Kilts at the Science Fiction Convention....

[Zardoz]

Over the weekend I attended the ApolloCon Science Fiction Convention here in Houston. There were about a dozen guys in kilts at the con this year, mostly in Utilikilts, but I saw at least about three or four of us in more traditional kit over the two days. I promised I'd get photos of the guys in kilts, but I'm afriad I didn't do a very good job, so while this is a little low on kilt content, I got some fun stuff, here we go...


How about a little steampunk? This is O.M.Grey, a Texas author (and holder of a BA and MA in British Lit) who works in the paranormal romance and steampunk genres.


Here's Ms.Grey and my friends Moogie and Sandy.


Here's Linda, who missed the photo session, but I did catch our friend Scott darting by in his UK!


I ran into Faith and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the dealers room! actually this is Ju-Ju and Lollie, some renfaire friends.


My wife had to get a picture with Buffy.


Here's a bad picture of me MC-ing my Sci-Fi club's trivia contest, I think one of my questions just gave the middle contestant mild brian damage...

There is a costume contest every year, here are some of the contestants, either on or backstage.

"The Boss" and "Naked Snake" from the Metalgear video games


An out of work Oni.


Robot costume based on Hajime Sorayama's 'Sexy Robot' paintings.


From Star Trek to True Blood's Snookie Stackhouse, little bit of everything.

a couple more to come...

.

[Zardoz]

A couple fairies..


Some of the Costuming winners.


Here I am presenting the awards for the trivia contest. I stepped behind the podium, but a bunch of ladies hollered for me to come back out! sorry about the quality, but the harsh spotlight was messing up my little camera settings.


Here's one of the trivia winners with her Rocketship award.


And afterwards, we had a dance party!

[OC Richard]

So very timely for you to post this, because I'm taking my daughter, who is 15 and really into anime, to the LA Anime Expo for her birthday this Saturday.

It's the first time either of us has been to an anime convention, and it will be the first time my daughter has participated in cosplay. (She'll be dressed as Sanji from One Piece.)

I'm going to wear Highland Dress. I'll bring my camera and see if I spot any other kilties. If anyone asks me what character I am I might reply Sukoji which I'm guessing, if not some nasty word, might be close to "a Scot".

Cosplay is huge in Japan. When I was over there a few years back I came upon a three-story shopping mall in Tokyo that's mostly devoted to anime etc. There was a shop called Robot Robot that was nothing but robots (as one might guess) and a shop as large as one of our Old Navy clothing stores but was entirely cosplay costumes.

[Zardoz]

OC, Way to dive in! The LA AnimeExpo is the largest anime con in the US. The cool thing about anime cons is that it seems like more than half of the attendees are in costume all the time, and at LAAX that might be a few thousand people! Get some photos!

[OC Richard]

Thanks! I'll take photos for sure!

There was a local TV news feature on LA Anime Expo yesterday afternoon and they said that 109,000 people attended the 2009 convention.

That's amazing.

Well I looked it up and sukoji means "small".

Sukottorando is "Scotland" and Sukottorandojin is "Scottish thing" or "Scottish person".

[OC Richard]

Just back from the LA Anime Expo.

First the kilts! Here I am with a guy in full Samurai armour:



My daugher as Sanji from One Piece:



I don't know what these costumes are all about but they were the most amazing things we saw: