C2E2 2014 Cosplay

C2E2 is the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo.  Every year since 2010 C2E2 has been at the McCormick Place each spring.  The year it opened we went and I cosplayed as Poison Ivy.  My brother Bo went as Old Gregg from The Mighty Boosh.  We are by no means professional cosplayers, and more than likely never will be.  We love to go to these conventions to nerd out and throw back a few beers, not to get into heated competitions.  Our costumes are like creative odes to the characters we enjoy.  We love to make people laugh, and my brother often causes a scene at the convention halls screaming lines from The Mighty Boosh like, "I'm Old Gregg, I got a man-gina!"  The patrons love him so much we often find ourselves waiting at the outskirts of the convention for him to catch back up with us.

Any who, my boyfriend Stan has a pretty awesome Batman costume that he wants to wear to the con this year, so I am working on revamping the Poison Ivy costume I made a little over four years ago to complement his outfit.  I thought it would be a nice tip of the hat to the Hush comics in which Poison Ivy takes over Superman with her pheromones and havoc ensues.  There is a piece of cover art for the comic where Poison Ivy has Batman and Catwoman caught in her vines that looks awesome.  I'm hoping our rendition will do it justice.

I made the costume by taking a corset and attaching and layering faux leaves in a consistent pattern across the entire thing.  I then took white gloves and shorts and dyed them a forest green, as I could not find a matching color in stores or online.  I am still trying to figure out the best way to do the shorts, if any of you have a good idea for attaching leaves onto my butt without them falling off please let me know in the comment section below!  (Dammit Jim, I'm a nerd, not a seamstress!)

The boots were my first excursion into the wide world of spray painting almost everything you can imagine.  I had an old pair of scuffed up go go boots that I spray painted the same forest green color that I had dyed everything else.  They looked great until I wore them a couple of times, and then the spray paint started to crack off at the flex points of the boot.  Not good!  I later found out that there is actually a spray paint you can get for leather and car upholstery.  I ended up using this spray paint to make boots for my Rogue costume, but in the mean time, with this costume, I decided to buy a cheap pair of boots I found on clearance at a Rue 21 and attach leaves to them in the same way I had done the corset.  They are coming out pretty awesome, and are also way more comfortable than the go go boots because they don't have a heel.  Heels are death and they are not functional.  Flat soles are where its at.

I don't have any pictures from how I made the corset, because, honestly, at the time I didn't think I'd end up getting so into this (haha) but I do have an in between pic of the boots I'm working on now.  I also plan on posting steps for all of our other costume trials and tribulations as they come up.  Hopefully they'll either help someone out with their costume issues, or give someone a good laugh.  Either way, that works for me.

(He's probably yelling something about science.)

(Old Gregg flashing his Mangina to a Predator.)

Flying is Overrated

Captain's Blog, Star Date: 2.20.2014

A few years back my mother took my family to Arizona to find a piece of land that my grandparents bought back in the 50's .  They purchased a few acres of desert property for a minuscule amount of money with the intention of selling it back to a developer to make a profit on it.  Long story short, the land they bought was never used for anything and is, indeed, in the middle of nowhere about 50 miles outside of Sanders County, AZ.

After four hours of driving on sketchy unmarked desert roads and using GPS coordinates to find our land, we finally did.  It was beautiful and untouched.  You could see for miles in any direction and there were mountains to explore in the distance.  The sun was so warm and the air was so hot.  Standing there, in the middle of that vast desert, feeling how warm the sun was, watching massive clouds cast shadows over the mountains as they rolled above them... I had never felt better.

The rust colored sand made what little plant life there was pop out in a beautiful contrast.  I was just starting to fall in love with the desert.  Once we found the property we slept over night in a crappy highway motel and then left for Sedona in the morning.  We drove all day and saw a lot of very bland looking desert until we got closer to our destination.  You could see the color of the sediment in the rocks changing from beige to a very deep, saturated rust red.  Looking up ahead, you could see the Red Rocks.  I found this to be a very stunning change of scenery.   From that moment on, I've felt completely mystified by the allure of this particular area of the desert.

On our last day of the trip, we went to Jerome, AZ.  It was supposed to be a copper mining town, but as it turns out, there wasn't as much copper in the mountains as they thought, and it kind of turned into this mutated artsy ghost town full of stoners and bikers on the top of a mountain...  It's fucking awesome.  Anyway, when we came home, I found myself thinking of Arizona a lot.  So, I decided that if I liked it there so much, maybe I should move there, which is how we now come full circle to the main story...

Stan and I decided to go on an adventure to Arizona to see the sights and scope out a place to live.

We drove from Oswego, Illinois to Tucson, Arizona in 32 hours and drove in shifts, only stopping once every 5 hours or so for food, gas, or pee breaks.  We took the southern route in because we were visiting his Aunt and Uncle in Tucson and then driving up to Sedona the next day.  The southern route was pretty boring to look at, but I still felt such a sense of adventure.  I had never driven that far before (1,705 miles one way).  My mom thought we were nuts, but I really felt a great sense of accomplishment after taking this trip.  Not many people can say that they've driven more than half way across the country.  It was awesome to see how the land changed as we got further and further away from home.

We stayed in Sedona for 3 days, visited Jerome frequently, climbed and swam through Slide Rock, hiked through some mountains, got caught in a massive but beautiful thunderstorm, and ate all the fudge and drank all the beer that we could.  When it was time to go, we took the northern route back home through Utah and Colorado because I wanted to visit my Uncle in Nebraska.  It was way more visually interesting driving North, and we got caught in another huge thunderstorm while driving through the last of the desert and into the mountains of Colorado.  It was indescribably beautiful, as it happened at sunset and everything looked like it had been cast in this orange sherbert glow of light.  We got to Nebraska around noon the next day and spent that night drinking profusely with my Uncle and telling stories.  We stayed with him another day, and when it was time to go, I must admit I really didn't want to.  Nebraska may be boring to some, but my Uncle lives in the middle of nowhere, and I kinda think that's awesome.  Could it be, that I think anywhere is better than the Mid West?

All in all I can't say that we'll be moving to Arizona any time soon.  Where I want to live is way to expensive!  But after taking this trip, I will always prefer to drive rather than fly and I would implore you all to at least give it a shot.  You can stop whenever you want and do whatever you want at any time.  I brought my camera with and took tons of pictures.  We explored anything we wanted to along the way and brought our bikes along just in case we wanted to cover more ground.  I guess I like to wander, and I like the outdoors, so driving really adds to my overall experience.  Also, the cost of gas was around 400 dollars total, which was the price of one round trip plane ticket, I didn't have to pay to park my car at an airport for 10 days, and I also didn't have to pay to rent a vehicle once we got there.  All of the extra cash I saved was put toward us staying at a bitchin' Best Western with a balcony that looked out onto the Red Rocks.

Here are some of my favorite pictures that I took on our adventure :)

The Crew

Stan, Bo, and I at C2E2

Blog in progress