Syagria

OH. TOTALLY FORGOT TO POST THIS.

Bethany posted my Wonder Woman on Best Cosplay Ever (This Week) on ComicsAlliance.com, waaaaaaay back in May.  I'm a derp for neglectiving to mention it here!

Woot: www.comicsalliance.com/2012/05…

It's been a rough few weeks this summer, and that's without counting this awful relentless heat and humidity.

Starting back in October, my boyfriend had to have his German Shepherd, Dutchess, who was paralyzed from the waist down, put to sleep.  Three days later, he found out his 14-year-old Chow/husky mix, Sabra, had cancer.  All winter, we stood by her, through surgeries and chemo treatments and injections and supplements.  There were still some good times, but by spring, she made it pretty clear she'd had enough of the medications and was ready, and she went to sleep peacefully in mid-May.  

At the end of May, my uncle suffered a series of heart attacks over the course of a week - when he went to his doctor two days after the first one, the doctor did no tests, but simply said, "Oh, it was probably heat exhaustion from working in the yard in this weather," and sent him home.  It was another three days before my uncle decided that he was feeling worse, not better, and went to the hospital on Memorial Day Weekend, where they said, "You've had at least one heart attack, and you are having another right now."  The trauma to the heart was so bad that a hole had been torn in it, and during the emergency surgery to repair it, he coded out several times.  Half of his heart was completely dead, or nearly so, and he was on life-support.  His organs, however, had suffered too much damage, and he passed away at the end of June.  My boyfriend and I did some quick logistics rearrangements to be able to both attend the funeral as well as still enjoy at least some of our Independence Day week vacation we'd booked months ago.

When I got back to my place after our vacation, I found my apartment overrun with carpenter ants, necessitating emptying my pantry, packing away any unopened or unspoiled food, scrubbing my kitchen, taking my cat, Mei Ling - who, upset at my being gone, expressed her displeasure by peeing on some of my belongings, so that was another emergency that needed my attention - to my boyfriend's for the remainder of the weekend, and laying out poison.

The next weekend - that is, this past one - my boyfriend and I renovated his bathroom, and just about everything that could go wrong while repainting DID.  After an emergency trip to the hardware store to get a paint sprayer that would enable us to paint the popcorn-textured cieling, we walked in to find his mother sobbing and cradling the family's 20-year-old cat, Sammy, in a towel on her lap, where she had passed away less than an hour before.  We finished painting at 5:30 Monday morning, after working all night.  I called out of work, on account of the fact that I hadn't even been to bed yet.

So - costume plans and cons have been the last thing on my mind of late.

Meanwhile, I've finally gotten around to finalizing a few raw shots of Wonder Woman at Anime Boston that Marcus Farbanks sent to me for my use.

This past weekend was AB'12, and on Friday I debuted my new Wonder Woman costume I've been working on since January or February.  It's an original design, for which I took inspiration from a number of her prior costumes, plus strong elements of her classical-styled roots, and a kickass pair of boots that, after purchasing them, I felt I had to justify owning them by using them to kickoff the design.

And it was a HIT. Eeee!

So many pictures!  I had 3 photoshoots throughout the day, and was in costume from before 10 AM to 7 PM, so I was stopped many many times for pictures, plus my feet were pretty much completely destroyed after almost 10 hours in high heels on cement floors and brick sidewalks.  For those who would like to see the details of the costume, I have a build thread on my website here.

So far, I've only seen a couple of pictures of the costume so far, but they came out sooooo awesome!  Time to post a preview

I've been a bit AWOL of late, hustling through the usual Christmas bustle, doing a big presentation at work to a lot of People Who Are Much Smarter Than Me, and taking a somewhat impromptu weekend trip to London to see a performance of Handel's 'Messiah' Oratorio at the Royal Festival Hall.  One performance only!  It was right up my alley - the orchestra and soloists were all dressed in period costume!  The concert was lovely.

London? Also lovely.  It's really my favorite city in the world, although I don't have an enormous well of experience in international cities to draw upon.  In addition, while Boston's T isn't terrible in comparison to many subway systems in the USA, London's Underground blows it out of the water.  

Dear London Tube: I <3 you; you make travel so speedy and easy. Love, This American Girl.

My Whirlwind Schedule:

Friday 7 PM: Flight out of Boston.  Wheeee, Red-eye!

Saturday 5 AM: Land in London.  It takes several hours to clear customs/immigration.
Saturday 9 AM: WHEE OMG YAY YAY YAY YAY I AM IN LONDON OMG.
Saturday 10 AM: Westminster!  Parliament!  Big Ben! Victoria Embankment!  Whitehall Street!  Trafalgar Square!
Saturday 1:30 PM: Checked into my hotel, in Notting Hill, just north of Kensington Gardens.  I've been up for 24 hours, and I need a shower.
Saturday 4:00 PM: Head back to Westminster and over the Thames to the Royal Festival Hall.  Wander about, get some food.
Saturday 7:30 PM: Performance of the "Messiah."  Sooooooo good!
Saturday 11:00 PM: I've been up for well over 36 hours without sleep.  It's bedtime, for sure.

Sunday 9:00 AM: Lovely stroll down Queensway, grabbing a pastry and a drink on the way, then through Kensington Gardens, around Kensington Palace, and get on the Underground at High Street Kensington stop, bound for Charing Cross.
Sunday 11:00 AM: National Gallery!  Since it was predicted to be rainy, being indoors all day was fine by me.  SO MUCH AWESOME ART.  I saw Hans Holbein's "The Ambassadors" and Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" and works by Rembrandt and Botticelli and Michelangelo and Gainsborough and Ingres and wheeeeeee
Sunday 4:00 PM: Done at the Gallery, I head to St. Paul's Cathedral to walk around the outside and take some pictures.
Sunday 5:00 PM: It's darned cold although the rain has stopped, and I've not eaten since that pastry, so I stop at a cafe.
Sunday 7:00 PM: It's still cold, and my feet hurt, so back to the hotel.

Monday 9:00 AM: ABBEY ROAD ABBEY ROAD ABBEY ROAD HOLY CRAP.  Couldn't go in to the studio, but took photos from the outside.  Beautiful clear blue skies and sunny day.
Monday 10:30 AM: 221B BAKER STREET!  I still retain bits of my Sherlock Holmes obsession days, when I was 13.
Monday 11:30 AM: Hyde Park corner, Wellington Monument and Wellington Victory Arch.  I then walked down Constitution Hill, along Green Park, until I got to the Canada Gate, the Victoria Monument, and Buckingham Palace.  Spent quite a while there taking pictures.  Walked up the edge of Green Park, past St. James' Palace, and took the Underground back to Westminster.
Monday 1:00 PM: Touring Westminster Abbey.  Alas, no photography allowed inside.
Monday 3:00 PM: Totally wiped out, and my silly pride ("Just because I'm an American tourist on vacation doesn't mean I have to LOOK like one") means that I've been standing and walking miles in high-heeled boots for three days straight.  My feet feel like they're going to fall off.  Stop for food - my first meal of the day - and then take my time heading back to Bayswater and my hotel.

Tuesday 7:00 AM: Time to go
Tuesday 10:00 AM: Farewell, lovely London!
Tuesday 12:30 PM: Hello again, Boston.


Photos will, of course, be forthcoming - as soon as I finish sorting and editing them.  I took 450 photos in 3 days, and the corker on that is that most of Sunday and part of Saturday I was in places where photos weren't allowed (the Gallery and the Abbey).

Ha, not even. (Pbbbbttt!)

But, my Hermes (Persona 3 video game) cosplay was one of the ones included in the "10 Wildly Impressive Cosplay Costumes and How They're Made" gallery/article on Syfy Channel's website Dvice: dvice.com/archives/2011/10/10-… .  Hee.