Unconventional Conventionists

Continuing in my post-convention reporting trend, this is the picture post I promised on Monday.

People who go to these cons and dress up as characters they enjoy are known as cosplayers. Many of them don't merely dress the part, they adopt the character's persona for the duration of the time they're in the costume. If you're not prepared for the phenomenon, I imagine it can be a little bewildering.

I, as it happens, am perfectly at home with the idea. I've spent enough time wandering around Renaissance faires pretending to be someone from the Elizabethan era (and successfully being mistaken for a faire employee). Putting on a set of odd clothes and at the same time putting on an entirely different personality is not too foreign to me. So I was particularly looking forward to seeing what my fellow weirdos decided to do.

All photographs linked from this post are copyright to myself, Laura Klotz. If you are in any of them, or wish to use them for con scrapbooking purposes or something like that, by all means feel free to copy them to your hard drive. I only ask that they not be reposted someplace else on the internet without credit being given to me, and that if you do take any/all of them, please leave a comment and let me know.

Having said that, here are the characters who found a place on my camera's memory card:

• Jareth and Sarah, from the movie Labyrinth, with my friend Rachel, who is dressed as Rangiku Matsumoto from the manga Bleach
  
  
• An Eevee from the Pokemon games
  
  
• The Companion Cube, from the video game Portal
  
  
• Darkwing Duck
  
  
• Prince Marth of Altea, from the Fire Emblem series of games (or, if you prefer, from Super Smash Bros. Brawl)
  
  
• A group of characters from the Hetalia manga; the girl in turquoise is France but I'm really not sure about the others
  
  
• Professor Layton, from -- well, Professor Layton and the Greatest Puzzle Games Ever
  
  
• The Tenth Doctor, from Doctor Who
  
  
• Cloud Strife, from the Final Fantasy game series
  
  
• Alice, from the video game American McGee's Alice
  
  
• One of the Heartless, from the Kingdom Hearts games
  
  
• Myself as Susan Pevensie, from the Narnia films, with Link from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Well, I did say I didn't need to wear a wig. That was part of the reason for choosing that costume. Also, those are real arrows on my back, but they're quite firmly stuck in place; if you attended the con and remember me at all, it's probably because of my bow. It was actually a bow-shaped marshmallow shooter and an awful lot of people requested to be shot with the candy.

As I mentioned in Monday's post, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the impossibly nice and adorably geeky Vic Mignogna at the con. Naturally, I got a few pictures of him as well. Here he is talking to fans after his faith panel, discussing his love of Star Trek, and being friendly and social during his Sunday autograph session.

Let me hear from you if you spot anyone you know in these pictures!