MegaCon 2013, Friday Favs

I come bearing pictures of fun and costumed nerdery!! Yep, this year's MegaCon was the biggest yet, and on Saturday the crowds approached Dragon*Con-like levels in spots. (EEK.) Still, it's wonderful to see the con growing, and I've had several sources tell me it's moving to the convention center's larger facility across the street next year. Yay for more room!

Ok, let's get right to it with my very first shot on Friday, which includes the best use of a prop I have ever seen:

This Spider-Man had a long string of rubbery "web" that he'd hand to the photographer. I held it just below my camera, and got this fantastic web-slinging effect. Seriously, this is brilliant. (The guy's backpack was made with the same rubbery black and white strings, making it look like he'd made it with his own web.) I love it when cosplayers get this creative!

And speaking of creative, I have to show you the hysterical costumes of my friends Chris and Christie:

It's Emperor Palpatine on vacation, with a beach-ready Imperial Guard in tow.

John actually pitched this idea to Chris and Christie last year, at the time thinking he'd be the Emperor. He never got around to making the costume, though, so Chris stepped up (although Christie made his Hawaiian print robe). Christie also sewed her entire outfit from stretch velvet - she's crazy talented like that. (You'll see more of her work in my next post.)

You might remember that John is a huge fan of the video game Borderlands (and Borderlands 2), so this group made his whole Friday:

Specifically, the girl on the left with the giant wrench made his whole Friday. The character's name is Ellie, and this gal was talking in character - a kind of Southern drawl - which was pretty hysterical. John went nuts. He couldn't stop giggling, saying how fantastic the costume was, and a few minutes later made us go back to get another picture of just her:

For those of you like me who don't know the character, here's a reference pic:

Pretty spot on!

We actually saw quite a few Borderlands cosplayers over the weekend, but this is my favorite:

The second they debuted this character, the Mechromancer, my first thought was, "That would be an awesome cosplay." And it is! Again, here's a reference pic:

I fangirled all over Steampunk Tinkerbell here, because I follow the maker of this costume, Firefly Path, on Facebook, and saw a few preview pics just the day before:

If you love gorgeous costumes as much as I do, then you really should be following JoEllen's work. As you can see, it is stunning. (This isn't JoEllen in the pic, by the way; she's just the one who made the entire costume, from boots to wings.)

You know what I love? I love the fact that this is John's and my favorite cashier at JoAnn's Fabrics, Kathy, together with her boyfriend:

 

They made the Deadmau5 heads themselves (!!) and hers has a full rig inside with wiring and lights. SO COOL.

A cutie-pie SuperGirl:

Together with a madly grinning John photo bomb in the background. D'awww.

And the first female Pyramid Head I've ever seen:

A lovely TARDIS dress:

 

(Her headband lit up, too!)

Plus a Pokemon card dress and a rare Meg-from-Hercules sighting:

The entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation was at MegaCon this year, so on Friday we went to a panel with Brent Spiner (Data), Michael Dorn (Worf), Levar Burton (Geordi), and Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar).

 (I prefer sitting in the back. Sorry for the rotten pic.)

As usual, Spiner made the whole panel, keeping us laughing for much of the 45 minutes. (After telling us he'd been offered a role in Human Centipede 3, "I feel like I could bring some real dignity to the franchise.")

The most interesting aspect to me - other than the laughs - was the fact that they all unanimously agreed that the worst TNG episode of all time was Code of Honor, but they were clearly uncomfortable coming out and directly saying why. (The episode has long been accused of [unintentional?] racism.) For fans who didn't remember the ep in question - like John -  it was a somewhat long and confusing dance-around. I guess celebs just take for granted by now that we all know every episode by heart. :D

So that was our Friday! Now, Friday is just the warm-up day for cosplayers, if you can believe it. Saturday is the big BIG costume day, when cosplayers come out of the woodwork. I spent Saturday out and about as Lady Vadore, but John had the camera on hand to snap plenty of pics for us. Stay tuned for those shots coming up next!

Oh, and these pics have only been a sampling of my favorite shots from Friday, so if you'd like to see the rest of them head on over to my Flickr account. I'll be adding all of my convention shots there over the next two days, so prepare for the deluge! ;)