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Anything and everything from my placing in the costume contest to Jeffrey Combs’  Q & A panel to singing hilarious songs at Karaoke dressed as Herbert. :3 

•  Got up, got dressed, got food. 

The first thing I had to do was my hair. Now two days earlier I literally went to Great Clips with a picture of Herbert West in my hand so fixing it that morning required little effort. Once I’d sculpted it into submission I had to paint it black. I never dye my hair, and its already a darker shade of brown, so the logical solution was hair paint. Y’know, that black stuff  you get in a can around Halloween? I buy like twenty cans of it and it always comes in handy. Of course I can’t spray aresol paint in a hotel room with white carpet, white walls, and white bedsheets, so donned in my Herbert West slacks, dress shoes, and belt and a pajama top I went down to the first floor and sprayed my hair outside. It took about five minutes to spray my hair and fifteen minutes to catch an elevator back up to the eigth floor. 

I finished getting dressed, and arranged my props correctly. Meg’s heart was in my labcoat pocket, my morbid doodle sat upon my shoulder, and my reagent syringe was carefully held in my hand at all times.

I donned my glasses and out the door I went. I ventured downstairs to go check out the floor. It was pretty empty, but that was okay because it gave me a chance to scope out the day’s activities.

First Priority was too sign up for the costume contest. It only allowed twenty applicants and I was dead set on being one of them.

…but they didn’t have the sign up ready. That was okay though, so then I had time to go grab some breakfast. I walked down to McDonalds and bought some delicious fast food before going back to the convention.

• Signed up for the costume contest

LIKE A BOSS

• Got my From Beyond Pressbook signed by Jeffrey Combs!!!! :D

Here’s what I’ve got to say about Jeffrey Combs: He is just the nicest guy. He is just so unbelievably nice that it’s unreal. The guy is just fantastic. So I go up to him shaking like a leaf being all nervous and fangirly and he wasn’t bothered by it at all. It was great. I went up to him and he was happy to see my costume. I told him that I was entering it the costume contest as Herbert West and he thought that was cool. He critiqued my costume and told me the only thing that was inaccurate was the tie. He told me I need a thinner tie. If my tie was the only thing wrong with that costume than I guess was doing something right!

I pulled out my pressbook and showed it to him and he thought it was cool. Honestly he seemed a little surprised that I owned such a thing. We talked about how they just don’t make stuff for movies like that anymore and he signed it right next to his name. In little quotations underneath the autograph he put “Crawford”. I gushed for a bit about how much I loved all of his work and he took a picture with me. :D 

I got another hug from him before gleefully skipping out of the dealer’s room like a dork.

• Went to the Troll 2 panel

It was hilarious. They got a group of comedians together to riff on the film. I brought my Tom Servo and sat him down in his own seat beside me for the lolz. The panel was overall really enjoyable. I got quite a few laughs in and that was great. 

• Went to Jeffrey Combs’ Q&A panel

Boy what a swell guy he is. He’s just so down to earth. He talked a lot about his work on Star Trek, his family, his film work and other convention’s he’d been to.  

I told him I’d been hearing rumors about his upcoming projects. He talked about Would You Rather, and explained the basic plot of it -nothing that we don’t already know about- and lamented about having heard nothing about when it would be released. 

I also asked him if he knew anything about weather or not Full Moon Entertainment was going to release Pulse Pounders. He seemed a bit surprised by the questionwhich was cute. He talked about how long ago the film was made, and the fall of Empire Pictures. He told everyone about how Charlie Band had finally found some of the footage from it and was planning to piece it together and release it at some not-yet-decided date. 

Towards the end of the panel I had a burning question. I am not ashamed to say that I like the movie Felony, but when I came across it I had to wonder how Jeffrey Combs ended up in such a movie anyway. So I asked him how he got the role.

Bad idea.

It turns out it was just one of those deals where the original choice had dropped out and the pay was good so he took the role. He didn’t really enjoy the experience, and was a little dissappointed that this was the last question.

AND I FELT TERRIBLE FOR ASKING IT.

He ended up taking a few more questions because the other panel was running late, so I didn’t feel as bad. But I still felt really bad. I ended up apologizing to him for asking the question after the panel. He said it was okay so I felt better after that. 

• Bought more stuff

I bought a Dr. Who glass for my friend, and a Klingon glass for myself. I bought some cute shirts. One says “League of Mad Scientists” on it, and the other is a red Miskatonic University shirt. :3

• Studied for exams…in cosplay

I had a few hours of down time, so sat down in a comfy chair and I took out my automechanics textbook from my backpack and studied for my exam. Had some tape, a paper, and a pen so I stuck a sheet of it on the cover that read “Book of Surgical Errors and Malpractice”

I giggled a lot because I thought it was really funny. Nobody really got it -I didn’t expect them too- but it was fun none the less. :3

•  Went to Pre-Judging for the Costume Contest 

Well, 6:00 rolls around and I had to go report for pre-judging for the Costume Contest. It was running kinda late and didn’t really start until around 6:15 or so. I befriended a few of the other applicants and recognized a few people from Animazement among the crowd. I was the first person to sign up for the contest in the amateur level, my slot came up fast. 

I went in to see a panel of five judges, four women and one man. I had no idea what to do, but the lady I talked to outside told me to just go in and talk about how I put together my costume, and I thought “Oh! It’s just like an audition but instead of talking about your skills your talking about your costume!”.

I went in and explained how I came by all of the individual pieces and how my fixed the labcoat and glasses. I told them about what Mr. Combs said about my costume earlier. I even explained how I made my morbid doodle.

Then they asked where I bought my wig.

And I was like say what now?

I explained that this was my real hair, and that two days prior I went and got it cut precisely like the character for this costume, and that the darkness was simply black hair paint. They thought that doing that was just the coolest thing! :D

I left feeling very good about myself and confident in my work.

Honestly, I didn’t expect to place in the competition. It was my first contest and I wasn’t going to be sad if I didn’t place in it, I mean hell I was just proud to put it in the contest!

• The Costume Contest

Now of course silly little me signing up as early as possible in the lowest category meant I was the first to go on stage. The stage was small, and the audience was no more than 60-70 people total.  

I have been an actress for almost six and a half years. I have preformed in front of 2000 people. I have had to memorize Shakespeare in less than a week. 

THE IDEA OF BEING THE FIRST PERSON ON IN THE CONTEST TERRIFIED ME. 

But I did it none the less. I went up on stage and loudly proclaimed that “I will create new life!”  before rushing offstage. 

Twenty minutes later they start announcing the winners by category. I was drinking a cup of water, making small talk with a group of very nice girls dressed as the companions of the tenth doctor from Doctor Who when I start hearing the announcements for the Novice (Amateur) category. 

Well I hear them announce third place, which was cool. The girl who won that was very pretty and her costume was well made. Then all of a sudden I hear them announce second place, and suddenly I’m shoved forward.

“Herbert West from Bride of Re-Animator!”

In my excitement I forgot to put my Herbert glasses back on. XP

I WON SECOND PLACE!!!! IN MY FIRST CONTEST I WON SECOND PLACE!!!!

I was smiling so big my face was hurting.

The upper levers were awarded, and they were really cool. I didn’t really remember much about the upper level category winners because I was so excited that my mind was swarmed with questions. 

How did I win? What did they like about my costume? Was there anything they didn’t like about my costume?

Once the contest was over I skipped down the hall way jumping up and down like a four year old at Christmas.

• Went to Karaoke

I totally butchered the Oingo Boingo song Weird Science. I’d heard it a thousand times and thought for sure I’d be able to sing it, but I got totally lost in the accompaniment. I didn’t really sweat it to much because I was having so much fun that it wasn’t even a big deal.

Still I felt like I had to redeem myself for said performance, and the only way to do that would be to do something hilarious.

Well I’m still in full Herbert West Cosplay, and the potential for hilarity with that is a lot.

So what did I sing next?

Why Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” of course! 

I really hope somebody has video of this somewhere, because it was hysterical. I didn’t even sing it all that well, but doing the dance was enough to gain quite a few laughs.

• Went to McDonalds around 11:45

It was just fun because I had the Doodle on my head, and everyone gave me funny looks. XP

• Went to bed around 2:00 AM.

I couldn’t sleep on the hotel pillows with black hairpaint -it would ruin them- so I ended up having to shampoo it about four times to get all of the hair paint and Got 2 B Glued out of it. To be fair it hadn’t moved an inch all day so I was proud of it.

I settled into a nice long sleep.  

Sunday’s post will be up soon too. :3