Adventures in Costuming Part 3: Welcome To The Show

Well, my first costuming at a convention experience is complete and it was an amazing ride (I have the sore muscles to prove it). I’ll admit I never really understood why people spent so much time making costumes just to wear them at conventions like WonderCon until I tried it, and what started out as a learning tool and experiment became a pretty amazing time.

How do people show their appreciation for art? For many I feel the answer is they buy a lot of it or make collections of stuff related to that art (comics, TV shows, movies, whatever) which makes total sense cause then you have it and are reminded of constantly. But what I found out is being able to express an appreciation for something by adding your own creativity is 10x more rewarding (for me at least) and costuming is exactly that kind of idea.

“The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. And I really believe that. What I try to teach young people, or anybody in any creative field, is that every idea should seemingly be outrageous.”

- George Lois

At WonderCon I suited up in the parking garage and my nerves began to scream. I’m lucky that I was meeting up with great costumers which I had already made plans with so I couldn’t back out. Suit, check. Boots, check. Harness, check. Gloves, check. Non-functioning airsoft rifle, check. Last but not least brown bowler hat, check. I didn’t know what to expect but on the long walk back to the convention floor I saw some pretty great reactions, even from people that weren’t there for WonderCon (there was a youth volleyball and cheer tournament going on as well). While I expected at least some Halloween-esque, “I can’t believe you’re wearing that,” looks what I got was more, “Omg, that looks great” and “Awesome.” And they weren’t just looks. The response from people was great! Even being a lesser-known character from the Marvel universe like Dugan still solicited some great responses. It felt great that the work I put into the costume paid off. I hurried to meet some Avengers and SHIELD agents for a “quick” photo shoot. There was a definite learning curve when it came to posing for pictures as a comic book character, but I met a ton of great people that I hope to see again and had a good time.

Bret Lonsway as Nick Fury and Tally Smith as Black Widow (award winner at the Marvel Booth’s costume contest).

And from Geekscape…

I’ll post more pics if I find any randomly. One of the best conventions experiences to date and yet another hobby to pursue. Thanks to everyone that helped and to the people I got to hang out with, you made it awesome!

less than three,
-SHC

1 year ago  /  4 notes