Geek Girl Con reports that the idea for their convention started at Comic-con (the mecca of all cons). It's intention is to highlight women in geeky pursuits and the fact that more than ever girls are geeks too! This is the first year for the con, but that isn't stopping it from having a pretty stellar guest line-up (I assume, I wouldn't recognize most celebrities if they were wearing name tags, it's not one of my skills) and a large variety of panels that all sound great! Seriously, I'm already trying to decide what to do about two panels in the same time slot Sunday morning that I want to attend (Geeks Raising Geeks, and Girls Make Games Too - hey, my husband loves the time he gets to spend making a video game and it might solve that whole - what do I want to do with my life - issue).
I can't wait for my daughters to get a chance to see and enjoy the craziness that is a true geek gathering. I hope that they are inspired by the women living and working in the sciences and creative endeavors inspired by science and fantasy. If nothing else, I really hope that my oldest gets a chance to meet Katie, the brave girl who stood up to bullies because of her Star Wars water bottle! I hope they enjoy the other activities as well.
We will also be participating in the cosplay action (at least one day), well at least the kids will be, I'm not sure if I will have enough time and energy to make outfits for my husband and myself. My oldest daughter will be Endor Leia (Princess Leia in her Endor attire - see picture below) and my younger daughter will be Princess Leia in her Death Star dress (also pictured below). My son will be yoda, thanks to the thinkgeek costume and maybe a couple of small modifications. We'll see I haven't gotten him to wear the ears yet.
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| Princess Leia on the forest moon of Endor |
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| Princess Leia in her cell on the Death Star |
So far I found a pattern to make some pants and got some grey fabric, the blue grey is all but impossible to find, and ordered and received a sewing machine. I got a serger too, but in all honesty I have no clue how to use one, so that may wait until another project - unless I can find a good tutorial online! I drew out my own pattern for the princess leia dress, but I need to render it to scale on my newspaper roll. I also need to draw out the poncho and make a scaled pattern of it. I think I found some black boots for one Leia, but white boots are much trickier and it's been suggested I buy a pair second hand and spray paint them.
We ordered a storm trooper blaster for Ver2 (the white dress Leia) and it is white so I need to get some black spray paint and make it black. I had a friend volunteer to put some carbon scoring on it, so that will be pretty sweet. Ver1 (Endor Leia) will be getting Han's blaster pistol and it too will need a black paint job and then a lot of weathering and scoring. I also need to make her a belt. I bought the Princess Amidala belt set, but we are returning it because it's made of latex, the pockets aren't real, they have no back and I'm fairly sure the blaster wouldn't work in the holster. Plus it came in white and I don't think it will hold paint either.
If I get time my husband and I will also be jedi. I will probably honor my alias and go as Callista. Although the internet doesn't seem to agree on what she looks like or what she wore, so I might just look like a generic jedi, but that's fine too. My husband might pass for an Obi Wan Kenobi so I'd probably fashion his robes in that style. We shall see what gets done, but either way I'm so excited for the con! If you are coming please leave a comment. I should be easy to find, I'll have to princess leias and a small jedi master in tow!
First of all, I feel introductions are sort of in order - I am a friend of Nichole's from work. She introduced me to your blog since I'm a fellow dork :-P
ReplyDeleteI am so jealous - I've wanted to go to GeekGirlCon since I found out about it a few months ago but it is too far away (obviously I live in Georgia). Of course we just had DragonCon in Atlanta, GA a couple weeks ago, which I did get to go to and it was insane and a total blast.
Good luck with the costuming! It is one of those hobbies that I both love and hate. I've made jedi outfits before. I must warn you... Jedi outfits for men - totally easy. For women... not so much. Something about the wrapping and our curves is just not ideal. The higher you wear the belt on your waist (think above the curve of your hips) the better. Also, I had to tinker with mine because my first try ended up with huge line-backer type shoulders when I added the two bits that wrap around and hang down in front.
The robes are a total breeze - can't really mess up "large, baggy and brown" :-P I recommend not hemming the bottom if you can because then you can get this great billowing effect when you move. Obviously this will be limited by fabric choice and stuff.
Sorry inundate you with unsolicited advice! I just remember all of the lessons and remakes I had to go through with my costume(s) and would love to help somebody else take a shorter road to costuming victory - especially with something as near and dear to my heart as star wars :)
Welcome welcome! I generally prefer the term geek, but dork is alright. Thanks for the advice. I really need to get going on these costumes. I made cloaks for my daughter's last year (they were little red ridding hood and goldilocks - the rest of us were the three bears), so I have a little experience with that. I actually found getting the hood to look right was harder than the billowing, maybe I was lucky. I've been studying the Leia costumes fairly in depth so I'm ready to try again with the hood thing.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for stopping by the blog, I hope you enjoy some of the other posts as well. Monday our guest writer is back with a post on cars. I might even finally write my piece I've hinted at since the start of this blog, but I make no promises in that regard!