MCM London Comic Con!

A week too late I am finally back to tell you about my experience at the MCM London Comic Con. I don't really have an intro except how freaking cool it was!

For anyone who doesn't know, Comic Con is a three-days event in the Excel Hall near the London City Airport. You have a mix of Japanese Manga and food culture, British youtubers, Gamers, TV shows and movies as well as your usual nerd stuff to buy like wigs, clothes, weapons and small gimigs. All throughout the day you have several panels at the same time that you can attend for free or you can go and get a photo or an autograph from your favorite actor (if you have the money; it can be a bit expensive).

Preparation

Now, a lot of people, if not most of them, aren't just regular visitors. They are cosplayers. Some put more effort, time and money into their costume than others, but that doesn't matter as long as you have fun. 

And of course, because I have no idea to how many Comic Cons I will be going, I thought I might as well try it, too. At first I was thinking about going as Bucky Barnes/ the Winter Soldier from the MCU Captain America movies, but I wanted an attachable 'metal' arm and that would have been terribly hard to get back to Germany. Maybe I'll do that when I'm going to a German Con.

So, instead, I decided to go as Harley Quinn from the upcoming Suicide Squad movie. That would be easier, right?

Well, yes and no. The Tshirt and small things like the bracelets, fishnet stockings, even the baseball bat - an inflatable one in my case - were really really easy. Just go to Primark or ebay and that's it. The biggest problem was the jacket and the shorts. If you don't want to spent hugh amongst of money on a premade jacket you have to get creative. So I searched for a blue and a red baseball jacket to sew them together. Which sounds easy enough except it's harder than you would think to get the right colour. I couldn't find anything I was happy with until I was ready to just buy a normal blue/white one at New Look or go for another costume all together. The next week, We went to Manchester for our North-trip and I actually found two baseball jackets in the perfect colours for only 5 pounds each! Luck was on my side for once.

Anyway, a friend and I sat together to work on the jacket because to be honest, I had never done that before and didn't want to mess up. It took a few hours, even though that was mostly because we took quite a few breaks, but we finished it and it looked genuinely good.

The shorts I did myself out of the other half of the leftover jackets, and it went somewhat good. I cut up some old Primark sports shorts that I wanted to throw away anyway and then sew the finished Harley Quinn shorts and the elastic band together. It did resemble a pair of shorts in the end, but not very 'stable' ones. The materials fault, not mine! I swear!

So yeah, on the second day I went for a pair of normal black ones instead.

Day 1

That Saturday I woke up earlier than usual to get into my costume and most of all, put on my Harley Quinn make-up. Luckily it's not too hard, just some smudges and some drawn-on tattoos, but I wanted to get it done as soon as possible so I could be on my way. I had priority day tickets, which means I could go into the hall at 9am instead of 12am like everyone else.
On the tub you can already see others that are clearly on their way to Comic Con. It's like 'spot the emo' game during concerts, only it's 'spot the nerd' and a bit easier. A lot of people have priority tickets and the halls are filled with cosplayers by the time I join the mass.

That first day I meet Tomska in the youtuber section and see the cast of Being Human (the UK version) during a panel as well as the cast of Outcast, a new TV show. We are allowed to see the pilot almost two weeks early and it's great, a bit on the creepy side and not for an easily frightened person.
Other than that I just walk around and take pictures with a few people. Sadly I forgot to get some cash and the line in front of the only cash machine is hugh, so I stick to getting a bagel to eat and leave any shopping to the next day.
The last place I visit is a small panel/interview of the voice actor of Finn the Human from the Cartoon Network series Adventure Time. He - kind of - answers my question about what he would do if he could direct/write an episode. Well, he doesn't really answer it, since it would be a spoiler for the next season. Still a nice guy, though.

Day 2

Sunday starts at 11am which means more time to sleep. I take my Harley Quinn shorts with me, but put on my black jeans shorts and don't change them in the end. It's just way too comfortable.
That day I go to two panels I really want to see: One with the Big Bang Theory stars Melissa Rauch and Kunal Nayyar as well as Jesse Eisenberg. They talked about Jesse and Kunal's new theatre performance in London as well as the future of TBBT. They are all really nice and funny but drop hints of serious thoughts when it comes to their characters and their motivation.
The second panel is one about the DC TV show Arrow which is the last on of the day. Willa Holland and her co-star (I don't remember who, sorry) are funny and open about wanting caps and how much work everything is as well as how much of a prankster John Barrowman is actually. Great group.

Between the two I take a closer look in the Japan/Manga section which I kind of left out the day before. I take some Japanese candy with me as well as cute badges and a key chain. Then I go outsidee just to be met by a hugh group of other Harley Quinn cosplayers posing for pictures. Not just Suicide Squad Harley's, but also original ones, steam-punks, mixed, one cross-dresser and funily enough, a girl I met at Summer in the City almost a year ago. She recognized me, but anyway, how much of a coincident is that? I joined in on the pictures and then went on to the little music stage where a K-Pop band just finished up (at least I guess it was K-Pop, I'm not an expert).
Next came Make Out Monday, which features the voice actor from Adventure Times that I saw the day before. The band is really good, and I got a free CD as well as Tshirt, so I'm sure as hell not gonna complain.

After the set and only about 1,5 hours more to spare I went back inside and walked by the youtuber section once more when I saw another youtuber I like, Dean from Jack&Dean. He signed my Tshirt and we talked  bit about an upcoming project of theirs. He's a nice guy!
For some reason, the guy at the weapon store recognized me and I was really tempted to buy a katana or machete but I can't do that. How would I bring it to Germany after all?!

Conclusion

Some of the cosplayers really take it to the next level: a really convincing Mystique from the X-Men movies who must have been cold as hell, a Jack Sparrow who managed the right walk and mannerism, steam-punkers, Game of Thrones characters as well as other people in armour that looks too real to not be real are all over the place. And there are the clever ones, like Daredevil before he got his fnacy suit or superman in his normal undercover outfit. I wish I had taken more pictures.

In the end I would say that Comic Con is an event that's worth spending some money on. the tickets are really not expensive and you can have a lot of fun even of you don't get a picture with a celebrity (the panels are free at least!) or if you don't dress up. Hell, I would say even a non-nerd would have fun watching us get all excited about stuff.
Do yourself something good and relax for a day by letting your inner nerd out.

Halloween

Today is Halloween and to celebrate this ancient fest turned into a children candy charity (not that I never did it myself) we did a few of the classics. Me and my family never were big on Halloween stuff except for a bit of trick-or-treating and unsuccessful pumpkin carving in the early years.
Now that I take care of two children however, I at least tried to get into the mood.

Now the first thing that pushed everyone in the right direction wasn't even my idea or accomplishment, but I'm gonna tell you nevertheless. The children's German grandparents came to visit for a week and the grandma made this fantastic pumpkin soup. It was wonderful, I have never eaten something just like that. I even asked for the recipe which I will upload as soon as possible.

Starting with the pumpkin. We got one that was marked for carving only and it got clear why as the insides were all weird and absolutely useless for baking or cooking. Sadly we made the mistake to leave it like that for three days because we wanted to do the face together with the children but also went to Central London on the weekend. Do. Not. Do. That!! It got all mushy and smelly and frankly just disgusting. 0/10, do not recommend.
But we went on. After some google research and lengthy discussions we chose a cute little face for our rather cute little pumpkin-victim. We - or rather I - draw the face on the outside and then carved it really carefully.
In the end it actually turned out really good and we were able to put it outside our door (it was still too smelly to leave it inside).

Sadly that was about the end of the family Halloween, but that doesn't mean I didn't have some more fun! For the first time I actually decided to go to a Halloween party this year. I'm in London for gods sake, might as well do something I'm really not good at - socializing.
First of all, I dyed my hair again. It didn't go quite as I wanted, but now I have Manga-like hair so that's ok. I wanted to go from red to all blonde so I could dye them later on in different colours, only I didn't see the little instruction not to use it on already dyed hair. In the end, my roots are blonde and the rest just faded to some kind of red-bloodorange.



I have two costumes. One of them was for yesterday, the day before Halloween. A simple glow-in-the-dark skeleton T-Shirt from Primark and the easiest skeleton make-up there is. I only drew some teeth on, smeared some black colour on my nose and drew a tear-like thing under my right eye.
Later that night my friend and I went into Kingston. We were at a Manga cosplay meeting but only stayed for the quiz, mainly because my friend has no idea about Mangas/Animes and because I like them, but don't actually know that many, let along any facts. Besides, the noises gave me a headache.
Then we grabbed a bit in my standard pub O'Neill's and then went on a last walk through the city as my friend would be flying back to Germany just a few hours later.

Today is gonna be a bit more interesting I hope. Like I said, I decided to go to Central London. My costume was quite cheap as I did a lot of the 'scary' stuff myself, which means I ruined a pefectly fine dress from one of the many charity shops that you can find everywhere in Britain.
I tried to go for zombie bride with a rather elegant short lace dress in a champagner (?) colour. We made some holes and rips into it and then splashed it with mud and fake blood. It's not the best, but I think I rather like it. Together with ripped tights, my black leatherjacket and black boots and some makeup I didn't decide on just yet it's gonna be a great night I'm sure.

Although I should add that I don't expect too much from tonight. It's always the same with doing something for the first time, it's gonna be awkward and embarassing and I will probably feel out of place at first, but at least I'm gonna try it. If nothing works I will just try and get drunk, that always works.

Anyway, Happy Halloween and have a nice evening. Try not to get egged by buying the children's love with cheap candy and insult your neighbours with the best and most expensive decoration you can get your hands on.

Halloween

Halloween is behind us and man, what a night.
First of all: my costume wasn't extravagant and neither was my make-up, but as least it was easy and easy to remove. It went into some kind of murder(ed) broken doll. Torn tights, a black leather jacket and black boots made it more comfortable and rock.

At around 5pm I drove into London with the bus, getting off before Leicester Square which was a really good idea because there was a little 'parade' with people in costume driving on their in-line or roller skates. It was awesome, there was the puppet from Five Night's at Freddy's, zombies, werwolves, vampires, teletubbies and many more. I walked around a bit as I wouldn't meet the other au pairs for almost another two hours. On my way through Soho and Chinatown I saw some other really good costumes like the Spirit from Spirited Away, one of my favorite movies since I was a child, kids as the witch from Wicked and a zombie bride, Jokers and Harley Quinns and just generally injured people. I even got a few compliments for my dress.
Also there was a bit of firework at Leichester Square, probably because it is Bonfire Night in just a few nights. At that moment though I was really confused.

Later the other girls and I made our way through the same parts of the city, armed with juice boxes and some Vodka. They had put on really cute make-up: Leonie as a vampire, Nele as a cat, Sarah as a kind of puppet and Jenni as a leopard. And the night was really funny! There were for example some Irish blokes who were open for a 'chat', if you could still call it that, and selfies. Though the question "Are you acutally Irish?" probably wasn't that clever... After that it got wilder and well, more blurry.

Anyway, I got home safely thanks to my friends and actually managed to get my contact lises out, my make-up and clothes off and fall into my bed without waking up everyone in the house.
I don't even wanna talk about the next morning/day. Lets just say that I didn't necessarily leave my bed a lot.

(31. Oct 2015)
(update 5.11.15)