Costuming

D3 Masquerade Video – The Bear

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Given that I’m into doing video at the moment, I have finally got around to finishing the final piece that I shot in Denver last year. I’d been putting this one off because I had it in my head that YouTube would only allow up to 5 minutes, and this one raw was longer than that. However, doing the Neil & Amanda stuff I saw that the actual limit was 10 minutes, and anyway after editing this one was actually 4:59.

So now it is online, and I’d really like you to watch this because I’m very pleased with it. Stephen Clark’s bear is one of the most impressive costumes I have ever seen, and the video tells you a lot that won’t have been at all obvious if you only saw it on stage.

There are also several stills of the bear, including one of me having a bear hug, in my D3 masquerade photo album.

Steamed Up

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Kevin and I are back from the opening evening of Steam Powered, the inaugural steampunk convention, and I’m happy to report that things are getting under way quite nicely. The convention is quite small compared to a Worldcon, but it fits the hotel quite well and just about everyone there was in costume which made it seem a lot more busy somehow. There were a few small glitches at registration – the program books were an hour or so late and they ran out of badge holders – but nothing serious and the staff appeared to be able to cope with such mishaps.

The dealers’ room, which was just about the only thing happening today bar some period dancing, is spectacular. If I’d been a little more confident about my future I could have spent a lot of money there. It seems that there is a lot of creativity going into the steampunk movement at the moment, and of course it is a subject that rewards that sort of effort. There will be photos later.

I wish they were having a masquerade. It will be criminal if they don’t give out hall costume prizes.

The games room was empty. No sign of Space 1899 or Forgotten Futures. Boo.

The Domain, aside from being short on parking spaces, looks to be a nice little hotel suitable for small conventions. It could do with more social space, but Steam Powered has taken up a lot of the lobby with exhibits and a different con might use that space just for seating. There’s plenty to eat nearby. Many thanks to Chris Garcia for directing us to a wonderful Mongolian Barbecue restaurant.

I Say, Back On Track!

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

As Kevin reported last night, a few additional memberships in the Steampunk Convention became available last night. We quickly bagged a couple. If you are going, you can expect to find us around on Saturday. Please note that while we will make an effort, we are unlikely to achieve anywhere near the level of sartorial elegance of Mr. Roche and Mr. Trembley. I will try to get Kevin to read some of George Mann’s The Affinity Bridge before we go so that we can both enthuse about it. The game’s afoot! Tally ho!

In other news, the very wonderful Gigi Gridley has offered to live-blog the World Fantasy Awards for SFAW. More on that later this week.

Velociraptors!

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

Here is some more video from the Denvention 3 masquerade. It features the velociraptor costumes that won Best in Show for Workmanship (despite being a journeyman entry). Huge congratulations to Charles Orndorff, Jennifer Strand, Michael Bruno and Tauni Orndorff for a fabulous entry.

We Have Video

~ Cheryl

The trouble with YouTube is that in order to make the video downloadable in a reasonable period it has to sacrifice a lot in quality. This is not good if you are trying to film beautiful costumes. But hopefully having the costumers talk about what they have done makes up for that. Here are Sandy & Pierre (alias Oberon and Titania).

Video Progress

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Given that Simon Bisson was so confident that my video files would be recoverable, I decided to try one or two more file recovery utilities. The one that worked was File Recover from PC Tools. It cost me $30, but it was well worth it as I have so far managed to recover almost all of the missing files, including the Picacio interview and the piece about Stephen Clark’s bear costume. I’m still missing one sequence with the velociraptors and the interview with Sandy and Pierre Pettinger, but if that’s all I have lost I’ll be much relieved.

Slightly More Awake

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

So yes, the masquerade was great fun, even though I didn’t see much of it. I was backstage looking after a grizzy bear, a woman with huge wings, and the Great Beast of Aaargh. I think I am starting to specialize in mad costumes. Remember the llama from LA? The only totally crazy thing I missed out on this time was the velociraptors.

I have taken a bunch of pictures, and several videos of people talking about how their costumes were put together. I need time to process them, but I think they’ll be worth waiting for, especially the one about the bear.

The show appeared to go very well, aside from the usual problem of the management forgetting to think about getting competitors on stage quickly at the end to get their prizes. And everyone was happy except the very small number of competitors that the judges elected not to give prizes to. (I have ranted about this before.) I was exhausted, and fell into the Hyatt where I devoured a plate of nachos and met a man who destroys planets (or at least was part of the process that led to Pluto no longer being a planet).

Today we get to learn who Australia has chosen as their Guests of Honor, I moderate a panel, and we do the Hugos. After that, sleep.

Finncon Photos

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

I have finally managed to get my photos for Finncon online. They’ll make more sense when the con report goes up, but at least they’ll get you started. There are lots of anime costumes, some of them quite spectacular. Also several photos Harald – the Viking restaurant – and of Tampere Cathedral.

Note to John Coulthart – having checked the guide book, it appears that the only painting by Magnus Enckell is the altar fresco (which does indeed include men holding hands, though they are dead). The main fresco is by Hugo Simberg, who also painted the magnificent “Garden of Death”.
Continue reading →

Gone Costuming

~ Cheryl

I am safely arrived in London and am once again staying with Teddy and Tom in Wimbledon. This evening Teddy got to play dressy-up with a life-size doll and I got to wear a corset for the first time in my misbegotten, overweight life. The bad news is that even in a corset I still have a pot belly. However, there are photos. They’ll get posted eventually, along with whatever I take at Pride tomorrow.

Finncon Preliminary Program

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

Finncon has a preliminary program online. Thus far I only have one program item. It looks like Farah is doing all the hard work on the talking about books front, which is entirely sensible as she’s much better at it than I am. However, my one item is quite interesting. I’ve been asked to give a talk about masquerades and how they are run in other countries. For this I am going to need photos and video. I have a lot of the former. The latter is a bit limited. If anyone has access to video of Worldcon masquerades that I might be able to edit snatches from, please let me know.

Gay Ghouls on Parade

~ Cheryl

This evening La Gringa and I went to watch the annual Halloween parade, put on by the New York LGBT community. The city was packed, and some of the costumes in the audience were as good as those in the parade. I have some photos, but I need time to sort them out. We were several rows back, so I’m going to need to edit the photos to try to remove the heads of people in front of us. it was a fun night. It looked rather like a huge SF convention had let out onto the city.

Security Warning

~ Cheryl

One of the things I always do first on getting back to California is have a burrito. You can’t get decent Mexican food in England, nor even in Boston. So after doing a quick grocery run last night, Kevin and I went to Chipotle (who produce remarkably good food for being owned by McDonalds). On arriving at the counter we saw a notice saying that anyone arriving at the store on Halloween dressed as a burrito gets a free burrito. Very generous of them, but think what might happen…

The obvious immediate problem will be a run of aluminium foil. You won’t be able to find the stuff in any town that has a branch of Chipotle (assuming the offer is nation-wide). Thankfully the industry will have a whole month to get stores re-stocked before foil is needed again to cook Thanksgiving turkeys, but it could be a close run thing.

More importantly, however, large numbers of Americans will be going round on Tuesday night dressed in foil. That means that they will be invisible to the orbital mind control lasers. What, I ask, will the NSA make of that? A large segment of the population suddenly vanishes? Must be an enemy attack.

Hopefully someone at the White House will be on the ball and the worst that will happen is that the senior management of Chipotle will be arrested on charges of trying to influence the mid-term elections by blocking people’s access to government propaganda. However, if Dubya and co are not thinking clearly (and let’s face it, that has been the norm for months, if not years, now) it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see them launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran or North Korea. I think it might be a good idea to stay at home on Tuesday night, preferably in the cellar.