Category: Conventions

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Trelawney and the Spider Jockey.For this year’s WonderCon, Katie refined her Professor Trelawney costume from Long Beach. The biggest change: extending the skirt instead of using actual layers, because it was warm in Anaheim. Just for the weekend – it jumped about 10°F just before and was expected to drop 10°F afterward. She remarked, only half-jokingly, that if she’d tried to do Whitney Frost, the makeup would have melted.

The great thing about Trelawney: Not only is she instantly recognizable to almost anyone (though she did get mistaken for Dr. Olivia Octavius at one point), but there were a lot of Harry Potter cosplayers at the con! Every time she ran into an Umbridge, she’d pretend to hide.

The Paper!For Sunday, she reassembled her Yomiko Readman (a.k.a. The Paper from Read or Die) costume from a few years back. Weirdly enough, more people seemed to recognize her than used to when she wore it in San Diego!

The kiddo wanted to wear the Minecraft Spider Jockey costume again, and it was just as big a hit this year as last time. And even though the straps left his shoulders sore (Katie plans to redo them with actual backpack straps), he wanted to keep it for the second day. Unfortunately that was a bit too much, and we ended up leaving early Sunday afternoon.

For more photos of all three costumes, and a bunch of other cosplayers we ran into at the con, check out the full gallery on Flickr.

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Last fall, I conceded that phones have caught up to casual cameras and I’d have to get a nicer one to get better image quality. Well, I finally bought a mirrorless camera. The kiddo found my old SLR, and we’ve split a few rolls of film (re)discovering how to shoot with it. Then he started asking about a modern digital equivalent. Since it was going to be two of us using it, not just me, I felt like I could justify the expense.

I read a bunch of reviews and asked around for advice, finally settling on a Sony Alpha a6000. It’s a few generations back in their advanced amateur line, making it a bit more affordable.

We brought the new camera to WonderCon, and I made some discoveries:

  1. It actually handles the light level inside the convention center!
  2. I’ve gotten waaaay too used to just capturing costumes when shooting cosplayers, instead of composing interesting shots. Most of the photos I took on Saturday had good image quality, but were ultimately just snapshots.
  3. Because of #1 and #2, I ended up with a lot of busy backgrounds. I tried to cut down on the distraction by adding vignetting to some of the photos afterward.

Originally we planned totrade off who had the good camera, but he ended up wearing his giant Minecraft Spider Jockey costume the entire time, so he didn’t have much opportunity to take photos. In the end, he only took one all weekend…but it was the best-composed shot of the entire day!

Women dressed as Joy, Sadness and Disgust from Inside Out

I took the lesson from that, and while most of my pictures on Sunday were still utilitarian snaps, I did manage to take a few that I think worked out better, like these three:

My full cosplay gallery is on Flickr, including these four photos and all those snapshots.

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There was a lot of Harry Potter cosplay at WonderCon this past weekend! Here are some of my photos, featuring Bellatrix Lestrange, Hagrid, You-Know-Who, Professor Sybill Trelawney (who should look familiar to regular readers!), Hogwarts Professors Dolores Umbridge, Gilderoy Lockhart and Albus Dumbledore; Arthur Weasley, and Rita Skeeter.

There are a lot more that I missed – people dressed as the Malfoys, students of course, News Scamander, other professors, and so on.

Check out my full WonderCon 2019 album on Flickr!

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Back in 2009, I attended the first-ever Long Beach Comic-Con, an event that filled the void left when Wizard World cancelled WWLA at the last minute. I had a good time, and it had a lot of support from the industry, but I wondered how long it would last.

Ten years on, LBCC is still going strong! It’s small compared to WonderCon or SDCC, but it continues to be much more focused on comics and art than most “comic cons.” Artists’ Alley is still the central focus of the main floor, with an outer edge made up of small press, comics and collectibles dealers, a wrestling ring, fan groups, Space Expo, and celebrity signing areas.

(If you’re in a hurry and just want the photos, head over to Flickr for the full set.)

Family Trip

Professors Trelawney and Mad-Eye MoodyAll three of us attended on Saturday. Katie debuted her Professor Trelawney cosplay, explored, and caught a panel on the science of Black Panther.

I spent most of the afternoon taking J. around. We picked up a few toys, played video games (he found the customization screen on a fighting game right away, and spent the time experimenting), and several rounds of laser tag. The Long Beach Public Library also had a great area for kids, with crafts, a 3D printing demo, a photo area and a floor maze.

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Cosplay: Professor Sybill Trelawney (Hogwarts: Divination) ponders the future.

Katie’s been talking about dressing up as Professor Trelawney for a while now. She put together the pieces for a costume over the last couple of weeks, and wore them on Saturday at Long Beach Comic Con.

It was a huge success! Lots of people recognized the character and wanted photos. We even ran into “Mad-Eye” Moody on the way into the convention! Edit: Then again, there was also the guy who insisted in talking to her about Woodstock.

Hogwarts Professors Sybill Trelawney and Mad-Eye Moody are ready for anything: Constant Vigilance! Professor Sybill Trelawney has learned something horrifying: You have the Grim!

I’ll have more to say about the convention in the next post, but for now, check out my full LBCC photo gallery on Flickr. And you can follow Katie’s cosplay on Instagram at @CasualCosplayKatie.