(A Little late, I know …)

So, I made a joke about dressing up as Merlin, and before you can say “Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis’s bethad, do chél dénmha“, Lucretia has bought tickets to Comic Con Leicester, and re-purposed one of her old dresses as a Wizard’s robe!

Details of her crafting efforts are on her Facebook page, and well worth a look!

After all the swearing, and shouting, and throwing glue, plaster-of-Paris, Warbla plastic sheets and silver paint at me, the walls, and anything else in range, and once the blisters from the hot glue had healed, we ended up with outfits that captured if not the exact, “Is that really Helen Mirren and Nicol Williamson?” effect, then a good nod towards them. Clad in our fur cloaks, we headed into the 25’C heat and crossed town to the Athena Arena, where all manner of strangely-attired folk were gathering.

The first sign that this was no ordinary Saturday in Leicester was the man in a strange mask taking a selfie with a mechanical dinosaur! The Jurassic Park crew were in attendance, but I’m not sure who he was meant to be. Maybe you can enlighten me?

inside the venue, we were greeted by a Pirate, several Star Wars Droids, and a stall selling cold drinks for outrageous prices. We headed into the main auditorium, where various vendors were vocally vending their wares. A sea of Pokemon Plushies, We-Draw-You-As-A-Sloth artists, toy dolls of all varieties (unfortunately, I couldn’t find any Nick Cave ones), and, of course, comics!

On the stage, people were being taught Light Sabre skills, and a side room had talks by authors I had never heard of, on genres I can only wonder about!

And there was cake!

After we had nommed all the cakes, and paid HOW MUCH?!?! for a couple of beers, we chatted with a young lad (16? 18? 25? Damn kids! Why, back in my day …) who had only decided to attend three days before, leaving his mother very little time to make his costume! She seemed very supportive of his hobby, and it showed in the details of his outfit (even if the sword across his back did bop her on the head occasionally!).

We took a break from the convention centre, and spent some time outside, surveying the assembled crowds. Lucretia wouldn’t allow me to take photos of the ladies wearing only body-paint, but you can trust my judgement that the Lady Predator, and Poison Ivy were immaculately inked, with much attention to detail!

Later on was the Masquerade! A chance for the costumers to show off their creations! I was bundled towards the signing-up stand, and quizzed about who we were meant to be! After recommending John Boorman’s movie to anyone who would listen, we were put in a queue and waited our turn for 15 seconds of fame.

Unfortunately, this meant we missed the Kiddies Cosplay. We’d seen several very cute younglings, including a 4 year old Wonder Woman whose tiara kept falling over her eyes!

In the queue, we chatted with our fellow Fancy Dress Folk, including Dr Who (David Tennant version), a proudly-shoddy Batman, and a Warhammer 40k Imperial Guardsman.

A video of the procession (By Dalek Sram) can be found on YouTube (skip to 2:58 for us!), but here is what we looked like:

Apparently, the judges were only supposed to choose the best three costumes, but this lady insisted that they also have three “Honourable Mentions”.

The Big Daddy robot costume was a no-brainer. A huge amount of effort, and well-deserved Mention.

The Imperial Guardsman we’d chatted with was also called up to take a bow.

But the most surprising was when they asked “The Excalibur couple” to take their place on stage! YAY! All of Lucretia’s hard work had paid off! We didn’t win a cash prize, or an all-expenses-paid trip to the Anime studios, but we did have the attention of the entire convention (if only for a few moments!).

To finish, the last couple of pictures:

 

So, yes, we had lots of fun! Chatted with some interesting people, saw some very silly costumes (including non-costumes, if you include the body-paint ladies!), and failed to buy any merchandise! We will be attending next year! Watch this space for our costume ideas!