Doodle 037 - There and Back Again, or How We Did Dragon*Con and Lived to See Another Con (part 2)

Alright, are we ready for part 2? Everybody has a drink? Snacks? Bathroom breaks taken care of?

Good, here we go again...

After 2 very long days Andrei and I managed to wake up with just enough time to shower, throw some clothes on, run out the door, have the fastest breakfast ever and make our way over to the Hyatt (I was starting to really hate the hill toward Peach St) to attend the True Blood panel.

I will be very candid with you... I don't watch True Blood, it just doesn't seem to tickle my fancy, but Andrei watches it and has been following it for quite some time, so I thought it would be fun to attend the panel. I was worried we wouldn't make it into the room at all, overall since it was already nearly the time for it to start when we waltzed into the hotel.

To my surprise there were still seats open, not as good as the ones we had for the LOTR panel the day before, but still pretty decent. As we sat there waiting for it to start, I figured that, the reason why there were still seats open, was because Stan Lee was doing his panel on the ballroom next door, so, we got lucky like that.

Without further ado, here are some photos:

Joe Manganiello and Carrie Preston - Joe was talking about his wolf here, he then made a low growl that had all the fangirls in the room swooning ;)

Nelsan Ellis taking a call from Rutina Wesley, she didn't know he was in the middle of a panel, he put her on speakerphone and much hilarity ensued when he tried to ask her questions and she was utterly confused.

From the left: Sam Trammell, Nelsan Ellis, Joe Manganiello and Carrie Preston.

Joe said something funny :)

I believe here Sam was talking about being covered head to toe in blood for a scene.

How far we actually were this time.

The panel was actually a whole lot of fun, it made me want to watch True Blood, mission accomplished you guys!

Andrei really liked it and was glad I had sorta, kinda dragged him into it (he was affraid the fangirls would be a bit out of control, but they were all very subdued, maybe due to lack of sleep).

The next panel I wanted to attend was the Big Damn Heroes one with Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite and Sean Maher. We had very little time to run up the street and into the Westin in order to get in line, so we pretty much speed walked our way there. Some Sunchips vendors were giving away free chips and hummus, what a lucky break! Free snacks for waiting in line!

By the time we made it up to the right floor the DragonCon volunteers were herding us about because the panel previous to the Firefly one (I believe it was a Vampire Diaries panel) was still loading. Several minutes of playing the "follow the leader up several stairs, hallways and escalators" game we found our spot in line for the next 2 hours:

My view from our spot. I have to say, waiting in line wasn't so bad, overall when you have a bunch of peeps who are into what you are to make small talk with... plus free Sunchips and hummus.

I used my time to draw and take photos of my new Toothless pet dragon:

You wear this as a bracelet. Isn't it cute?

After a while we were herded back into the big ballroom, it was a very well organized operation, really can't say nice enough things about the Dragon*Con volunteers, they were awesome.

Soon enough Adam, Jewel and Sean made their way into the room causing general fangirl/fanboy conmotion... and yes I was just as excited as any good ole regular fangirl, not gonna lie.

Adam answering questions.

Sean finally getting a question (most were for Adam and Jewel), at one point he jokingly pouted and lightly smacked his microphone down because nobody was asking him anything, lol

Adam feeling left out of the Jewel/Sean interactions lol

Sean, Jewel and Adam

Serious Adam is serious

Now, forgive me here while I just post a bunch of photos of Sean and Jewel interacting with each other... it is just too damned cute. Make up the captions as you'd like while I squee at how cute they are.

Aaand we are back.

Sorry, had to happen, couldn't help myself.

As a treat, here is some video I took of the panel (note: The audience was asking them what their favorite lines from the series were... I totally missed Jewels :( stoopid camera not switching to video fast enough!)

After that panel let out we decided to run back down the hill to the Marriott for the Venture Bro's panel. It was sort of a lost cause since we only had about 30 mins to get there and line up, but we decided we weren't going to give up and walked/ran our way there.

Our perseverance was greatly rewarded, we managed to get in on the overflow without any problems.
Now, I watch Venture Bros a lot, but Andrei is more of a fan than me, but I was really excited to see Doc Hammer (Co-creator and voice of Dr Girlfriend), James Urbaniak (Dr Venture) and Jackson Publick.

We were seated waaaaay in the back, but there was a screen close by, so I was satisfied. Soon a clip started to roll:

Doc and Jackson stayed in character as "Talk show guests" for nearly the entire panel, which made for really hilarious interaction.

From the left: Jackson and Doc

They introduced James, I don't have many photos, because we were so far, that trying to take any was extremely difficult.. plus it was dark in there.

I did take video of the exclusive clip for the new Halloween special of the Venture Bros:

And then... I believe it was after the clip... things got fun. Doc jumped off the stage and started to run around the audience answering questions. I looked at Andrei and told him he should raise his hand and ask a question just for kicks. He laughed and reluctantly did so... just to have Doc dart toward him nearly inmediately.

We were sitting in the middle of a very packed row... did that stop Doc? No... oh no... he pretty much finagled his way to Andrei and then, sat on half his lap and half the lap of the guy sitting next to him LOL

I was laughing so hard that I failed miserably at taking a photo and totally missed what Andrei asked while messing with the camera... I do have one photo, but my zoom was set to "Superhuman Eyes" and this is all that came out:

That there is a bit of Doc's off-focus hair.

I did manage to get a slightly better photo when he came running back toward us again later:

Needless to say, we were happy nerds.

After an eventful morning we considered our Dragon*Con a success, we had gone in without training and managed to attend the panels that were most important to us.

Once outside the ballroom I took some more costume pics:

Historically Accurate Disney Princesses based on the designs by Claire Hummel - Soooo cool!

This cosplay was tall and very very impressive

Figures I go and bump into a cool cosplay of one of the few anime series I haven't watched. Any clues anyone?

 Later that day we walked about some more, tarted with friends and family and then we attended the mechanical masquerade, mostly to try and find Jen while on her Lady Vadore costume. Unfortunately we spent a big chunk of the evening hanging out with peeps and she seemed to have left the building by the time I made it there.

Still, I had a ball just looking at awesome Steampunk costumes and took a couple of pics with my crappy point and shoot camera:

Steamy lanterns! Aren't they awesome?

Steamy Twilight Sparkle. Sooo stinking cute! I had to walk over and tell her how much I loved her outfit.

Elizabethan cyborg - She had LED's, fiber optics, light up chest panel, gauntlet, etc, she was amazing!

After all that we went back to the room and went to sleep... late... again.
The final day of the con was rather peaceful, kind of soothing. Most everybody was incredibly tired, some were starting to come down with the ConCrud, but I managed to get some cute cosplay pics while hanging out at the Artist's Alley:

Can you guess who these lovely ladies are dressed as? Yes! It is the Hundred Acre Wood gang! Oh I love, love, love this group, one of my favorites!

Right outside the Artist's Alley was this awesome group of warrior Disney Princesses.

I had tweeted Jen and I was trying to track her down... as I walked around the art exhibits I saw what I thought was her and John... the problem was... I have terrible face recognition, it isn't just bad... it is awfully bad. I have been known to ask people I have only met once and need to meet again in crowded locales to let me take a picture of them with my cellphone, just so I will be able to recognize them later... and I won't remember their face unless I see them at least 4 times a week regularly.

Anyway... I asked Andrei to come help me figure it out, after dragging him away from Ryan's table, he concluded that, yes, that were Jen and John, and I introduced myself and him to them.

I was so happy to find them and finally meet them, would have been quite a bummer to not make contact at all. We stood around and chatted for a bit, sorry no photos of us together, I partly forgot, then remembered, then remembered I had been told to keep my camera put away at all times while around the art exhibits, so I didn't ask for one.

Jen did give me an Epbot and Vader Pony pin, so:

Proof Positive that the meeting happened. Jen's pins and my Fluttershy bag.

After meeting Jen I went to lunch with a friend while the boys hung around and packed the tables.

While eating at my favorite restaurant in the food court (Yami Yami Sushi), we saw this couple:

Squee! I always wanted Sarah's Labyrinth gown. It shimmered perfectly. They won one of the awards during the masquerade I believe.

By the time I made it back they had all gone to the Marriott to check the vendor rooms and do some trading. On my way to meet them I took my last cosplay photo:

Commando Beaker!

And so, DragonCon drew to a close. All that was left after a while were exhausted con-goers... and very puzzled church groups that had arrived right in the middle of the madness... poor guys, I am sure they were shocked lol.

Oh, I have another bonus, I forgot to add the little clip I had for the LOTR panel yesterday, so here it is:

What did I think about DragonCon?
It was awesome! I had loads of fun, did way more than I thought I did, met a lot of nice/cool peeps and most of all, it made Andrei very happy, which is the best part to me.
Now that I have done one Con I can't wait to do it over again. Ryan invited us to do Comic Con next year, and we are thinking... we'll take him up on the offer and go.

I hope you liked my silly recap, sorry if it isn't too complete, we did so much in such a short amount of time, that it is hard to keep track of things.

Finally, today's doodle:

I was inspired by this sea creature:

Inspiration... anybody knows the name of this creature? The image had no labels.

My mermaid interpretation... she kinda looks a bit like Loki, doesn't she? - Blue and mechanical pencil on plain Moleskine Notebook. Aprox 15 mins.

Then I just doodle random lines to try and help with my control and shaking:

Random like exercise - Blue pencil on plain Moleskine notebook.

OK, I am off to sleep, I have beaten most of the ConCrud, but Andrei is still sniffling about, don't want to be sick over the weekend, so I better rest up.