Word Of The Day: BEWBS!

Friday morning we woke up bright and early, as we had scheduled a Sailor Moon photoshoot with Pat Gavin. Five women getting ready in a hotel room with one bathroom sounds like a setup for a terrible sitcom, and indeed we did have a comedy of errors, as wigs were combed, costume pieces were misplaced, and I dropped my expensive purple contact into the sink and couldn't find it. (Steph did. It stuck to the faucet. How does that even happen?) The girls had stocked up on things like Pop Tarts and breakfast bars, so woot for having breakfast in the room without having to call room service! (Though I admit nothing can beat French toast and bacon. Mmm, bacon.)

At any rate, we made it to the lobby around 11 AM and started looking around for our girls. And oh, then I saw them.

There was this wonderful, beautiful, epic group of Sailor Moon cosplayers that did the wedding dresses from the fifth artbook. They were missing a Mamoru and a ChibiChibi, but had the Three Lights in prince-type wear instead. All of their costumes were absolutely beautiful and absolutely perfect down to every little detail--and I should know, I've studied that picture enough. I truly believe the wedding dresses are the secret dream of every Sailor Moon cosplayer, and to see them done so wonderfully was really rewarding and inspiring. I took a ton of photos (nowhere near as many as the professional photographers were though of course!) and handed out my "business card" to all of them--I really hope to get them on Sailor Moon Avatars.

While waiting for some more of our group to show up, I got to snap a few photos of Eiji in her Yuuri costume, then I got to see Sheep for the first time in like forever, and Soi, and then my very special, my Tiny, Jamie! I got pictures not just of but with all three, thank God, because soon after that the rest of our girls arrived and we went out back to do our shoot with Pat Gavin.

The photoshoot went wonderfully! To start off with, it really was noticeably warmer down in D.C. than it has been in New York City, and the sun was out and the wind wasn't too bad, so we were comfortable posing without jackets on. The back of the Omni Shoreham is structured and landscaped beautifully, so we had wonderful backdrops to take pictures against. (Well, except for the sock in the fountain. What was up with that? If I could've reached it, I would've removed it.) All of us just being in character led to some really classic pictures, and all of us being out of character and being our own retarded selves led to some wonderfully silly pictures that serve to remind us of the wonderful time we had.

And then, as luck would have it, who should we run into outside but the Sailor Moon Wedding Group? It turns out they had just finished a photoshoot of their own, and they were all feeling pretty fired up and silly themselves, so we took some wonderful "doubles" shots (Ami with Mercury, Hotaru with Saturn, etc.) and then the other Mars and I got REALLY silly and got some...well, you'll have to head over to the Hino Rei - High School Uniform page to check those out. All of the other cosplayers were incredibly nice, and I want to thank them for posing and chatting with us for so long.

After the shoot, Patti, Steph, Rhi-chan and I decided to take a turn through the Dealer's Room, since I hadn't even seen where it was yet, but we had only gotten about one aisle in when we realized we were all STARVING. So we decided to get out of there, and find a place to have lunch--none of us really wanted McDonald's just then.

Luckily, there was a place right next to McDonald's that was a pretty decent bar and grill. Unluckily, it had the slowest service known to man. I'm not sure it was the waitress's fault--in fact, she said it wasn't, and that it was the kitchen that was taking so long--but it was absolutely unbelievable. The place was busy, don't get me wrong, every table was filled, but even so, it should not take one hour to get the waitress to come over, another hour before our food was ready, and another hour to get the bill. While I'm always appreciative to have three hours to spend with my friends, I was so hungry I started chewing my paper placemat. (At least that dissolved the tension a little--I think Patti and Steph were ready to start chewing the waitress.)

Nevertheless, as I mentioned above, just having time to be with my friends is one of my all-time favorite things to do, especially at a con, and in a way it was nice to be forced to stay in one place for more than five minutes, not doing anything more than just sitting and talking. Rhi and Steph found out they have a shared love of U2 in general and Bono specifically, I was treated to a private "concert" of Steph and Patti singing "Search For Your Love" in perfect harmony, we discussed how we had all met and what we all want to do in the future, and we made plans for future cosplay and future non-cosplay hang-outs.

After lunch, we headed back to the con, and Ranma found me so he could give me a present he had picked up for me--a gorgeous little Chun Li action figure in a Capcom outfit! My big brother spoils me so. We ran into a few more people in the lobby, and then started on our way back to the Dealer's Room.

As is often the case at these things, our progress was slow due to running into pretty much everybody we've ever met, ever. s0ni made a surprise ninja appearance for one day only, so of course we had to squeal over her, and then she ran into Callie who she hasn't seen since Callie moved out to Cali (...ha), and the sound those two made when they saw each other shattered water glasses within a 50 foot radius. I also gave Callie the black opera length gloves I had brought for her to borrow, and the brought me the black ribbon I would need as Rinoa the next day.

We ran into Morgan again, who was either on her way to or from the Masters of the Universe photoshoot, and she looked absolutely adorable as Lookee. I saw Oshi waiting in line for the photo booth, and we lamented over the fact that she lives almost DIRECTLY across the street from Louis, and somehow we never find the time to get together (although that's more understandable these days, what with her going back to school and scoring that internship and all.) I got to take a picture of she and Chibi Lisa in their NANA outfits together, I'm really obsessing over that manga lately and the two of them looked just perfect.

Oshi asked me if I had seen Jez yet, and I said I hadn't, so of course I shouldn't have been surprised when I walked away and the very next person I ran into was Jezeroth! I hadn't seen him since he moved out west, either, so we fanboy/girled all over each other for a few moments, then I grabbed him by the hand so I could lead him over to Oshi, because I knew those two needed to see each other again. More fanning ensued, and Oshi made Jez give us both hugs while he flexed his muscles. Con weekends are the best weekends in the world.

Finally, we made it to the Dealer's Room. It was nice! There was NO LINE to get in. Let me say that again: There. Was. No. Line. To. Get. Into. The. Dealer's. Room. No bag policy, either. And while they checked your badges on your way in, they weren't super militant about it, either. Overall, Katsucon had some of the nicest, most relaxed, but still effecient, staffs that I have had the pleasure to come into contact with.

It was pretty good, as far as Dealer's Rooms go. I didn't find anything I absolutely HAD to have--which is good, as I had told myself that I wasn't going to buy myself anything, in the interest of keeping this as Budget Con 2008, but I had promised to buy Louis something as a souvenier to make up to him the fact that he was missing the con entirely. Nevertheless, there was some Sailor Moon merchandise--something I look for in every Dealer's Room--and a wide variety of other things as well. I try to make it a practice never to buy something on my first run through the tables, so most of our trip on Saturday was just spent looking things over and comparing them in my mind. On the plus side, I got to meet Tristen Citrine for the very first time, although she was understandably VERY busy manning the very busy Cosworx booth. (They're doing fantastic business, and with good reason! Their products are top notch.)

So, after shopping-times were over, we went back up to the hotel room so that the other girls could change into their PGSM costumes...or, in two cases...make their PGSM costumes. And I got to witness for the first time something I had only heard of second hand: finishing a costume in the hotel room minutes before it's supposed to be worn. And as I watched Auria struggle with both her costume and the one she was making for Fitz...well, it didn't look that hard. I mean, how hard could it be?

So since I was already dressed and everything (I wasn't going to change, although I was sorely tempted to put my Myu Mars costume back on), I offered to finish up whatever Auria was doing, if she thought it wouldn't be too hard for me to screw up. In fact, she was doing the one and only stitch that I know by name: the whip stitch! She had already put the first couple in place, so I didn't have to figure anything out, but just fold the edges in, put the two pieces together, and whip it, whip it good. When I was done, I held my work up for her inspection, and she said I made very neat and even stitches. Yay! There's hope for me yet.

So, since I had done an acceptable job with finishing up the edges, Auria tossed me a package of snaps and told me I could sew the snaps into the crotch of the fuku's bodice. Yay! Fitz's crotch was sewed with love. <3 All in all I think I did an acceptable job, and it was a really neat experience. Made me feel like a "real" cosplayer, rather than just a big kid playing dress up. :)

Getting everybody ready took a lot longer this time than it did that morning, but it was understandable: the PGSM costumes are really, really elaborate, especially Endystein, as Steph has nicknamed Patti's Prince Endymion costume. It's easy to see why--the shinguards and gauntlets Patti wears are made out of a stiff upholstery fabric, so she really can't bend her knees or elbows all too well, so she has to do this great little stiff-legged walk. But eventually, we got all the costumes finished, all the wigs secured, and all the makeup applied, and it was back downstairs!

We found Rhi-chan, who was to be their Sailor Luna, and then found MissV and Pat Gavin so they could do their photoshoot. Since it had gotten dark by this point, we decided to do the shoot inside with the hotel's beautiful decor as their backdrop, and while I would not be participating (since I was from the anime or manga, depending, but not the live action show), I ended up being pretty valuable as I helped come up with pose ideas. Also, Fitz and I took a really hot picture together, but no one else needs to see that. That's OUR picture.

After Pat's photoshoot, the girls decided they wanted some more pictures against the free black backdrop that Cosclips had provided, so we all went downstairs and I got to play photographer. Pretty soon a bunch of photographers had swarmed over, and I got near to 50 pictures alone, so I imagine there must be a lot of other ones out there! I won't pretend I'm a great photographer, but it was really neat being on the other side of the lens for once, I can see why people get hooked. I got some pretty good shots of the girls, and that's all we needed.

I got to see Kayla in her pretty Super Sailor Moon costume, and Misa-chan in her pretty Sailor Pluto costume--I've noticed one thing from updating Sailor Moon Avatars with my own pictures, this Katsucon was definitely about diehard Sailor Moon cosplayers doing new versions of their favorite characters, and I LOVE it. I also got to see Travis and Dr. Teng briefly, but I couldn't join them for a few drinks because I was starving by this point, and me drinking on an empty stomach is just...no.

After all of the photos were over and we had ran into a few more people in the lobby, everyone was pretty hot and tired (well, except for me, that skirt is short, so at least it's well ventilated) so we decided to head up to the room and change into normal clothes and basically party for the rest of the night. Hime-chan snuck out of the Artist's Alley again to join us, and we got Pizza Hut to deliver to the hotel, and we ate in the gorgeous dining room of the J.F.K. suite. Luxurious! Eventually, we started collecting people, and at one point, we had me, Hime-chan, Holly, Steph, Patti, Usa, her boyfriend Brendan, Sting, Charmy, Lexi, Robbie, Fitz, and Andrea all in one room.

Never Have I Ever participated in a room party, much less hosted one, MUCH less one that epic...and that's all I have to say about that.

Took this one before she was ready.

Julia from Cowboy Bebop

Trying to minimize the glare

Will pulling back help?

Crotch snaps sewn with love.

Oshidori as Nana from NANA

Patti and me!