Comic Con - Thursday Edition

Okay guys, here's a major Comic Con overload!  January's Con extended for three days, and I'm updating by the day, just for fun.  Brief sum up.  Comic Con was held in September, and they do what's called Fan X in the spring.  This is only the second year they have held these events, and I actually got to attend both of them this year.

When they initially announced FanX I was a little on the fence, but decided to go ahead and buy my ticket since they were about half the price when they first announced.  Also, I like to do this thing VIP style, and those tickets tend to sell out.  As they kept announcing more and more celebrity guests, I got more excited.  Especially when they announced that Matt Smith, the Eleventh Doctor from Doctor Who was coming!  I'll admit that David Tennant is my favorite Doctor from the series, but Matt is a close second.

I spent a good amount of time in the month leading up to the Con putting together my outfits.  They were a bit of a modge-podge of old and new with one making a reappearance from the last Con, and another a slightly improved version from Halloween.  The costume aspect of the Con is one of the major reasons I love these events so much!  You will remember how I like to go all-out for Halloween, and this is one place where I find people ten times better at it than me!  Seriously, people are so creative, I love it.

Last Halloween I dressed up as Link, who has some exceptionally amazing ears.

I had some prosthetics for Halloween, but I actually found a tutorial on how to make elf ears on Pinterest that really appealed to my creative dentist side.  Prosthetics can be made out of a variety of latex materials, but most custom-fit ones require some type of impression of the body part being modified.  Thus the tie-in to dentistry!  This entire process was basically the same as making dentures, or even crowns, so my interest was peaked, but I didn't have time to get everything finished for Halloween, so this seemed like a good opportunity.
First step - take an impression of both my ears.  This was a bit of an adventure.  After that, I molded some elf ears with clay, then poured them up in plaster.  Once I had a plaster mold, I poured up the latex and let it set up.  Then, voila, magic custom-fit elf ears.

Thursday
This was a shorter day for the con, since it didn't actually open to VIPs till 3:00 pm, which was still an hour earlier than the general admission.  Since I had the whole day off already, I totally got my hair done that morning!

After lunch and perfecting my costume, I headed up to the Salt Palace.  For this day I went as Link, the main hero from the Nintendo game series Zelda.  This was such a fun outfit mainly because I was easily recognizable by almost anyone.  I had a fabulous time posing for pictures, and spotting my fellow Zelda enthusiasts.  Seriously, it's a pretty popular costume choice for any con, but I was one of the few blue Links.

Check out these spectacular elf ears!  I was pretty proud.  I used glue, and I strapped my hair back to avoid getting it all sticky.

I didn't really have much special planned for this night.  Thursday tends to be the least busy day of the Con, but I ended up waiting in line to pick up my VIP package for seriously an hour.  Don't worry, I actually made a few friends standing in line.  That is one of the coolest things about Comic Con.  Even though we are all wearing crazy outfits, and we're complete strangers, we have so many common interests that you could strike up a conversation with anyone!  As put by one of my new friends, Comic Con is a "judgement-free zone."  I may be a little over-enthusiastic about things, but so is basically everyone at the con!  After picking up my merch, I wandered around looking at booths, and I purchased a fabulous Master Sword to go with my outfit!

That night I attended the panel of one of the actresses from Doctor Who, Karen Gillian.  She plays Amy Pond, one of the Doctor's companions who travels around time and space with him.  She also had a role in the recent Guardians of the Galaxy as Nebula.  I didn't know this, but she actually shaved her head for the role.  (If you're not sure, she's the blue lady working for the nemesis.)  It was pretty fun to listen to her talk about her different roles, especially as Amy!

After that, I decided I really wanted to meet one of my very favorite Walking Dead stars.  Okay, let me back up and explain for a minute.  The Con gets all these stars to visit, and most of them will host panels which you can attend for free with your entry pass.  However, if you would like an autograph or photo with them, it costs extra.  Since meeting my favorite celebrities is right on the top of my list for going to these events, I'm willing to pay a little extra.  Because the quality of visiting stars have been so good at these events, I had to be a little selective about which ones I would get photos with.  However, I did see a few other celebrities including Ray Park, and Christopher Lloyd.

AMC's Walking Dead is one of the shows I anxiously watch, and apparently a lot of other people in Salt Lake do as well.  This con there were three stars from the Walking Dead (two of which have been killed off of the show).  My favorite characters are Glen and Maggie, and Stephen Yeun (the actor who plays Glen) was there!  It was a fantastic way to end my day by getting a photo with Stephen.  He was actually very nice, and he complimented me on my costume.  Hooray!