MetroCon 2021: Cosplay, Dancing, & Coming Home Again

I am SO EXCITED to share all the fun and pretties with you from Metro last weekend, bots, but first, quick moment of realness: I'm concerned about con season this year. Especially here in Florida and Georgia. As of today John and I don't know if we'll be attending the rest of the conventions on our schedule, which has us pretty torn up. We want to be smart and safe and protect our loved ones, so just know if we do attend any more cons this year, it will be with every possible precaution.

I'm also happy to report that Metro felt safe. They required vaccination cards for anyone who didn't want to wear a mask, so the bare faces in the crowd were actually nice to see. Plus I know some - perhaps many? - of the mask-wearers were vaccinated but chose to wear masks anyway, like our group.

All that said, let's jump in to some happy:



Here's a compilation of all my Stories from the weekend, a few have loud music near the middle, so watch your volume. If you're on a desktop hit the fullscreen option so it's not so tiny.

(That incredible mushroom fairy at the end is @aundi_lanea, and I was *this close* to going Awkward Fangirl and asking her to be friends with me. :p)

In addition to shopping and dancing and just taking it all in, John and I also brought our trusty flash rig out for a few hours, so prepare for some PRETTIES. Woot woot!

Let's start with the incredible cosplayer I ended my Stories with, Duy Truong:

Duy always blows us away; he specializes in DRAMA and making jaws drop. I couldn't light the whole skirt with the flash, so go back to my video to see just how enormous it really is.

Look at all the details on the jacket. Look at them:

::swoon::

I almost tossed this next photo, but the more I looked at it, the more it became my favorite:

There's something about the stream of people in the background ignoring us that feels so surreal, and the visible flash gives it a behind-the-scenes vibe. I dig it.

There's a lot of Lolita fashion at Metro, and I'm a fan. Give me all the ruffles and sweet pastels!

Stunning.

And here's a Lolita Diva from Overwatch:

Our Next Cosplay Is A Star Wars Dad Joke Of The First Order

We all knew this day was coming.

Every year I make roundups of my favorite punny costumes, so it was really only a matter of time before John and I jumped onto the groan-worthy gigglewagon ourselves. But believe it or not, this one is all John's idea; I'm just along for the ride. And to sculpt bizarre props. But that's getting ahead of myself.

John has wanted this costume for years, and despite it being a fairly obvious pun, I don't think it's ever been attempted.

UNTIL NOW.

Yep, we're doing it, bots. We're making a Boba Vet cosplay.

BOBA VET.

And what does a Boba Vet treat? Well, Star Wars animals, of course. So... we're going to need some of those.

Which brings me to today's epic-yet-bizarre prop build: a Porg... in Carbonite.

::pauses to reflect on all the life choices that got me to this point::

::slow grin::

Ahem.

And if I'm building a Porg in Carbonite, then of course I'm going to show you how to build one, too. Because everybody wants a Porg in Carbonite. That's up there with a rock to wind a piece of string around and prosthetic foreheads on their real heads.

Ahem hem.

Let's begin.

First place a scale print-out of your Porg onto pink insulation foam from the hardware store. We're aiming for life-size, so our slab is about 2 feet long.


Trace your photo onto the pink foam, then use foam board to make a cross brace of the Porg's side profile. This provides structure and a handy depth guide. Hot glue the foam cross section in place.

Now here's where our dastardly Porg plans... are foiled:


Heyooo

Take big strips of aluminum foil and smoosh them into place, hot-gluing as you go. You'll get the hang of it pretty fast, I promise; the foil is almost like stabby clay, so it sculpts surprisingly well.

Use that center cross brace as a guide; it'll help you keep both sides symmetrical.


When you're done you'll have a fresh Porg burrito, the first of many hilarious visuals to come:



Oh right, and you can see how I used foam board & foil to make some webbed toes sticking out.

Now it's time to get in touch with your inner first grader and paper maché, baby: