Dragons and Druids
Published on Sep 8, 2011

I’m just sitting in the lobby of a hotel of Atlanta and try to get rid of the time I have left until my flight back to Germany. So, what’s better than writing a new blog entry?

You wonder, what the hell did I just do in Atlanta? Well, I visited Dragon*Con this year and enjoyed the first part of my Honeymoon with Benni. Pretty nerdy, isn’t it? Hm… but we ourselves were really the less nerdiest thing at all this weekend. We saw Zombie grandmas and perfect Star Treck Scotty grandpas, we saw Steampunk Ghostbusters and Deathpools in Princess Leia bikinis. We visited robot battles, armor and mask making panels and met the nicest, craziest, strangest and coolest guys ever. Yeah, we were anything else but nerdy. To get a short view into what we experienced, take a look to all these awesome galleries on flickr.
Sadly, I’m not pretty good in taking photos in costume and Benni is too busy fixing my costume the whole time, so excuse the lack of photos from my side. But I guess, flickr is a great resource for your search.

Well, and how was Dragoncon?
Hm… it was… different. The conventions I visit in Germany are mostly Anime/Manga related. There is’nt such a huge fantasy/comic/steampunk/zombie/othernerdystuff fanbase. And the audience is pretty young. Dragon*Con was pretty faszinating, because just about everybody was there. No matter, which age, religion, race or sex. Even babies had a fitting costumes to their parents and even dogs had their own hats and wings. Wow, it was just stunning! And the parade was even more awesome! There were really a lot of things, why I like Dragoncon. The costumes, the people and also my super awesome roommates at the Hyatt hotel. I also met a lot of guys, who even recognized me without costume, what never happend to me before.
But there were also some points I didn’t like. The crazy air conditioning (one room was cool, the other was super cold, outside it was really hot and if you walk the whole time around… well…) made me sick and I still feel pretty bad. I didn’t like the panels, because they mostly only consited of discussion without any pictures or reference materials and I had a lot of problems to understand them. And no free wifi access at the hotels, which make me really crazy!
However I already think about coming back, even if it’s super expensive for us. But at first, the next conventions are coming. Connichi in Kassel is pretty close, then Blizzcon, then some little german conventions and my very last job for this year at the World Champtionship in Rotterdam for the WoW TCG. And now… enough of words! Time for pictures!

Druid T9 is… almost done! (No idea who made this picture of me at D*C, but I hope it’s okay to use it. I really like it! Sadly I don’t have any of my own, because Benni was too busy making some….)

I wanted to try out a new bodypainting, but unfortunately I noticed at the morning that it’s just wrong. I had not the right sponge and the color was just awful, and sadly I didn’t have my old make up with me. Well, I didn’t really care and decided to take a shower and to go out with normal skin color. Funny point is, that more people recognized me as a Nightelf without make up, than with. Many of them always mistook me for a Troll…
Yeah, and some details are still missing. Especially my staff, but at least, I managed to finish the main part. At 5 am. One hour before we had to leave our house and went to the airport.

One of the reasons, that I was so stressed and still had so much to do was, that I deciced to create a further version of my pauldrons. The pair I built before were just… to large, despite of it was the right size of the model ingame. But sometimes it just looks wrong, if you follow your reference in every point, just because you are not 2 m high and have the bodyshape of a super model. The new version was a bit smaller and had a different shape, but I was much more satiesfied at the end.

As always Benni did the paint job…
 … and as always it was great!

I also created a mask, what I didn’t use because I did’t manage to get the hoodie done in time.

This was my very first fitting. Again it was a pretty awesome feeling to try a new costume the first time and to see, that most parts worked fine. And…. I really loved how my boobies looked in this costume, ha ha!

Well, at the end I have to say, that I’m ashamed a bit of my Druid T9. It was done in 3 weeks, it was already my 5th Tier set and it was pretty boring to create. And it’s a pretty crappy costume. I’m not pround of my work anymore, I don’t think that I made something nice. It’s just… okay. It’s okay for a 3-weeks-project and it was fun to wear it, especially with the lights on. But it’s not more. I’m already planning my next projects, but I guess, I go crazy if I create a further Druid costume. Especially, because I have to do EVERYTHING again since Benni gets the same costume from me for Blizzcon. So… I already have some nice ideas for next years, look forward to Diablo and really, REALLY hope that Blizzard will announce something awesome at Blizzcon, but I’m done with my Druid costumes. I hope you guys, can understand me!

And before I leave you again, close my notebook and fly back to my lovely Germany, there is one point I want to say:

Blizzard, I NEED a Diablo III Beta key! Please, please! My Wizard is done, my Demon Hunter will follow soon and after I got the chance to test it at Gamescom, I’ll go crazy if I don’t get a beta key, soon! There is a huge NEED!!!

test

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Written by Benni

| Writer, Full-Time Costume Maker

We are self-employed artists, writers and costume makers currently living in Germany. We love to help the crafting community by creating YouTube videos, writing books and by sharing the current progress of our projects on social media. In our shop you can also find crafting patterns to help you with your own projects!

9 Comments

  1. Oh god! Guys, you’re crazy! Thanks for all these awesome comments! :)

    1. Yeah, I guess next time I’ll say when I will be there at some points. I just like my freedom, especially at a convention I never was before. And I don’t like these fan and model idea.

    2. I still need an make up artist. I’m pretty bad in this point!

    3. He he, yeah the red costume was a Wizard from Diablo III. I really, really hope to come back next year to DragonCon and meet you all again there. It was sooooooo wonderful with you!

    4. Jep, Blizzcon is waiting for me! :)

    5. Good luck with your costume, Ashley! :)

    Reply
  2. I’m actually working on rogue tier 10, and I know what you mean about the pauldrons. Sometimes in video games they don’t keep perspective at all. I noticed when I turned the model around they disappear into the characters back so I had to modify mine! You did a great job though, everything looks great!

    Reply
  3. Ah Diablo 3! Played on Blizzcon 2010…. Now waiting for beta too! Lucky Americans already have their beta tests. I assume you are going to Blizzcon this year, I hope I will see you there. Good luck

    Reply
  4. Richtig übel, ich will gar nicht wissen wieviel Stunden da drin stecken, aber das Ergebnis ist einfach umwerfend.

    Reply
  5. Svetlanta! I was so happy to meet you–both times you were out of costume, alas, but I was happy to see you. My boyfriend and I did see you walk by once in your Asian-inspired costume (I think it was Diablo 3?) but it looked like you were in a hurry so I didn’t want to bother you. Still, the costume was even better in person than it was online.

    I’m the girl who was in the red dress who spoke to you outside the Sheraton very early Saturday morning before the parade (I took your picture with Benni) and then I also saw you with my boyfriend (he was a zombie, I was in an all black dress and hood with heavy makeup) in the food court. He’s making a Warhammer-inspired suit of armor using your Wonderflex instructions that will hopefully be ready for Dragon*Con next year!

    I am glad to hear that you had a good time but am sorry to hear that you got sick! That is easy to do at Dragon*Con. I always try to take a lot of vitamin C and to drink a lot of water. Luckily my costumes were all warm so I never got cold, but air conditioning in the US is intense!

    Anyways, I am glad that I met you and Benni and I hope to see you at Dragon*Con in the future!

    Reply
  6. Awww ich beneide dich total um deine Skills XDD Die Kostüme die du machst sind dermaßen fantastisch.. selbst wenn du nicht 100% damit zufrieden bist (aber das verstehe ich, man selbst findet die eigene Arbeit oft nicht so toll weil man kleine Fehler oder Patze sieht, oder einfach wei´wo man etwas hätte besser machen können. Aber für einen Normalo wie mich ist der Anblick einfach… woah!)

    Ich hätt ja so gerne ein Undead Warlock Tier 7,5 (weil es das erste Tier set war das ich komplett hatte damals X3) Kostüm, aber ich glaube nicht dass ich das jemals schaffen werde X’D

    Wenn ich jemals auf einer Con bin auf der du auch bist, werde ich tausende Fotos von dir machen :D Nur damit du’s weißt XD

    Reply
  7. Your costume was so lovely! It was great to see you at Dragon*Con this year. :) My fiance and I really enjoyed seeing you at the WoW costume contest. And do please come back! Atlanta’s weather can be unforgiving in the fall (either too hot or too cold) but maybe it will be gentler next year!

    Reply
  8. I was at Dragon*Con and was hoping to take photos of your awesome costumes! I didn’t see you though, and there’s no way I’d not notice a WoW costume, so I guess I just wasn’t in the Marriott whenever you were there. =/

    If you end up attending D*C next year, could you maybe post on FB or twitter a general timeframe that you would be around in costume?

    Anyway, I love seeing your work, and I’m aiming to try making a costume for next year using some of the techniques in your tutorial posts/videos! Thanks for sharing on this site =)

    Oh and good luck on the D3 beta key! I’m still checking my inbox every hour hoping one will arrive.

    Reply

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