Star Wars Celebration 2017

It's hardly surprising that I never got around to blogging about last April's Star Wars convention, because I have a TON of pictures from it!  It always takes me a long time to sort through photos from events - especially multi-day events - when I have a lot to choose from.  And then the writing-up takes even longer, so I often have a draft languishing half-finished for weeks on end...  In order to avoid that trap, I will keep the journaling to a minimum for this post.

This is my excited face.

On Friday (our first day at the con) we mostly just wandered around taking pictures of cool stuff.

Hey look; Iowa!

I so wanted to collect all of these to make a mobile for Reptar:

My outfit for the day:

I kept it casual and comfortable with maternity jeans and my "That's no moon" maternity t-shirt.  And I tried to emulate Padmé's hairstyle from the scene in Revenge of the Sith when she tells Anakin that she's pregnant.

You can't see it, but I'm wearing a Millenium Falcon necklace along with the R2-D2 earrings I just bought.

I got lots of comments on my t-shirt!  And it was great because I could move freely throughout the space without a cumbersome costume - so much easier to both walk and sit!  So I mostly admired other people's awesome costumes.

These were (I believe) fan-made costumes that were on display - the attention to detail was amazing!

Sunset Friday

On Saturday, I got fully dressed up in the Green Velvet Beast!  Zöe did my eyebrows for me, because with the brown wig on I look really weird without darkened eyebrows.

You can see the stark contrast here between with and without eyebrow makeup:

You can also see my maternity stays in their unfinished state

And the finished look here:

I was wearing quite an interesting mix of historical undergarments and accessories - a Regency shift, 18th Century stays, cotton stockings from Colonial Williamsburg, Regency-esque shoes from The Gap, an 1860s-ish hoop skirt from Amazon, and an 18th Century pocket.

I had left a slit in the gown skirt side seam on the right-hand side so I could access my pocket.  I also tied on the hoop skirt and the quilted cone-shaped petticoat I made to go over it at the same side so that the slits under the drawstring waists also lined up with the pocket slit.  I was quite proud of myself for that innovation.

Then of course the gown itself, and the wig I rented from Custom Wig Company.

Once back at the convention center, I sat patiently waiting for Brian the Engineer to find parking (which was no small feat!) so we could go in together.  I joked that finding spots to sit down was my pregnancy superpower.

There were some nice backdrops for photos, like this one:

Oh, and I had forgotten my camera at the hotel on Friday, so all of my pictures from the first day were taken on my phone.  But on Saturday I remembered my camera, and therefore I took many more pictures - and even a video of this LEGO display:

More awesome fan costumes:

Our friends from the internet:

They did a group cosplay as cheap action figures.

I was thrilled to see the original Leia Ceremonial Gown in person!  I took lots of photos:

(That wasn't even all of them.  I might even do a separate post with just the pictures I took of it!)

I was blown away by these LEGO sculptures:

I was totally digging this Mod version of Rey:

Using my seat-finding superpower again!

Zöe's picture

One time when I was tired and there was no chair to be found, so I just sat on the floor!

In this aerial shot of me, you can see the pin I used to keep my hood up.  If it wasn't attached to my wig it kept falling down.

In the next few shots, you can see how different cameras read the colors of my gown quite differently, even under the same lighting conditions.  First is one from my camera:  

And next is one from Zöe's phone:

My camera:

Zöe's phone:

On the way back to the car - which was veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery far away - we stopped for a rest and some more photos of the gown:

More photos from Zöe's phone:

And that was Celebration!  We were only there the two days, but it was a lot of fun.  I'm glad I decided to go for it when I had the opportunity to dress up as pregnant Padmé!  Though it was funny - the gown does hide a pregnancy rather well, so I didn't have nearly as many people ask me when the baby was due as I'd had the day before.  :p