T-minus one day, 8 hours

It’s almost that time of year! Phoenix Comicon begins tomorrow, and while I won’t be able to get there until the festivities are already in full swing (have to wait for my husband to get off work at 1pm) I’m sure I’ll have the time of my life. 🙂 My cosplays are complete–I even got the 4ft fighting fan prop in for my Temari cosplay–and most of what we’re taking is already packed and ready to be loaded into the car tomorrow.

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I have three interviews set up so far, and though I’m not overly optimistic at getting more I’m happy that at least a few people wanted to talk to me. I have my questions all ready on little 3×5 note cards that I’ll have handy in my cosplay pocket or purse. My phone has a decent voice recorder app that I’ve tested myself, so that’s taken care of. All I’ll need to do is transcribe and post at the end of each day. Each long day.

This year will be my first attending as media/press, so it will be interesting to see what kinds of things I can do. I know I can’t take photos of the guests without permission, but I plan on taking lots of cosplay photos and Periscoping in the hallways as I go to and fro. Probably won’t be able to Periscope any panels, but maybe I can manage live tweeting a few. And of course, I’ll be on the Talk Nerdy With Us Instagram to document the fun I’m having.

I have a ton of panels that I want to see. Cosplay panels, writing panels, sci-fi panels…things that will help with various different interests I have. I may even go to some of the panels that my sister wants to see. It will be her first Comicon, so I want her to have as much fun as possible. She’s chosen some interesting panels, but there are a few that conflict with panels that I want to see. She doesn’t seem to mind, though, and seems genuinely excited to be going. She’s a bit of a hermit (stays at home when she’s not working & only really leaves the house to go shopping with Mom or to go to Pet Smart) so I’m glad she’s getting excited about going to a big, crowded place full of strangers.

The countdown continues! I may even Periscope or live tweet from the car on the drive up (lol) but not for more than a few minutes. I’m sure no one wants to see 3 hours of interstate. Or 3 hours of me chattering away.

See y’all tomorrow and all weekend on the Talk Nerdy With Us Twitter and Instagram feeds!

Mission accomplished!

Well, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to, but somehow I did it. I finished the cosplays in time for Phoenix Comicon!

Okay…so technically I’m not 100% finished…but I know how I’m going to finish the last little bit, which is an improvement over being completely clueless as I was last week. And the weeks before.

My list of things to complete is dwindling to the point where I have three very minor things left to do. A couple snaps here, a strap there, and boom! Cosplays done. So what’s a girl to do next?

That’s a simple answer: More cosplay! I’ve already mentioned that I’ve chosen my next cosplay (Magik from the X-Men), and since my husband picked our last cosplay theme he’s going along with it and picked another X-universe character that he liked the look of.

This time I’ll have about two to three months to finish, as opposed to the one month I had to get the Naruto cosplays done. There’s more than just sewing involved, though–this time, we’ve got some fabrication (prop-building) to do. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to attend some panels at Phoenix Comicon that will give us some idea of where we’re going as far as that goes. Sure, we made the prop gourd for my husband’s Gaara cosplay, but that had a YouTube video tutorial that was fairly easy to follow. With the characters we’re working on, there’s less on the Internet to find to work with. I found a couple of step-by-step pictorial instructions for my sword prop, but nothing video. Still, it’s better than no tutorials at all.

Since I have a week and a half left til Phoenix Comicon, I’m going to try to read the book I have to review for Talk Nerdy With Us. I’ve gotten about six pages in, but the grammar and punctuation are kind of terrible. I understand that it may just be a small publisher and maybe they just don’t have the editorial resources that some bigger publishers have, but c’mon. I self-published my book and had fewer errors. The sentence structure so far is very bland and repetitive. Subject-verb-object, subject-verb-object, subject-verb-object. Doesn’t exactly make for a thrilling read. But I’m only six pages in, so maybe it gets better. Gotta give it a chance.

I also have critiques to do for the charity anthology. I’ve fallen woefully behind on those (due to the cosplay crunch), so I have to try to get up to speed on those.

A week and a half may not seem like much time…but a month didn’t seem like enough time for those cosplays, so I think I can do it. I think so.

Con artist

Ha! What a pun!

No, seriously. I may not be the world’s best artist. I may not even be a good artist. And I’m certainly not a featured artist of the con. But I am an artist. And I’m going to the con. So…yeah.

The cosplays are going so well that I can hardly wait for Phoenix Comicon. I mean, there is still a lot of stuff to get done. Mostly little stuff, thanks to my early morning insomniac sewing, but still a lot to get done.

The parts that are finished are looking quite nice, and I have to admit I’m egotistically proud of myself for doing so well, especially on my husband’s cosplay pieces so far. (I’m not particularly proud of the skirt I made for my Jedi TARDIS, but it’s finished now and it would take too much effort to remake the whole thing. Again.)

I don’t have any pictures of his Naruto cosplay–yet–but I have a selfie of me wearing my Temari kimono and headband. At 3am. In the dark. Still, it’s a cute photo, so I’m going to show it off here, along with hubby’s completed Sith Time Lord cosplay (missing just a couple red leather straps that are due to arrive *fingers crossed* hopefully by the end of the month):

As you can see in the bottom left corner of the picture of the front of hubby’s Sith Time Lord, our cat Rory likes to photobomb our cosplay pics. I have several examples of this. Seriously, cat, we’re just standing around in funny clothes taking pictures of each other. Relax. It’s nothing interesting.

We also *may* get my Temari fighting fan cosplay prop before Phoenix Comicon. Hubby ordered it last night, but we don’t know for sure if it will arrive before the con.

My plans for the evening? More artsy-craftsy cosplay art for our annual con. 🙂