Alamo City Comic Con 2015: Day 1

So, I decided I'm going to post this as a day by day thing just to keep the length in check.  But since I didn't dress up until day two, I thought I'd start with a shot of the armor as promised.

Tah dah!  I'm super stoked with how it turned out.  And it wore pretty well.  The primary difficulties I had were the scarf sliding around a bit (fixed with safety pins), and the extra room the shoulder took while sitting in panels.  For the most part I solved that by sitting in an aisle seat, and when I couldn't do that, I sat with my arm on the back of my husband's seat.

Anyways, day one of the convention!

We got there about forty minutes early to stand in line.  Luckily, with it being Friday, it wasn't too bad, and the line was moving at a fairly decent pace.

There was even entertainment for us!  They had a screen showing some Star Wars related stuff.  While we weren't chatting with our neighbors, we could check out some cool Trooper action.  By the way, that crowd you see there were those already ticketed, waiting for the Con to officially open.  They were cleared to go in about ten minutes before we got our bands.

Waiting in line, we had our first of many Deadpool sightings.  Sorry about the picture quality, my phone camera doesn't do the zoom thing very well.

Finally we were in.  And here is where the lamest part of the convention occurred.  Paper wristbands.  For three day passes.  Really?  I was expecting a lanyard, but at least give us plastic bands so we can shower without worry.  Many people posted complaints on the ACCC Facebook page, so next year should be better.  Ours survived the whole weekend somehow, so at least we didn't have to worry about getting in line to get a replacement.  

Entering the Con brought you to what seems to be the traditional neat-o vehicle parking area.  I'm not a big car enthusiast, but even I know cool cars when I see them, geek related or not.

They also had some different Star Wars photo ops set up.  Different characters appeared through the convention, but you'll see those later.

A little further in, and we could already sense that things were a little different.  Where last year Artist Alley, and the Dealer's area were more or less crammed together in a pretty limited space, this year they were much better defined, and the number of booths had increased dramatically.

 Product and signs stretched as far as the eye could see.  Smart vendors had boosted items to stick up so you could see them from other lanes.

We made it upstairs at one point, so I took some pictures from above, trying to give a better idea of the size.  The ceiling kind of hindered that, but I thought it still looked quite impressive compared to last year.  And I just couldn't wait to look at all the stuff.

 

Our first round of looking is mostly just a breeze through to get an idea of what all there is.  With three days to ogle, there would be plenty of time to look at everything.  But of course, there are always things that really catch the eye.  Like Side Show's awesome statuettes.  

Plenty of Star Wars love.  The amount of detail in these things is incredible.

But never have I wanted a figure as badly as I wanted this one.  It was stunning.  I actually took quite a few shots of this one from different angles as I thought it would be a great reference.  One day, I will cosplay Kerrigan.  Until then, I will plot and scheme...

Another thing I had to stop and admire were the Pop figures.  I've been seeing them in more places lately, but these guys were just everywhere.  The variety astounds me.  I want to start collecting, but honestly, I just don't know where to begin...

Another booth that really caught my eye was one dealing in signed portraits.  There was quite the collection.  While very few autographs tempt me, there were a few in there that would be neat to have.  I would rather have the autograph as part of a face to face meeting though.  It's fun to have a story to go with it.

As we wandered, we also came across booths selling comic books.  My husband arbitrarily picked one to look at, and I decided to flip through too.  We walked away with 25, making me the proud owner of the start of my very own comic collection.

Eventually it was time to go to our first panel.  Titled "I am Iron Man," we got to listen to stories from the man who shaped Tony Stark into the rock star we know and love.  Bob Layton spoke of his beginnings publishing a fanzine (CPL), and how he ended up working on Iron Man.  This was a really interesting panel, and I really enjoyed hearing the history from a personal standpoint.

We didn't take pictures of this one, but the next panel was actually accidental.  We didn't get the notice that the Comic Art panel we were interested in had shifted rooms, and ended up in one about monsters.  "Kaijus and Creatures," hosted by Matt Frank (comic artist) and Thomas L. Adams (curator) was largely a discussion of Gozilla and its various appearances, but also touched on such things as good and bad examples of scientific explanations of monsters in movies.  Not what we were expecting, but interesting none the less.

The other big panel we went to was a Lord of the Rings/Hobbit panel.  Billy Boyd, Manu Bennett, and John Noble took audience questions and recounted memories from the making of the movies.  From soggy hobbit feet, to MoCap adventures, to awe inspiring detailed sets, it was another neat behind the scenes look.

The last panel we did that day was a Cosplay 101 with some of the guest cosplayers there.  While I've done some cosplay, I thought it might be interesting to hear from those who have turned it into a living.  The biggest tip I walked away with?  Apparently burlap is not a fun material to work with...

This more or less wrapped up our day.  It was time to go home and rest up (or finish a crossbow) for the next day.