Dragon Con 2022: Our Favorite Saturday Cosplays!

If you've ever spent a full week at Disney World then you know that post-vacay stubborness: the one where your brain refuses to do anything but look at pictures and videos and remember all the fun you had, instead of getting back to normal "real" life.

That's totally me with Dragon Con.

Original comic by The Awkward Yeti, not sure who modified it, haha.

So I hope you'll continue to indulge me while I get all this magical wild wonder out of my system.

("NEVAAAAHHH!")
("Quiet, brain.")

That's the nice thing about being a con photographer: I get to re-live all this goodness while I work on editing, and that goes triple for video editing. Exhausting as it is, John and I haven't stopped for a moment since we got home. So while part of me never wants the work to end, another part is ready for a nice long nap. ;)

That said, early yesterday we wrapped our Saturday video, the longest and arguably best one yet. So. You ready for this??

Fun things to watch for: Attila the "ruffian" from Tangled with his tray of cupcakes, the easy-to-miss whip crack at :48,  Doctor Stranger Things (yay puns!), Chewie high-fiving tiny Darth, an incredible Mandalorian/Over The Garden Wall mashup, dancing Critical Role trio with SUCH COOL MAKEUP, then the CR Campaign 3 group complete with a waving Paté & Eshteross offering gingersnap cookies! 

Also don't miss the gorgeously unsettling Sally holding Jack's head, FREDDY KROGER (more puns!), a hilarious Yip Yip, even MORE hilarious Venture Brothers couple (she had to dance very carefully so she wouldn't "fall out", bahaha), my new favorite Tamatoa (SO PRETTY), Doctor Honeydew & the Meeping Angel (I LIKE BIG PUNS AND I CANNOT LIE), MegaMind & his fishy minion(!!), the Owl House group that jumped right off the screen, Morticia Addams in THAT DRESS, ermergersh, then possibly my loveliest photo of the whole con (can you guess?), a belly-dancing Twi'lek, and at the very end, an Indiana Jones deep cut that is a real scream (and belly-laugh) if you recognize it.

Ahhhh.

SO GOOD.

Special shout-out to this Over The Garden Wall mashup, because it is so creative:

You all know the Mandalorian, then this cosplayer mashed him up with Greg here:

In addition to turning his helmet into a teapot, he turned Grogu into Greg's lucky frog, and filled his ammunition sash with candy. Then as a final, BRILLIANT touch, he gave me this sticker:

For context, Greg says, "Ain't that just the way?" in the show, and Mando says, "This is the way." Again, SO clever, and I'm sure a lot of folks walked by without realizing all these great details, so I had to take a minute.

Speaking of incredible theming details, the Mad Max guitar player gave me this as a cosplay card:

(@Kazzercise)

A guitar pick! So perfect!

Then the Olaf & Elsa cosplayers from our Bunny Hutch video gave me a light-up rainbow stick with their IG handle (@awwwesomeartistry) on it. I'm a big fan of non-card cards and con swag; so many cosplayers were giving out cute stickers, pins, even 3D printed toys!

John and I still have one more video to go for Sunday, then we'll be switching immediately into Halloween prep. We have a new theme this year that I cannot WAIT to tell y'all about, so stay tuned for new projects and builds and silliness.

In the mean time, I'll leave you with a few more of my favorite Saturday photos.

This was one of the cosplayers who knew us, so I hope she comments so I can tag her.

This Joker was so uncertain at first, then she saw her photo. I love getting to tell people "YES YOU REALLY LOOK THAT COOL," it's the best.

If you were trying to guess earlier, THIS is the photo I said may be my loveliest from the whole con. Doesn't she look like an oil painting? Ahhh I love it.

Although this Tamatoa is up there, too:

The colors! Eeee!


Cosplayers, you can download your photos for free here from my Flickr gallery, and you're more than welcome to re-post them on your own accounts.

Last thing: a quick, slightly unpleasant word about masks. Although Dragon Con claimed masks were required, they were severely understaffed and had no means of enforcement for a crowd of 65,000. So you'll notice in my daily coverage that masks quickly disappear, until almost no one was wearing them by Sunday.

I'm never a fan of rule-breaking - especially when it results in volunteers getting so much abuse - but I'm also used to people not wearing masks, so this didn't impact my comfort level much. John & I choose to mask regardless, and we're isolating and testing now to keep our friends safe. (So far we feel perfectly fine, praying we stay that way!)

On the flip side, it saddens me to see increasing evidence that Dragon Con was absolutely a super spreader event this year, as more and more large parties are reporting in Covid positive in my online groups. John and I only removed our masks around 4 people for meals, and so far one of those four is very ill with Covid. I'm grateful that Covid is no longer a serious threat for healthy folks, but it still sucks, y'all, so please be safe out there, k? If not for yourself, then for your high-risk loved ones.

Oh, and I know this is preaching to the choir, but please don't hurl insults at cosplayers who choose to mask. I'm seeing that on YouTube and it makes me spicy.

Love y'all, go have an incredible weekend, k? See ya back here on Tuesday.

::HUGS::

*****

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