Nothing cures a bad case of jet lag better than a dose of Comic-Con realness, or more fittingly surrealness! Emma and I headed over to the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre to check the cosplay action on Sunday.
I’m a bit of a closet sci-fi geek, and Emma loves to dress up, so this was the perfect event with something to keep up both happy. Emma chose to go as Raven from Teen Titans as her cosplay, and I’d whipped up the costume the day before (because that’s what crafty mum’s do).
We had a little photo shoot before we caught the train into town.
I’ve written a tutorial for making a DIY Raven Cosplay Costume over on My Poppet MAKES, if you want to make one yourself, or to check out more photos.
It was easy to pick the passengers that were heading to Comic-Con and at the train station we met Astrid and Emma (yes another Emma) dressed as Arrietty and her mother, borrowers from the Studio Ghibli movie Arrietty. If you haven’t seen it already, go and seek it out, it’s really beautiful.
Astrid’s mum did an amazing job making the giant hair clip from air dry clay, and if you’ve seen the movie you’ll recognise the pin that she uses as a sword and the all important sugar cube. I was enchanted.
Arrietty and Raven hit it off and became inseparable for the rest of the day which made the event all the more fun. Yay for new friends!
We registered the girls for the Kids Cosplay Parade which was really fun. Some of the costumes were quite creative. Emma got right into character and rocked some Raven power moves. It wasn’t a competition and everyone received a certificate and small gift for taking part.
This moment was particularly amusing when the girls realised they were standing next to a zombie (who’s cosplay was amazing – she had a saw blade embedded in her head!). They knew it was a costume but still backed away slowly, just in case.
We stuck around to watch the Australian Cosplay Championship Regional Final. My goodness, I was blown away by the talent of the competitors. All costumes must be home made (no store bought costumes allowed). There were suits of body armour, costumes with built in lights, incredible wigs and makeup, all made by hand from scratch. You could see the hundreds of hours of work that went into some of the costumes. Such dedication. My favourite cosplay was Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, it was so cute.
There was really something for every niche, I would have loved to check out some workshops and talks but because I was with Emma that wasn’t really an option. Instead we were both entertained just wandering around and spotting some of our favourite characters, chatting to them and getting some photos.
Fans of Studio Ghibli will recognise No Face and Totoro; the girls were delighted to discover that No Face was giving out gold (chocolate) coins, just like in ‘Spirited Away’.
Emma broke character and managed a smile when fairy floss was on offer.
We even managed to check out some comic books, it is called Comic-Con after all.
Oh and about that jet lag, Emma fell asleep a few stops short of home, but the day kept her awake long enough to get her back into a normal sleep pattern. I’m still waking up at 4.30 am, so I guess you can’t win them all.
