After AZ Fur Con last weekend and Tucson Comic-Con ending today, con season is finally over for me. Sure, I've still got a few more outings planed with other Steampunks coming up (including a Steampunk dinner invasion NEXT weekend), they can fit more in the "outfit" category for me instead of my fully involved "costume" events.

Anyways seeing as AFC & TCC were the first two events where I donned a "furry" version of my character, I kind of want to type out my reactions to how things went for me.

 AZFurCon was my first furry con and the debut of "were-"WulfBane. And kind of like I figured, it really just felt like any other con I've gone to. Hell, even some of the panels like the FNAF play-thru, Uncle Kage's Story Hour, & 2 The Ranting Gryphon's comedy session were basically on the line of things I would have seen elsewhere (just with a few "because furry" moments sprinkled in there). And a few people did do a "hey wait, I think I have seen you before..." when they recognized either the human form of WulfBane or upon learning of my Gaslamp Green Arrow.

Still, my favorite thing was participating in the Masquerade. I've done costume contests at cons before with human WulfBane & Gaslamp Green Arrow, but never "big contests" or having to do a full routine. I knew that my wolf head ended up kind of derpy, but I stuck with it because I REALLY wanted to go out and do my "Banson's Aria" routine. And it did exactly what I wanted. The slow dramatic open let me do some stalking around & "combat" poses with my claw. But when the opera kicked in, I went in 120% with my arm movements and pantomiming my singing and just overall moving around the stage to the music.  kahluafennec got a good recording of The Masquerade and it was great hearing people say "hmm, he's just posing wait now its Opera!". So while I knew I wasn't going to win, I was proud to get a Judges Award for catching them off guard like I did. I fully intend to do this routine again at the Phoenix Comic-con Masquerade, though it will probably be in "human" form to avoid costume mash-up overload and I'll edit out a stanza or two from the opening portion.


Then this weekend was Tucson Comic-Con. The Tucson Steampunk Society was part of the "Costuming Group" section of the show floor, so I was basically just working our booth space for the weekend. But the big shock was just how much space we had. Last year, TCC had about half the floor space it did this year and all the costuming groups were actually on the upper entrance level to the convention center and as such, we had just a single table and a small amount of space to fill with our gadgets & decorations. But this year with their ability to expand the show floor, we ended up with a roughly 15'x25' space to fill and we kind of were panicing when we actually saw how big it was. But I had brought down the Copper African Elephant for static display (& photo ops) and other members also answered the call by bringing more table space and tons of props, outfits, & art to put on display. And it helped because we were also on the very end of the aisle near the concession area and had the Tucson Star Trek group with a TOS Captain's chair on a green screen backdrop. So yeah, it was a fairly high traffic, high visibility location.

Saturday, I was geared up as "human" Col. WulfBane and was rotating between my mechanical claw, drill hand, & regular-hand (glove) attachments on my clockwork arm. Our job was to introduce people to us as the Tucson Steampunk Society, talk about a few of the things we have done & are going to be doing, talk about some of the things on display from our various members, and even help tell people what "Steampunk" really is. And of course, we had to be ready for pictures. We had a few ladies in lovely dresses and gentlemen in dapper outfits, but we also had a few of us with more stand-out costumes like mine as well as a guy with a Steampunk Wolverine with brass tinted claw blades and an outfit that evokes the yellow & blue version of Wolverine (the inner lining of his jacket was an exact match of the shade of the comic book blue X-Men uniform).

Saturday night was the 2nd Annual TCC Costume Contest. Last year I got runner-up in the Intermediate category for my Gaslamp Green Arrow. This year, I was wearing the full (human-form) Colonel WulfBane outfit complete with scar makeup, yellow contact in the left eye, and my articulating mechanical claw. Man that thing can get uncomfortable and they didn't really have any place for us to sit while waiting around (both during the pre-judging as well as during the actual event). The Steampunk Wolverine also entered. All told, there were 56 entries (some were groups) and there were plenty of great costumes. One of my personal favorites was a guy as Queen's Freddie Mercury complete with a crown, 15 foot robe, & mic-cane that he made all himself. Plus, when he was on stage (the contest was all just "walk-on" type only) he was doing FULL dips to the ground TWICE as he performed along with the music. But the highlights of the winners included the Intermediate winner who spent 13 months building a "chain mail" style outfit made from soda can tabs and all colored in the style of Iron Man as well as the Advanced runner-up who built a Matter truck and put it so he was driving on a road over a hill that acted like a skirt to hide his legs (and would collapse down when he would go down to kid level for pictures).

Then on Sunday, I felt it was the right time to come out as "were-"WulfBane. They were having fun with "no pets on the furniture" & "we made sure to give him a flea bath" jokes and I even played along when Wolverine would scratch my belly with his claws by shaking my leg. But despite being in werewolf form, I still gave the same "Welcome! Feel free to look around. Do you have any questions?" greetings I was doing Saturday (he IS a civilized werewolf). It was funny when someone recognized me as the same human from the day before but thought the wolf was the human's adversary or even a "assistant" and I had to tell them that both costumes are just different incarnations of the same character. And I did manage to get my picture with the AZ Avenger's Rocket Raccoon taking a part of my clockwork arm (And as they realized I had a removable section of arm to do such a pic, they wanted to get their on pic of it too)

But I couldn't do the full day in the werewolf costume, but it wasn't even my intent. Aside from "taking myself for walkies" to roam the show floor in the werewolf costume, I was basically in standing at the TSS booth in werewolf form from 10am (plus an hour in costume before the show opened up). And as a cosplayer on Arrakis, Water is Life and my water bottle was my best friend. And I knew I had done enough as the werewolf around 1:30 when I finally shed the outfit completely and just put on a regular two sleeve shirt, my safari coat, & pith helmet. But I still made sure I was looking good until the 5pm close. Overall, it was fun participating in the booth for our group and helping guide people around our various display pieces.