SLCC15 - Friday

About a month prior to ComicCon, they announced they would be attempting to break a world record for most people dressed as comic book characters in one place.  Anyway, it was a bit last minute when I decided to put together a female Captain America costume from the first Avengers.
 
It ended up being quite the project, and honestly took way more time than it should have.  It's hard to tell all the detail around the collar and shoulders, but I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Thursday night I ended up being up quite late finishing up the pants.  Again, lots of random details.  That being said, I didn't really feel like getting to the con super early.  By the time I got to the Salt Palace, parking was nearly non-existent.  I ended up at the far end of City Creek, which meant hiking through the mall as the Capt.  It was actually pretty fun!

I wasn't in too much of a hurry that morning, so I wandered around the vendor hall for a bit.  The first thing I really wanted to get to was Sebastian Stan's panel.  I headed in a bit early, and accidentally caught the last half of Sean Astin's panel.  I ended up being really glad I caught his panel, since he played the role of Samwise in The Lord of the Rings.  His panel was really quite entertaining, especially since he just rambled on telling stories about filming LOTRs.

He spoke about doing scenes with Elijah Wood, and because Sam was an ever-present but minor character, he really didn't have many lines throughout the series.  Anyway, by the end of the trilogy, Sam suddenly had a big speaking part carrying Frodo up Mount Doom.  When Sean got the script for the day he said he suddenly realized he wasn't ready.  He said he went over and over the scene with Elijah, and when he finally filmed it, the scene ended up being incredibly emotional and cathartic.  It made me want to re-watch the scene, despite the fact that I often skip scenes with Sam and Frodo.  Haha.  It's really fun knowing what's going on in the actor's head!

The next panel was with Sebastian Stan, the Winter Soldier!  He also played the Mad Hatter in the TV series Once Upon a Time.

I loved listening to him.  There's a new Captain America movie coming out, Civil War, so the main topic of interest was what's going to happen in the new movie.  However, thanks to Marvel keeping a pretty tight lid on spoilers, Sebastian couldn't spill anything.  They did ask his opinion on who would make a better replacement Captain America if Chris Evans' Cap gets killed, like he does in the comic books.  Well of course Sebastian said he would be the better one (as Bucky Barnes), and even went on to say that Falcon becoming the Cap would be like Biff in Back to the Future 2!  Not exactly a spoiler, but funny nonetheless.  He did also admit that some of the action scenes in the new movie are going to be even better than Winter Soldier. 

After Sebastian's panel I decided to go check out Dean O'Gorman's panel (which I already rambled about last post).  I then decided to check out the autograph area of the floor.  They had an entire section where celebrities would occasionally show up, and sign autographs for their fans.  I generally prefer to get a photo, but decided to get an autograph with Manu Bennett.  Manu is a supporting character in the TV series Arrow, and he played Azog in the Hobbit.  Meeting him turned out to be a fantastic idea because Manu was just so nice!

The best part of autographs is you actually get a chance to talk to the person.  I was actually a bit unprepared for this!  He shook my hand, but then held onto it for a while and called me gorgeous.  He then proceeded to ask about my life.  It was super flattering, and totally made my entire day!  I told him I was a huge Arrow fan, and he responded "yes, I'm that guy," because ~spoiler~ he ends up being a major villain.  He totally personalized the signature, and before I left he leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek!  Seriously, what a nice man.

ComicCon has organized what they call cosplay photo meet-ups.  Basically everyone wearing a particular type of costume would meet up for a photo.  This ranged from Disney characters, to video game characters.  Because I was dressed as Captain America, I showed up for the Marvel meet-up.  Turns out even though we came on time, most of them had come and left.  I ended up hanging around and meeting several new friends, including a guy who looked far too similar to Robert Downey Jr.!

The guy had an arc reactor under his Black Sabbath shirt.  Awesome!  He was also super friendly, and we hung around chatting while a bunch more Marvel people showed up.

There were lots of Winter Soldiers around.

We had a professional photographer taking our group pictures.  I'll keep stalking his page to look for the group photos.

Here's a bunch more random people I found!  These guys were yipping, just like on Sesame Street.  Hilarious!

I liked talking to these guys, apparently.

Spaceballs!!

I need this awesome patriotic bike for all my avenging!

The big event for the day was queuing up for my photo op with Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan!  Waiting in line for it was an absolute madhouse, and I felt really bad for the poor volunteers who were in charge of wrangling everybody.  Also, this is where my VIP pass really paid off by allowing me to skip past all the general admission people.  Despite all that, we did spend a long time waiting in line, so I got to make some new friends.  Seriously, one of the coolest things about ComicCon is that everyone there has common interests, and a lot of us are in costume, and it really is a geeky judgement-free zone.  I love it!  So as we were waiting in line, John Barrowman decided he was going to try out one of the crew's wireless segways, and eat a banana at the same time.  It was pretty hilarious.

John plays Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who and Torchwood, and Malcom Merlyn in Arrow.

Just for fun, here's my photo with John from ComicCon 2014.

Well I finally got up to have my turn with Cap and Bucky, and John decided he wanted a picture with the duo also!  It was pretty funny.  I felt like I got triple the fun since I'm actually a huge fan of John Barrowman.

That's right!  I totally had my arms around an actual Avenger!  Seriously, I'm a little bit obsessed.  Don't tell, but my favorite Avenger is totally Iron Man, but at this moment I sorta forgot that.  Also, I loved that I was dressed as Captain America while meeting the actual Captain America.  Haha.  But really.  I didn't exchange many words with them other than "hello" and "thank you."  You don't get much time with them.  However, check out that huge grin on my face!  Totally worth it.

Right after this I headed all the way across the convention center to get in on the action for breaking a Guinness Book of World Records for most people dressed as comic book characters.  This was quite the event.  They had official comic book experts at the door because each character had to have originated in comics.  This actually disqualified a lot of people, especially Star Wars.  They counted us, and filed us in, and we basically just waited around for enough people to show up.  The last record was held in China, and was something like 1,500 people.  After waiting around for a bit they announced we were short by about 100 people, and they started putting out the announcement on the con floor.  Also, this guy showed up!

That's right, Manu Bennett dressed up as his own character, Slade Wilson!  I mean, really all he needed to do was throw on an eye patch, but seriously.  What an awesome guy!

Thanks a lot, Deadpools!

Also, we had a bit of a dance party.  Once we reached the numbers, we had to be in one place for 5 minutes in order for the record to hold.  So they threw on some music, and we danced it out for the 5 minutes.

Yeah, I have no idea who these people are.  It's not often you see these guys jammin' out to Journey!

I'm somewhere in the top right middle area.  Pretty sure you can't see me, but trust me, I was there!  I was standing next to a really tall Aquaman and Wonder Woman.

At the end of it, they announced that we hit 1,784 people, beating the previous record by over 200!  We were pretty excited.  We were rewarded with a commemorate pin, and a nice little paper.  Check that one off the bucket list!

Making it happen, Captain!