We started out Thursday night as Burt Macklin and Janet Snakehole from Parks and Rec. (Thanks to @tiarala for this awesome photo!)
We also met this fantastic Ron and Tammy 2 pair. They were spot on and stayed in character!
While we were out roaming the floor, we decided to get drinks, which we never do, as they're SO expensive. Also, we're not huge drinkers, so we barely drink at DragonCon anyway. However, I thought it would be appropriate for Janet Snakehole to have an old fashioned in her hand. Matt went off to order our drinks at the bar in the Marriott Atrium, and I lounged against the railing with my best Janet Snakehole expression on my face. A few minutes later, an older man walked away from the bar. He was wearing a hat, had a drink in his hand, and carried a cane over his arm. It was Sylvester McCoy! I gave him a small wave of acknowledgement, and he looked right at me and said, "You look very elegant, my dear." I replied loftily, "Thank you, Doctor."
So that was pretty amazing.
On Friday we went to several panels and met up with our friend Katie, who was at her first con ever. She is an enthusiastic person, and on an enthusiasm scale of 1 to 10, she's at about an 8 on a normal day. At DragonCon, she was peaking at about a 15. As an introvert, I can only exert so much energy to deal with that level of energy before I start to wear out like a wind-up toy at the end of its wind.
 |
| Katie - Just looking at that smile makes me tired. |
We got into our LOTR costumes and went out on the floor for a while. We ran into Frank Ippolito and Bill Doran, who Matt follows on YouTube. He'd used some of their tutorials for his armor, so he talked to them for a bit. Then I turned around and saw Norm from Tested with his camera. He was facing away from us, but I hoping that if he turned around and saw Matt, he'd snap a photo, and that's exactly what happened! Matt even made it into Norm's photo gallery, which is pretty epic!
As Matt, Katie, and I were heading to Evening at Bree, we got into an elevator that was going up, as we'd been unsuccessful at catching the ones going down. A few floors up, Michael Trucco from Battlestar Galactica hopped on with a friend. It was all I could do to keep myself from elbowing Matt. For the last few floors, it was just us and Trucco and his friend. We chatted about elevators and people taking too slow to jump on or something I don't know he smelled so good and I was being so chill and not at all star struck and he smelled so good ...
Where was I? Oh yeah. When we got out, I waited for the appropriate amount of distance to elapse between us and Trucco's retreating back before I squealed. I've only seen the show briefly while Matt was watching it so I couldn't even tell you his character's name, but DAMN, he is one fine specimen.
Katie wore the Eowyn dress that I made her, and I'll blog about that soon. Three of the dwarves from The Hobbit were at Evening at Bree: Stephen Hunter, who was the emcee for the costume contest (and added his own bits of humor to the contestants' costume descriptions), Dean O'Gorman, and Peter Hambleton. I loved seeing all of the costumes in the contest. The creativity of Tolkien fans is inspiring, and I'm always impressed by the dwarf costumes. One of my favorite costumes this year was made by JediElfQueen: Galadriel's battle armor from The Hobbit, which is a costume that only ever existed as concept art. It is absolutely gorgeous. I'd been following her construction of the piece on Facebook, and was thrilled to see it in person!
On Saturday, we finally dressed up in our Narnia costumes. We've been working our butts off to finish Queen Susan's upgrades and Prince Caspian's costume before DragonCon. Matt's got some posts up about his Caspian costume as well as Susan's bow, so make sure you check those out.
 |
| A random Dustin/Starlord appears ... |
That night, we went to the Middle Earth 90's Dance Party. We'd been to the party in 2013, and it was a blast. This year, though, it was held in the Marriott Atrium, which is drunk asshole central. At one point I left, and had to wait in line almost 15 minutes to get back in. There were more random drunk people than Tolkien track people, but it was still fun. The best part was wearing our 90's costumes! Matt was Grunge Eomer, and I was Goth Eowyn. My friend Tiara was my fashion consultant, and I think I looked brilliant! I wish I could wear this outfit somewhere else, because it was phenomenal. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone knew I was supposed to be Eowyn.
On Sunday, we wore our Back to the Future costumes (Lorraine and Marty) in honor of 2015 (the year that Marty travels to in BTTF2). We ran into Disney Robin Hood and Maid Marian (and Skippy the Rabbit?) as well as the 12th Doctor and a terrifying Headless Horseman.
We later changed back into Prince Caspian and Queen Susan, and went to the Hobbit Drinking Songs event with Katie, which was great fun! Despite all of the empty chairs in the photo, it ended up being a packed room.
We didn't just walk around in costume, though. We both went to some amazing panels, including Hobbit/LOTR cast members, Historic Haunts Investigations, Ghost Hunters, and various prop and costume panels. At the Sleepy Hollow panel, a fan asked Tom Mison if he'd ever been called "Super Hot Jesus", and that became the theme for the rest of the panel. He seemed alternately bothered and pleased by the title. We also went to the Shawn Trpcic panel, which was fantastic, as I'd been hoping for years that she'd make it to DragonCon. She was the costume designer on Firefly, Dr. Horrible, and many other shows and films that we watch. Shawna is down-to-earth and encouraging, and a real inspiration.
One of my favorite moments this weekend was when someone asked at the Hobbit/LOTR panel if they were the Donner Party, who would they eat first? After some explanation concerning the Donner Party, Stephen Hunter slunk off stage while Sylvester McCoy staggered zombie-like after him. A few moments later, they both returned, Sylvester missing an arm and Stephen licking his fingers. Those two make a phenomenal physical comedy team, and I would love to see them perform together.
As we left on Monday, we were both starting to feel a bit of con crud creeping up on us. By the time we got home 13 hours later, we were both suffering from full-blown con crud, which struck us in the form of a severe head cold/flu. Four days later, I am finally feeling well enough to get off the couch and write this up. I might even start unpacking! It seems like almost everyone we knew at DragonCon got hit really hard this year, so something a bit more potent than usual must have been going around.
Make sure you're following us in the following places, and stay tuned for most posts:
www.facebook.com/casualcostumers
www.matthewgilbert.net
