Tag: costumes

Posted on
by

Homemade spider jockey costume (a composite Minecraft monster consisting of a skeleton archer riding a giant spider). Kid-sized, built by Katie (I assisted, mainly with painting, but the design, planning, and most of the construction was her).

Mostly cardboard, covered with paper to smooth it out and provide a painting surface. Heavy fabric and dowels to form the frame for the center of the spider body, with paracord to hold the legs on. For the skeleton: felt panels, some pinned to a black shirt, some to the suspenders. Which, incidentally, were made from old Comic-Con lanyards.

Posted on
by

A man dressed in aluminum foil with a sign on his back reading Sir Reynolds of the Wrap, talking to other people dressed in more serious Renaissasnce Faire garb. More people are milling about in front of some shop stalls.

Somehow I don’t think he’s taking this quite as seriously as Faire folk might prefer…

At the Renaissance Pleasure Faire held at Glen Helen Park near San Bernardino, California in spring 2001. (Yeah, I’ve been scanning old photos again…)

Update: I like this filmstrip-style filter and border. It’s a good fit for a Throwback Thursday on Instagram.

The same photo, cropped square, colors faded and wrapped with a border that looks like the border of a strip of film.

Posted on
by

Katie carved this incredible anatomically-correct skull Jack-O-Lantern for Halloween today. Update: Check the comments for her writeup on how she carved it.

Katie VampireIt seems to have worked as a “yes, we’re handing out candy” signal. Last year we didn’t get any trick-or-treaters. (We also didn’t put up any decorations that year, either.) This year, they started arriving while I was taking photos of the pumpkin…and while Katie was opening the bags of candy!

She dressed up in her vampire costume, which got some great responses. One trick-or-treater asked about the fangs. She overheard another walking away from the door and wondering, “Do you think she was a real vampire?”

By 8:50 we were down to only three Starbursts left to hand out, so we brought the pumpkin inside and called it a night.

Earlier this afternoon, I ran some errands and deliberately went to the Spectrum so that I’d have a chance of spotting the Great Park Balloon in the air while it still had the Jack-O-Lantern face on. I thought this view made for a nice image of the Great Pumpkin, rising up over the trees.

Large orange balloon, half-hidden behind trees, with a simple Jack-O-Lantern face painted or stuck on it.

Posted on
by

I wanted to call this “Oddball Comic-Con,” but decided that might be a little too close.

Stormtrooper Elvis poses with SauronStormtrooper Elvis has become such a fixture that I almost didn’t bother taking a picture of him when I saw him this year… but then I noticed his pose, and the Sauron statue in the background.

Free Hugs

There were a number of people walking around with “Free Hugs” signs, most of them women, but a few men. I never actually saw someone take one of them up on the offer, though.

Man holding up a book and a sign saying "Free!"On the subject of “Free” signs, I found it amusing that the Bantam Dell booth was trying to attract people with a hand-lettered cardboard sign proclaiming, “FREE!”

Circle of lights with cross-bars.
At one point I looked upward at the ceiling of Ballroom 20. With The Dark is Rising being made into a movie, I saw this lighting fixture and cross-beams and immediately thought of the Sign of Fire.

Flyer Man: FrontThis guy had the ultimate cheap costume: A roll of tape. He just took every freebie flyer that was handed to him, and taped it to himself.

Baseball cap: (fu) CKY (ou)

There’s apparently a band called CKY. Some of their merchandise manages to work the name into a rather rude saying…

There was a group of women in identical red dresses, with identical hairdos, and identical shoes. I saw a few of them wandering the floor on Saturday, but didn’t realize just how many there were until we left the convention center for dinner, and saw them crossing the street.

30+ Women in Red Dresses

Edit: Milla Jovovich in Resident EvilMystery solved? The Resident Evil panel featured 17 Milla Jovovich doubles wearing her iconic red dress. This looks like more than 17, and the dresses don’t seem to be ripped in the right place, but this could be them.

Continued in Strange Sights of San Diego.