had a nice Doctor sweet swap picture... which he only got on his camera, not mine. Ack!
Eleven and jammie dodger
Eleven in the photo room
After that I remember handing out a LOT of Jelly Babies (to which people were excited to get them or curious to what they were... but I made a lot of converts to the sweets and if anyone's curious then buy the Taverner's brand - you'll thank me later)
Mmmmmmmm
I also handed out a LOT of Ribbons. Ribbons, I have to say, were a great way to meet people and collect 'em like baseball cards. Unlike previous years I ended up with like 20 ribbons because of this (piddles to some I know, but a record for me!).
My badge and line of ribbons
Ribbons continued
The Fri/Sat Ribbons we handed out were in reference to our 2009/2010 skits "Back Off Man, I'm a Retired Time Lord" and "When the Brigadier's _____, He Shoots Something!" We had 100 done up of each and they were all gone by end of Friday!
Friday ribbons
Later I recall finally running into minervamoon who was sporting her cool Five Doctors Tegan dress (courtesy of the power of spoonflower). Then there was the matter of securing the viewscreen for our Doctor panel. Tadao then found me and pointed me in the right direction to the tech guys in the Main Ballroom and we got the screen set up about an hour beforehand.
technobabbled as Adric
Minervamoon as Tegan from the Five Doctors
Four and Tegan (Photo by Aubrey West)
In the middle of this, we got a nice surprise when stevericks himself showed up at Gallifrey to surprise us! He'd literally booked the trip last minute to see how his Ultimate Tennant suit he'd made from THE Gap trousers was fairing with the fans and of course meet Kevin Coppa (oldeworldsmith) in person. It was great to see him again and catch up. He'd brought me a Cadbury Flake bar (ahhh British chocolate) and showed off the Program Book to the Doctor Who Experience exhibition which really looks fantastic. I hope to make it back over there to check it out soon!
aimeekitty as River Song
ceejay10 as End of Time Ten
Cushing and small fan
Before I knew it it was time for The TARDIS Wardrobe: Costuming as the Doctor panel. I ran up to the room to grab a bunch of Doctor costume items for a bit of show and tell and made it back in the nick of time. oldeworldsmith had brought along his projector and laptop and had put together a really nice powerpoint for the panel which proved a great help. Because stevericks has so much experience on making multiple Doctor's items from the tailoring perspective he joined us (batfriend, vandonovan, Lizz Dial, oldeworldsmith, and myself) on the panel as a last minute add-on moderator.
Costuming as the Doctor Cosplay - Our Group Circa 2009
This panel was pretty packed. I know it made me think we'll need more chairs if we do this again next year as there were a lot of folks who left standing the entire time! Thanks to the Powerpoint, we were able to touch on every single Doctor though Five, Four, Ten and Eleven got the most focus overall. I showed off the All Saints Boots, topman trousers, the new Eight vest I'd had made with fabric from the group run, new matching Eight cravat, my Five coat Steve had made for me, my Seven Sweater (hey I had to push the group run again!) and the Wested Nine jacket. We covered a lot of good points again on current vendors of items, fabrics, ID'ing colors from real life read to on-screen read, finding the right Doctor to suit your style, sharing the craft and the importance of a good wig. I felt we didn't cover enough really, but I was told by a lot of folks there the next day they got a lot out of it and enjoyed what we had to say which is all that matters.
oldeworldsmith made a lot of folks happy by offering up spare swatches of original brown pinstripe Gap trouser material leftover from his brand spanking new suit diligently sourced from ebay and tailored by stevericks. I traded him one with a spare Yale (TARDIS) key I had so he could add another prop to his costume. I followed suit (no pun intended) by offering swatches of the Eight Waistcoat material and matching Silk Satin I'd found for anyone who was looking to match it. I also loaned a few of my Eleven items for ninjarisu to photostudy that night and return to me the next day.
Original GAP Ten Swatches
Original Eight Vest Replica Fabric
Four & Zoe with fans
For what it’s worth, we got a LOT of questions concerning femme Doctors and gender swapping cosplay. As such, I can see with the sheer amount of feminized characters (and even a male Sarah Jane and Rose cosplayer!) this has suitably grown into an area that demands it’s own panel. So I promise to have a proper dedicated Crossplay panel added to the ranks for next year.
Male SJS with azarsuerte as female SJS (Photo by azarsuerte)
Femme Six (Photo by Aubrey West)
Femmes Six (time_testudinem) and Seven Photo by slytherinquoll
Afterwards, I had some fun getting a pic of a 'Crash Doctor' set of Cosplayers - an Eleven (cheapasair) and a Raggedy Ten!
Raggedy Ten and cheapasair) as Eleven - Crash Set
The TARDIS Walls needed some repair work around this time (but not as bad as last year thank goodness) and by the time I was packed up and done chatting with all the folks who had questions post-panel it was well past opening ceremonies(and later Frazer Hines' one man show).
qchan as Stewardess Tegan
Tegan’s BF (from Gallifrey Base) as Five
I missed a great little video Peter Davison did for his entrance which I caught later on youtube. Here it is for your amusement:
Due to the complexity of our skit this year those of us in the skit agreed to meet up at 9PM back in the Cosplay Hall that night to rehearse. Thank god we did (we ended up having little to no time to rehearse the following day!). We all went upstairs, changed into civvies and looking at the time realized we didn't have time for a proper sit-down dinner. So most of us ordered take-out from Champions (the hotel restaurant/bar) to bring downstairs to eat so we'd be ready to go at 9PM. Wolfing down fries and burgers and nachos in the Cosplay Hall while getting a little punchy on lack of sleep made for an amusing experience...
Monster Rehearsal (Photo by Aubrey West)
Evil Rehearsal (Photo by Aubrey West)
As 9PM rolled around, I grabbed a number of costume bits and props to rehearse with and my boom box (though one I'm sure Ace would not be impressed with) and the audio CD of the skit. batfriend, flibertyjibitz, ceejay10, my GF, vandonovan, Aubrey, AZDavros (who did us a huge favor by letting us use his K9 prop for the skit), violet_lane, oldworldsmith, and E-Wan all gathered to run our 7 minute skit for the next 2 hours. A Big shoutout has to also to to stevericks who very nicely agreed to step in as the Dum Robot for the skit when a friend who'd previously agreed to do was unable to attend the convention at the last minute. Steve saved the day there.
Steve in full D84 VOC Robot gear the next day.
Deep fried entirely of EVIL (Photo by Aubrey West)
oldeworldsmith as The Valeyard
I remember we spent the first 20 minutes to figuring out the best way to apply the flag and a goatee to K9! AZDavros proved pretty ingenious here by whipping up 'evil eyes' for K9 so we didn't have to struggle with the eyepatch (and potentially hurt the fragile ears). He also came up with a very good system for slipping the Flag on and off stage making it easier for vandonovan who was tasked with making K9 'good' for the reveal.
Making K9 evil (Photo by Aubrey West)
Programmed entirely of EVIL (Photo by Aubrey West)
Inferno Universe Evil K9 with Eyepatch and goatee - a detail probably not seen well from stage on Sat.
We worked out some kinks with the Auton Arm, the sign (originally the Master was to carry this on but it was decided evntually it was best for me to do so), who was bringing what on and offstage and working out the tricky 10 second reveal scene for the Doctors. It took some doing but we got there in the end. Although two people were missing and would have to get told what to do on the fly the next day we felt fairly good about where we were.
ceejay10 as Judoon/Four in rehearsal (Photo by Aubrey West)
By the end of the night we were all pretty wiped out and I sure wasn't seeing any humor in what I'd written anymore. Everyone left or went to bed except for E-Wan and I. We toughed it out and ran it for another 45 minutes since as he was playing the Pratt Master we had to specially iron out all of his gestures to best match the dialog since he was carrying the whole thing effectively. We both agreed this extra time proved invaluable and really helped the performance sell the audio track. He took a copy of the audio home to listen in the car, while I brought the last of the props up to the room.
Kevin K. in a Sack. Photo by Aubrey West - Though Kevin and
minervamoon weren’t present at the rehearsal - we ran through their parts quickly on the fly the next day.
I recall glancing my head into the Island Rum party that night. It looked like fun but I didn't have the energy to join in. I passed briefly through LobbyCon again... I vaguely recall saying hi to some folks and handing out more ribbons. It's a bit of a blur now. I think my brain was already shutting down. Soon after I crawled into bed, my mind spinning on Evil, Donuts and Mannequin Arms.
Rockin' Out to the Evil. Photo by Scott Sebring.
Sat and Sun events Continued in Part Two which you can find here:
http://community.livejournal.com/dw_cosplay/774639.html
- HonoraryDoctor
Well at long last here's my Gally 2011 report. It was a bit harrowing, a bit sleep deprived, a bit of a costume flurry and a bit stressful. A lot of bits in there. It was also tons of fun. As always, I highly recommend this convention!
Androids have feelings too. Photo by Scott Sebring.
More Pics and Info
I find it interesting to see the evolution of how I experience a convention has changed over the years. When I first attended comic book and SF cons back in the late 80s/early 90s it was all about getting the STUFF. You know in those pre-internet days when one practically lives in the dealer's room, because that's where the RARE goods were. You were guaranteed to strike some merchandise gold and probably be quite poor for the following months as a consequence. Then as we move into the tail end of the 90s and early 2000's I became 'all about the panels.' Being a poor college student, I couldn't afford to blow a ton on the STUFF (plus amazon and ebay were now coming into the picture so these things could be found outside of the con circuit). So instead I got my autographs, I planned out my day and basically ping-ponged to every cool guest or discussion panel that struck my fancy. It was cool. Although being only a panel goer means you end up with a rather passive experience. Finally we get into the mid-2000's and beyond with the cosplay thing. Thanks to this hobby, I find I'm much more engaged with con going than ever before. It's a way to become an active participant, get in the mix, and really interact with other fans. Honestly, I think it's the best way to attend a con. I've made so many friends because of this that every year becomes more and more like a mini-reunion, a nice hang out with old faces as well as the new. It feels pretty rewarding on a lot of levels.
Soooooo Gallifrey. Right. Well in the weeks leading up to Gally I had a lot on my plate costume wise. I also almost had a lot on my plate Masquerade wise. There wasn't room for everything.
Back in August and September, I suggested to my GF Teri and flibertyjibitz about either doing Romana I (Armegeddon Factor) with the Rani (a character who certianly deserves some cosplay love) from Time and the Rani. That didn't grab them. So then I suggested the 70's disco goodness of some Movellans instead and that got thier attention.
Movellan duo The Originals
Movellans Duo action Photo by Scott Sebring.
flibertyjibitz lucked out on finding some ruffled fabric for the tunics and some cornrow wigs for the hair fairly quickly and they were off and running. I'll probably have to confer with them about a proper breakdown of those costumes but suffice to say there were unexpected hurdles. Primarily this consisted of the Belt Buckle Breakdown and the Movellan Gun Limitation Effect.
flibbertybibitz does the Movellan in action pose. Photo by Scott Sebring.
Movellan - The original classic
Teri recreating the Publicity pose. Photo by Scott Sebring.
In the middle of this ceejay10 was hard at work finishing his Judoon trooper costume with the cunning use of chicken wire, paper mache and motorcycle outfit bits. A Judoon Trooper? Awesome. I knew we'd have to incorporate him for the Masque.
ceejay10's Judoon.
While they toiled on those Monsters, I was off trying 1) to upgrade my Eight costume with the new Vest fabric, new cravat fabric and finally getting the coat re-made in green velvet. 2) get my Season 14 Four costume rolling as I slowly acquired elements there and ran into headaches (again) on the houndstooth waistcoat pattern and 3) finally get my VOC Robot costume off the drawing board. Well there was only about 10 weeks to go. Only so much time, and only so much money - The great enemies of the cosplayer. Something had to give.
Movellan tweaks!
Death by cornrows
Due to complications on said waistcoat pattern I reluctantly set aside the Season 14 Four. I'll get back to that one, it's postponed, not forgotten. All that time and toil throughout the fall on it will not be for nought.
Season 14 Four waits for another day
I also was forced to bench the new Green Eight coat (the new vest and cravat were finished in time for Gally though). But it's actually coming together now as I write this. I did all of this to put priority on the one with the most 'cool factor,' namely the VOC Robot which had been on my wish list for the last 2 years.
New Eight Vest and Cravat from the Fabric run.
ceejay10 models my Eight costume
Eight Meets Four
Showing off the new vest from the group fabric run. Photo by Scott Sebring.
I'll also go into greater detail on how this was put together on a later breakdown but the VOC also had some interesting complications. I managed to get a helmet from a friend back in December. It was a sculpt apparently taken from an original that a seller had in the UK many moons back. This needed painting, ventilating and some minor repair work. I had originally planned to do the standard Green VOC but I just couldn't find a fabric I liked for it so I defaulted to the Dum class black version, because finding black cotton just made my life easier. Plus you know, black is cool.
On the two year wish list
The VOC Helmet in it's original state
VOC mock up stage 2
I was referred to a new totally awesome local seamstress who was up for the challenge of both projects and we worked together for the next ten weeks putting together most of the elements while I worked on the Helmet and the boots. The Movellan project had a happy spillover when we discovered the silver/chrome mylar being used for the belt/neck/boots of those costumes worked pretty well for the general trim of the VOC Robot. Although cutting and sewing with it proved.... tricky. My seamstress' husband worked with props a lot for film and television and he and I worked out an arrangement to put together the tricky breastplate which is essentially a rubber mat with some sliced tubing superglued on. A big thanks to drwhotrident from Gallifrey Base for help with determining the measurement of this (and in turn figuring out scale for the quilted diamond pattern of the fabric). It all got pushed a little to the wire but it all came together quite well in the end. But that wasn't all.
Finished Mylar trim
Determining Breastplate dimensions
There was also the matter of the 30-40 minute Masquerade half time show that we were tapped to do since it was learned early on Paul Cornell wouldn't be attending which left 'Just a Minute" in jeopardy. So I started brainstorming and writing that. I was looking forward to cracking out our "lost" RTD skit from 2010 on that one as well. Wait though, hold the phone, then we were told in early January the Masque was back more or less to the set up last year, another person was found to host Just a Minute, so no half-time show for us. We were asked to do another skit to close the show. Yet again due to electing exhibition status and having a group of 14 people, we were granted a time extension but we were forced to go pre-record again on the audio. I understand the necessity of this for Masque entrants and the larger ballroom we're in now, but I'd hoped we'd earned the stripes to ask for live mikes. Not the case. Hopefully next year.
Waiting backstage.
We wait to try for next year for the half time show.
So I abandoned plans and got writing/re-drafting on another solo skit. Then my head got away from me and before I knew it I was committing us to a sketch which required 3 new costumes (The Valeyard, the Dream Lord and a "Guy in a sack") in addition to the ones I knew we were all planning. Oh yeah and large handful of props including an Evil K9 eyepatch/goatee and a mannequin arm. Where was I going to get a Mannequin arm? Do I really need another tweed? and most importantly can I find a good blanket/sack in just the *right* shade of Classic Who green?
Guy in a Sack - He's MEANT to be tan!
Finally as an addition to the skit and also as a promise to myself to finished an abandoned project from last year, I told myself I was finally going to finish my gold Sash of Rassilon by hook or by crook.
The little Sash that could
Luckily I was armed with posterboard, velcro, apoxy sculpt, multiple cans of spray paint, scissors, buckets of super glue, an old pair of shoes, painter's tape, and a veritable ton of leftover L-200 foam from my Cyber upgrades of 2009.
For once I got ahead of the game and finished the draft of the skit a little over a month prior to Gally. Getting prepared for a full 30 minute show scares you into doing things early, what can I say? Also I knew I'd need the time to assemble props. Assembling the Dream Lord and Valeyard proved easy-ish. $25 got me a new tweed jacket. The rest was cobbled from my Three, Nine, and Eleven outfits.
Dream lord thrift costume
The Valeyard was made for a quick n'dirty "it'll look good on stage from over 10 feet away" total of $50.00. Cheap scuba cap, costume gloves, used graduation robe, a ton of leftover foam, painter's tape, paint and some cheap white 'on-clearance' satin and we were rockin' it Trial-style in the '86 baby.
Low End Valeyard Robe
Quick and cheap Valeyard
Valeyard on Stage
Dream Lord on stage
I never did find a good green blanket for the 'sack.' Well I did, but I refused to pay more than $25.00 for what amounted to a 30 second joke on stage. Who pays over $90 for ugly slime green flowery blankets? Anyway, it had to be large to cover an adult; thin, to not swelter them and allow for bubble wrap application; and cheap. Well after some shopping around I settled on a tan king sized duvet cover for $17.00. I thought about dying it green but it was mostly polyester so...ehh. Yeah never mind. Tan telegraphs the Five reveal. It'll do. I'll tell everyone I *meant* to go tan. Yeah that's the ticket.
Kevin shows his enthusiasm at being a henchman
A couple of weeks prior to the con I found a mannequin arm at a place near where I work in Burbank. Granted they charged a proverbial arm and a leg (alright fine, pun intended) to sell it but luckily they also rented them from a 'graveyard of parts' (I guess this is where the Autons go that don't make the cut!) for only a few dollars. So I arranged to rent an outstretched left male arm for the week of Gally.
Happy to hold a rented Auton Arm. Photo by Scott Sebring.
Then I had the EVIL and WANTED posters knocked up through help of a co-worker aiming to mimic a the Obama HOPE and old West posters respectively. For quick jobs they turned out well. I nearly added on the WANTED posted that Hartnell was 'Doc Holliday'. But I figured that might be one obscure reference too far. Plus it's not like The Gunfighters is all that well loved by fans. The Western motif would have to remain the subtle nod there.
EVIL - Inspiring for all monsters
WANTED Doc Holliday
I stayed up late the next Sunday knocking my VOC Boots together while letting the best of the Bee Gees gently brainwash me with thier disco and R&B lullibies. (Sorry Van, that's where all my bad random singing started!) I couldn't get it out of my head! I had my doubts but the boots worked in the end. Teri insisted I use a pair of 10 year old Sketchers I had for the base as apparantly they were unfit for a person under the age of 65 to ever be seen wearing sensibly. So if the shoes must be worn they might as well be completely covered and disguised. 1 point for recycling I guess.
Jive Talkin' some foam and shoes on a Sunday Night on Broadway
Finished VOC boots
Finally I took a night to start prelim work on editing together the audio for the skit. I had most of the voices/soundbytes which were sampled or recorded the week prior. As an added 'epic' bonus I asked up the 'con channels' to ask if John Leeson himself would voice K9 for the skit (since it was only 4 lines). To my surprise and delight, Leeson agreed and I got my K9 recorded audio files in my e-mail the day prior! Woo-hoo! Bonus. So I edited together an 'as scripted' version and was in horror to find it ran close to 12 minutes. I guess that's what I get for putting everything and the kitchen sink in for Who references into it. I pruned it back to about 6 and half minutes.
Evil K9 prop kit
Now I was juggling things. I'd talk to Scott Sebring aka batfriend about the overwhelming paint fumes while on my way for a super glue refill while he shared the glory and wonder of sawing plastic discs and spitting out plastic shards for Movellan guns. I'd wake up to paint a fresh coat of silver on all of the Cyberman parts, go over cutting a Valeyard sash with Teri, work out the wearability of the Pratt Master mask (I had to discreetly carve out extra bits to make it more visible and breathable than it's first outing), and start working out how to apply an 'evil' flag to K9. (For Gally vets, they'll notice I went back and used the Pirate Dalek/Cyberman version of the Skull N Bones image for K9's flag from Gallifrey 16 circa 2005)
Rehearsal outfitting K9 (Photo by Aubrey West)
Approves the new mask
This all went well until I found myself with four days to go and I still hadn't touched the Sash of Rassilon. Rather than leave it to the night before as it was destined to become... I forced myself into an all-nighter early on Monday and spent about 15 straight hours measuring out 22 neck shapes and 13 sash shapes, cutting the former from posterboard and the latter from foam, glueing them into shape and
finally into place.
Master Models the new sash
I did all of this while marathoning the final 70's groovy season of Mission: Impossible. I was so high from the glue fumes by the end of this I was starting to think it was 1973 and the IMF was real. Trust me there's nothing more humbling than waking up with your face superglued to a couple of foam pyramids thinking you've just let down Jim Phelps by blowing a misson and you couldn't remember what that taped message said before it self-destructed anyway.
Sash: Impossible
Master Plots the demise of the IMF
This now left me Wednesday night to finish editing the skit audio and applying music. I finished it in the nick of time, allowing me a couple of precious hours to run last minute errands and pick up my now completed VOC Robot suit at my seamstress. I also had to grab my 2 posters which were fresh off the press from being mounted on foamcore. It got pushed to the wire but I had my signs ready for stagework! Oh yeah, and I had to buy donuts. Real ones. Can't skimp on the stage donuts. Glazed & chocolate of course, because it's what the Kandyman would do.
I met up with batfriend, flibertyjibitz, azarsuerte, ceejay10, whispersecho, Teri, and a few others for our weekly Who night. I got some feedback on the skit audio which we felt much more solid about than our initial reactions to the Brig skit the previous year. We all tried on our various outfits for 'test runs' and admired 'Battlefield' swords and Giant Clams. You had to be there.
Costume 'test runs'
Afterwards we did some minor last minute tweaks and boot repair work before taking about 2 hours to pack up and load up the car. In order not to fight the groggies and rush hour traffic, Teri & I drove down late on Thursday, getting to the Marriott at about 2AM. The traffic was never better! lol. Unloading and getting into the room was painless. I realized I was far too late for the Thursday Cosplay photoshoot summoner_lenne9 planned. I hope that turned out well. I tried to be proactive and run down to start putting up the Cosplay Schedule and flyers but I could see NO sign of Gally whatsoever. Man they really do get this thing going in like four hours on Friday morning! Sooo I held off there. I swung through the Lobby for a bit of the Lobbycon which was going strong. I spoke to Matt Hearn who described the 'pool dunked' Raggedy Ten he had planned, mrtonylee said his hellos, and summoner_lenne9 showed off her already long list of badge ribbons (around 90 and it was only THURSDAY.). It was too much. I needed to head for bed.
Packing up the car... just your regular costuming luggage
Okay so that was a long lead-up. Just bear in mind this con took a lot more prep on my end than normal and consequently in many ways Gallifrey felt like it had really started in Dec 2010 for me.
On to the Con Proper!
Friday:
I woke up to my alarm around 8AM. Teri and I shared some breakfast tangerines/cuties which turned out to be the life saving food of the con for me.
I suited up in my Seven outfit after replacing the hatband for the 4th time. I grabbed my stack of flyers/schedules and of course, the TARDIS interior wall backdrops and made my way down to the con floor which even at 9AM was already bustling with folks setting up.
http://static.zooomr.com/images/9825802_3212732a47.jpg
Seven!
I set up the various flyers I brought, including one promoting the various online Who Cosplays sites (including this comm of course), a flyer promoting the 2nd Seven Sweater group run (which you can still read and join here: http://community.livejournal.com/dw_cosplay/638346.html), and the Cosplay Panel Track/Cosplay Hall Meet-Up schedule.
The Final Cosplay Schedule can stil be seen here:
http://community.livejournal.com/dw_cosplay/731601.html
The quickly knocked together Seven Sweater Run flyer.
Once that was was done, I was a little disappointed to see that the new Cosplay Hall was in fact half the size I expected it to be from the plans on the Gally Website. Bascially the 2nd half of the room was partioned off to be the Guest Green Room. Now for Panels and general meet-ups we were fine, but once you factor in the portrait photography it got a bit cramped on Sat. We made due of course, but I hope we get our old room back next year or at least have a heads up on proper size next time around so we can plan accordingly.
Ten cosplayer in the hall
Anyway, I used this time to arrange the chairs in the most 'panel like' fashion I could while leaving some room for picture taking. Then I got to putting up the Classic 80's and RTD era new Series TARDIS wallpapers. A big thanks to azarsuerte and her friends here. They were a big help and between the 4 or 5 of us we got the backdrops up in about an hour. They were a MASSIVE help. The Classic Wallpaper is getting worse for wear but on the whole it still photographs well so I'll keep it in circulation until it can go no more. In the middle of this, I said my hellos to Shaun Lyon (the main man and primary organizer for all things Gally) who seemed to be doing a run through of all the con areas at that point.
The TARDIS Walls up in the Cosplay Hall- Hustling and Bustling during the Green Room Period.
The room came with four tables, 2 of which I set aside for panel moderation, and the other two were quickly snapped up by the Cosplay sewing/repair station folks who were graciously volunteering time in the room courtesy of some of the other gally committee members. ellipticcurve had also delivered her 'sewing machine of Rassilon' for use as well.
In the midst of all this set up, I ran into scifileslie in her ‘Caves of Androzani’ Peri outfit and I also bumped into a great looking Mags and Whiz Kid from the Greatest Show in the Galaxy. It was nice finding Seven era characters so early in the day though.
Mags From Greatest Show in the Galaxy
We were then given our set of Cosplay Hall Island stickers to hand out about this time. Now a new thing for Gally 22 was an Islands of Mystery game where every room or event at the con has specific stickers we would hand out to be collected by attendees to win a prize at the end of a day/con. I have to say this sounded alright on paper, but it never quite worked as well as it should. Wrangling time from my group of friends who help me watch the Cosplay Hall in order to be on sticker duty was headache inducing. Add to the fact that the Coplay Repair station people were always there, looking 'official', so they were the ones hit up about these stickers. Eventually the towel was thrown in by late Saturday and the Repair folks nicely took over this duty. I think some folks were ultimately disappointed by this game as the 3 or 4 people I know who duly collected all 22 stickers were rewarded only with a ribbon and a raffle entry. It felt anti-climactic. On the other hand, from what I hear the under 20-somethings enjoyed the scavenger hunt aspect of it. So it had it's ups/downs and was a nice experiment for expanding the con, but I'm personally voting for a non-repeat at Gally 23.
River Song
Seven is confused by the Ironside Dalek
Seven inspects the tea… which is getting cold
Ten stands in awe of the Judoon.
Eight holds up a bust of Pertwee. I took a picture with this as well but it’s not on my camera. Staggering Stories were using this as a promo piece for their podcast.
The Master disapproves of the Pertwee head bust.
At about 10:30am one of our roommates, vandonovan showed up to our room to change into Two and drop off luggage. Teri suited up as catsuit Zoe Herriot to join him. They picked up thier badges and shortly after I did the same. My badge still has my haggard Sunday photo from 2009 though, ugh.
My Cosplay Staff badge
Teri as Zoe
Teri as Zoe take 2
Around 11AM batfriend and flibertyjibitz arrived and used the Cosplay Hall as a temporary make-up room. batfriend was putting the finishing eyebrow touches on a Peter Cushing "Doctor Who" costume he'd knocked together mostly from vintage shopping and some careful modifications afterwards. The wig ended up being the toughest part! It looked great and it was nice to see an under-represented 'Doctor' join the ranks. flibertyjibitz was making another outing of her fab Novice Hame costume as well.
Peter Cushing gets some cosplay love at Gally. Photo by Scott Sebring.
After batfriend was ready, we made the rounds, checking out the other rooms, and the vibe. We ran across one of three Daleks at the Con - appropriatly the 60's style Dalek. When batfriend was told to step back from the Dalek the operator explained to him it was the Cushing Movie version which he might not have seen... and then he finally registered batfriend's costume and said "actually you probably DID know that. Nevermind!" Anyway we got some better pics later when they were less rushed.
“It’s a 60’s Dalek… but then you would KNOW that…”
Dalek on the Move!
As Seven talking to Bryan Little
I tried to run to grab an autograph ticket at that point (in the spirit of "get it out of the way on Friday" but the line was insanely long). Sadly this foreshadowed a lot of the autograph troubles to come for a lot of attendees. I understand the autograph 'flyaway' system was the main thing that fans complained about at this con. Many people didn't get a ticket let alone an autograph all three days. This was mainly a result the con getting at least a good 700 more people than last year and just not handling the higher numbers. I'm sure it'll be examined/corrected for next year, but in the meantime it was unfortunate the way this didn't work for everyone.
Cosplay 101 Panel
batfriend and flibertyjibitz
Now it was 12 Noon, and time for batfriend, wicked0witch, flibertyjibitz, britgeekgirl and I to moderate the Cosplay 101 panel. I felt we covered a good base of topics here. Wigs, fabric hunts, vintage clothing stores, 'casting yourself', popular vs obscure costumes, color theory, buying vs making costumes, reference materials (ie "stalker books"), where to find feathers for boas and wings, and re-applicance of household items were all topics that were touched on. I felt we hit all the good starting points.
Not sure why I look so perplexed here and wicked0witch looks so bored
Cosplay 101 Wrapping up
Afterwards, we swung through the Dealer's Room where I met up with Dale Santos who thanked me for helping him score a bunch of Dr. Who Magazine back issues so he cut me a nice deal on a Radio Times McGann poster, a vintage 1978 PBS Tom Baker promotional item, and a very cool 1965 Spainish Dr. Who and the Daleks poster. That's getting framed for sure! Here I didn't even think I'd spend any real money in the dealer's room this year!
McGann Radio Times poster
cushing poster
1978 PBS Promo
I saw a lot of other great cosplayers like jazzynightowl as Reinette, a Vampire of Venice, another very good Ten cosplayer (he had the hair down I'll give him that!) a few River Songs, cheapasair as Eleven, Two, various Eights, multiple Fives, Ironside Dalek by AZdavros, Qchan as Stewardess Tegan (and later that night Planet of Fire/Bikini Peri), slytherinquoll as pink 'Attack of the Cybermen' Peri and a femme Ainley Master!
Amanda as a Vampire of Venice
Jody as Rosanna Calvierri
AZDavros Ironside Dalek "I Am Your Soldier!"
Jazzynightowl Reinette
Seven meets River
Two and Eleven - bow ties are cool
Femme Master and Delgado Master
Five!
batfriend and I stopped to shower compliments on a woman who did a very good One costume. Nice to see the Hartnell love, she had a great cloak, some great fabric finds for the vest & trousers and even had the spiral cane. Very impressive.
Hartnell!
Cushing and Hartnell friends at last
We swooped through the TARDIS Lounge to chat with TARDIS_tara aka Tara Wheeler and her husband and take some shots with the Police Box of course! The 60's Dalek swept back through by this point and we made sure to get some better shots with Cushing & Dalek this time! I know batfriend was a bit aggrievated that the spectacles he got for his costume were not properly repaired in time so he could only briefly wear them for quick shots before he'd have to put them away.
Cushing and Dalek
Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD
Standing in front of TARDIS
As it was nearing 2:30PM it was getting close to the time I'd pre-purchased online for a photo with Gareth Thomas. Blake of Blake's 7 would be there to fend off the Federation for us! So I popped up to the room and changed into my trusty Season 12 Four costume. I felt it more appropriate to have some kind of 'Four meets Blake' kind of picture.
Two and Cushing
Amy Pond- The single most popular character cosplayed at Gally 2011 (Cosplayers Chloe, Amanda and wicked0witch)
Imagine my shock to learn as I walked to the photo studio that there was no line... and no more Gareth Thomas on the schedule!!! Blake was still missing from the crew!!! Was this a Federation Coup?
Blake Still Missing in Action
Avon and Servalan Search for Blake!
Apparantly a medical emergency came up and he'd had to cancel last minute (as last minute as he was added really). Man, that was a blow. So with no refunds, I switched my photo session to Sarah Sutton instead for Sunday. I'd also pre-booked with John Leeson though and that was coming up shortly.
Gold Dalek in hover mode!
Two Peris - scifileslie and slytherinquoll
Zoe on the spot
Peri, Charlie and Erimem (Photo by azarsuerte)
Prior to this, I stepped back in the Dealer's Room to get Matthew Waterhouse to sign my 500 Year Diary picking up where Michael Jayston left off at Time Quest the previous March. Matthew was very nice and polite. He thanked me for watching the show all these years and complimented my costume. I tipped my hat and moved on to John Leeson who I caught with about ten minutes to spare before his photo session. He signed my Diary and I thanked him profusely with his help in our skit. "Oh? Was it alright?" He was too humble for words.
My 500 Year Diary back in Action for Gally 2011
I swept back through the TARDIS Lounge for some pics with dragoniching as Seven, a Five, Femme Master and Lela from the Happiness Patrol Podcast.
Four, Five and Femme Ainley Master
Lela, Seven, Five and Four
Examining the scarf!
Lela with Five, Four and Seven
I sold TARDIS_tara my spare red Six necktie and she promised me the cash later. This saved my bacon on Sunday. More on that later. She offered to sell any other spare Who items I had which I eventually took her up on by eventually leaving her with my two spare Six tweed jackets and a spare Six cat badge.
(One of two Series 6 ep 4 / Xmas Special style Eleven jackets Tara helped me try to sell at Gally… and this one is still available)
Tara was also happy to see me sporting the new Season 13 scarf she'd knitted me with some improved colors. I posed for a few shots for her website on illustrating one of the ways to wear the scarf. I then had a nice chat catching up with Lewis Bailey also of the Happiness Patrol around this time. We'd missed crossing paths about a month prior when I was originally due to guest speak on the Who cosplay scene. Hopefully we'll reconnect on that for a future podcast.
Posing for Tara
Finally it was time to have my photo with John Leeson at 3:15PM. Thanks to reading the SOS on the forum I put Froggy in touch with AZDavros so they could have his nice K9 prop in the photo during his session. It made for some great pics! So being appropriately dressed as Four I asked John if we could both be whispering instructions to K9 and he happily agreed. The pic came out terrific and he signed it for me later that day.
K9 hears in stereo
After this I popped in the tail end of the Dressed to Scream: Companion cosplay panel with violet_lane, wicked0witch, aimeekitty, 1ucifer, and kgaleway. It was well attended and they seemed to be covering good ground. I saw a great femme Jack Harkness, Arc of Infinity Time Lord here! I also had a nice chat catching up with John Reid Adams aka farflav about his fan film "A Survivor's Triangle" which I'd enjoyed on youtube. It was nice seeing more of the Eight waistcoat material going to good use in his Eight outfit as well.
rickman_101 as Femme Jack and turkfox as Arc of Infinity Time Lord
Companion panel
Farflav as Eight
I left, bumping into a sal_the_ref as a Five who was sporting one of stevericks' coats and S21 trousers. Looked smashing.
Four with sal_the_ref as Five
roberty88 and jemzamia Ten and Amy
Four and K9!
For further Five goodness, I also bumped into ellipticcurve who was modeling her Silouttes Five coat with added piping. I took some ref pics for those considering taking the plunge on this option.
ellipticcurve Silouettes Five coat
I also stopped in the photo studio again to get some shots with a Dalek when I ran into an Eleven who had seriously good Matt Smith Hair. He cracked out a Jammie Dodger and I did the same with my Jelly Babies. We had a nice Doctor sweet swap picture... which he only got on his camera, not mine. Ack!
Eleven and jammie dodger
Eleven in the photo room
After that I remember handing out a LOT of Jelly Babies (to which people were excited to get them or curious to what they were... but I made a lot of converts to the sweets and if anyone's curious then buy the Taverner's brand - you'll thank me later)
Mmmmmmmm
I also handed out a LOT of Ribbons. Ribbons, I have to say, were a great way to meet people and collect 'em like baseball cards. Unlike previous years I ended up with like 20 ribbons because of this (piddles to some I know, but a record for me!).
My badge and line of ribbons
Ribbons continued
The Fri/Sat Ribbons we handed out were in reference to our 2009/2010 skits "Back Off Man, I'm a Retired Time Lord" and "When the Brigadier's _____, He Shoots Something!" We had 100 done up of each and they were all gone by end of Friday!
Friday ribbons
Later I recall finally running into minervamoon who was sporting her cool Five Doctors Tegan dress (courtesy of the power of spoonflower). Then there was the matter of securing the viewscreen for our Doctor panel. Tadao then found me and pointed me in the right direction to the tech guys in the Main Ballroom and we got the screen set up about an hour beforehand.
technobabbled as Adric
Minervamoon as Tegan from the Five Doctors
Four and Tegan (Photo by Aubrey West)
In the middle of this, we got a nice surprise when stevericks himself showed up at Gallifrey to surprise us! He'd literally booked the trip last minute to see how his Ultimate Tennant suit he'd made from THE Gap trousers was fairing with the fans and of course meet Kevin Coppa (oldeworldsmith) in person. It was great to see him again and catch up. He'd brought me a Cadbury Flake bar (ahhh British chocolate) and showed off the Program Book to the Doctor Who Experience exhibition which really looks fantastic. I hope to make it back over there to check it out soon!
aimeekitty as River Song
ceejay10 as End of Time Ten
Cushing and small fan
Before I knew it it was time for The TARDIS Wardrobe: Costuming as the Doctor panel. I ran up to the room to grab a bunch of Doctor costume items for a bit of show and tell and made it back in the nick of time. oldeworldsmith had brought along his projector and laptop and had put together a really nice powerpoint for the panel which proved a great help. Because stevericks has so much experience on making multiple Doctor's items from the tailoring perspective he joined us (batfriend, vandonovan, Lizz Dial, oldeworldsmith, and myself) on the panel as a last minute add-on moderator.
Costuming as the Doctor Cosplay - Our Group Circa 2009
This panel was pretty packed. I know it made me think we'll need more chairs if we do this again next year as there were a lot of folks who left standing the entire time! Thanks to the Powerpoint, we were able to touch on every single Doctor though Five, Four, Ten and Eleven got the most focus overall. I showed off the All Saints Boots, topman trousers, the new Eight vest I'd had made with fabric from the group run, new matching Eight cravat, my Five coat Steve had made for me, my Seven Sweater (hey I had to push the group run again!) and the Wested Nine jacket. We covered a lot of good points again on current vendors of items, fabrics, ID'ing colors from real life read to on-screen read, finding the right Doctor to suit your style, sharing the craft and the importance of a good wig. I felt we didn't cover enough really, but I was told by a lot of folks there the next day they got a lot out of it and enjoyed what we had to say which is all that matters.
oldeworldsmith made a lot of folks happy by offering up spare swatches of original brown pinstripe Gap trouser material leftover from his brand spanking new suit diligently sourced from ebay and tailored by stevericks. I traded him one with a spare Yale (TARDIS) key I had so he could add another prop to his costume. I followed suit (no pun intended) by offering swatches of the Eight Waistcoat material and matching Silk Satin I'd found for anyone who was looking to match it. I also loaned a few of my Eleven items for ninjarisu to photostudy that night and return to me the next day.
Original GAP Ten Swatches
Original Eight Vest Replica Fabric
Four & Zoe with fans
For what it’s worth, we got a LOT of questions concerning femme Doctors and gender swapping cosplay. As such, I can see with the sheer amount of feminized characters (and even a male Sarah Jane and Rose cosplayer!) this has suitably grown into an area that demands it’s own panel. So I promise to have a proper dedicated Crossplay panel added to the ranks for next year.
Male SJS with azarsuerte as female SJS (Photo by azarsuerte)
Femme Six (Photo by Aubrey West)
Femmes Six (time_testudinem) and Seven Photo by slytherinquoll
Afterwards, I had some fun getting a pic of a 'Crash Doctor' set of Cosplayers - an Eleven (cheapasair) and a Raggedy Ten!
Raggedy Ten and cheapasair) as Eleven - Crash Set
The TARDIS Walls needed some repair work around this time (but not as bad as last year thank goodness) and by the time I was packed up and done chatting with all the folks who had questions post-panel it was well past opening ceremonies(and later Frazer Hines' one man show).
qchan as Stewardess Tegan
Tegan’s BF (from Gallifrey Base) as Five
I missed a great little video Peter Davison did for his entrance which I caught later on youtube. Here it is for your amusement:
Click to viewDue to the complexity of our skit this year those of us in the skit agreed to meet up at 9PM back in the Cosplay Hall that night to rehearse. Thank god we did (we ended up having little to no time to rehearse the following day!). We all went upstairs, changed into civvies and looking at the time realized we didn't have time for a proper sit-down dinner. So most of us ordered take-out from Champions (the hotel restaurant/bar) to bring downstairs to eat so we'd be ready to go at 9PM. Wolfing down fries and burgers and nachos in the Cosplay Hall while getting a little punchy on lack of sleep made for an amusing experience...
Monster Rehearsal (Photo by Aubrey West)
Evil Rehearsal (Photo by Aubrey West)
As 9PM rolled around, I grabbed a number of costume bits and props to rehearse with and my boom box (though one I'm sure Ace would not be impressed with) and the audio CD of the skit. batfriend, flibertyjibitz, ceejay10, my GF, vandonovan, Aubrey, AZDavros (who did us a huge favor by letting us use his K9 prop for the skit), violet_lane, oldworldsmith, and E-Wan all gathered to run our 7 minute skit for the next 2 hours. A Big shoutout has to also to to stevericks who very nicely agreed to step in as the Dum Robot for the skit when a friend who'd previously agreed to do was unable to attend the convention at the last minute. Steve saved the day there.
Steve in full D84 VOC Robot gear the next day.
Deep fried entirely of EVIL (Photo by Aubrey West)
oldeworldsmith as The Valeyard
I remember we spent the first 20 minutes to figuring out the best way to apply the flag and a goatee to K9! AZDavros proved pretty ingenious here by whipping up 'evil eyes' for K9 so we didn't have to struggle with the eyepatch (and potentially hurt the fragile ears). He also came up with a very good system for slipping the Flag on and off stage making it easier for vandonovan who was tasked with making K9 'good' for the reveal.
Making K9 evil (Photo by Aubrey West)
Programmed entirely of EVIL (Photo by Aubrey West)
Inferno Universe Evil K9 with Eyepatch and goatee - a detail probably not seen well from stage on Sat.
We worked out some kinks with the Auton Arm, the sign (originally the Master was to carry this on but it was decided evntually it was best for me to do so), who was bringing what on and offstage and working out the tricky 10 second reveal scene for the Doctors. It took some doing but we got there in the end. Although two people were missing and would have to get told what to do on the fly the next day we felt fairly good about where we were.
ceejay10 as Judoon/Four in rehearsal (Photo by Aubrey West)
By the end of the night we were all pretty wiped out and I sure wasn't seeing any humor in what I'd written anymore. Everyone left or went to bed except for E-Wan and I. We toughed it out and ran it for another 45 minutes since as he was playing the Pratt Master we had to specially iron out all of his gestures to best match the dialog since he was carrying the whole thing effectively. We both agreed this extra time proved invaluable and really helped the performance sell the audio track. He took a copy of the audio home to listen in the car, while I brought the last of the props up to the room.
Kevin K. in a Sack. Photo by Aubrey West - Though Kevin and
minervamoon weren’t present at the rehearsal - we ran through their parts quickly on the fly the next day.
I recall glancing my head into the Island Rum party that night. It looked like fun but I didn't have the energy to join in. I passed briefly through LobbyCon again... I vaguely recall saying hi to some folks and handing out more ribbons. It's a bit of a blur now. I think my brain was already shutting down. Soon after I crawled into bed, my mind spinning on Evil, Donuts and Mannequin Arms.
Rockin' Out to the Evil. Photo by Scott Sebring.
Sat and Sun events Continued in Part Two which you can find here:
http://community.livejournal.com/dw_cosplay/774639.html
- HonoraryDoctor