DragonCon 2008 Pics - Part 1

We have many pics of our great weekend at DragonCon, but we're going to start with pics from the Friday night Costume Contest. Ever since Jo saw her first Masquerade contest, she's longed to be on the stage in her own costume. The Masquerade is more about the performance, not the costume, so we thought we'd start her in something much lower key.

Jo wanted to be Raven from the Teen Titans, and Wendi deemed it doable. Of course, she didn't figure she'd still be finishing it the day of the show, but a fabric glitch prompted a hasty stop at the fabric store in Asheville on the way down to Atlanta, and some last minute sewing...

But what kind of DragonCon would it be without Wendi sewing in the hotel room the day before the show? It's kind of becoming a tradition.

Jo certainly liked the result:


When the costume was done, it was time to head for the show! Backstage during the judging, we had time to take good pictures of some of the competition:









Elphaba and the Emerald City guards were great, but they had a couple of things to straighten out before the show that, well, kind of made for an amusing shot:

Jo liked the Link and wolf costumes, and took this picture:

Once we had our number for the judging, it was time to line up and wait.

Eventually, it was Jo and Wendi's turn to go up and talk about their costume. Unfortunately, we didn't know you were supposed to bring information about the original character. The judges didn't know who Raven was or what she was supposed to look like, so they had no idea how spot on Jo's costume was.


After the judging, official pictures. Then: more waiting.

Finally, the show! Jo went out on stage all by herself. Wendi was on one side to hand her off, and I was on the other, waiting to recieve her. Before she was done though, I popped out from behind the stage to snap a couple of quick pics of her up there. She did great! Look at her go:

Jo got a huge cheer from the audience, who clearly did know her character--and appreciated her costume.

And there were a lot of people in the audience! Hundreds, if not thousands.

After another long wait, it was time to find out who won. Because Jo's costume wasn't made by her, it didn't qualify her for the "youth" category. Instead, Wendi was judged, as a "novice." As were these folks:

Yeah. They won. Along with these people, in different categories:



Jo was bummed she didn't win, and took a while to understand that it was Wendi's craftsmanship, not Jo and her performance, that mattered. Next year we'll get her in the Masquerade, which has a youth category that doesn't count whether or not the kids make the costumes. The only thing we'll hate is actually missing the show!

More pics to come...