MY FIRST EVER COMIC CON!!

For those of you who know me, I am a huge nerd. 

I would love to travel time and space with the Doctor; explore uncharted galaxies with Kirk and crew; trek the vast lands of Middle Earth with the hobbits, elves, dwarves and wizards; and fight alongside the X-men against the Brotherhood.

I am also a big anime fan, such as Cardcaptor Sakura, Fairy Tail, Love Live, and Tokyo Mew Mew, to name a few (don’t worry, I have seen some episodes of Chobits, Bleach, Negima, Fruits Baskets, and Tsubasa Chronicle).

So, of course, when I heard that MCM Comic Con was coming to Belfast, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately by that time, many of the tickets had been sold out and I didn’t think I stood a chance. I was disheartened but my best friend and I made a pact we would go to next years and cosplay.

HOWEVER…

There was a guy I knew who had a free ticket since someone bailed last minute. He advertised the ticket on facebook and I thought, nahh he has his friends. Best not bother him.

Lo and behold, he messages me the day before inviting me along! Jumping at the chance, I accepted and we attended the next day.

I was so excited the hours leading up to the event so as soon as I walked in, I was a child in a candy store. You could not see a bigger smile on my face. I was literally exuding happiness.

The event was jam packed out with around 16,000 attending during the weekend! While I was there the crowds, while heaving, were easy to navigate. The theatre was packed out for each event and the line for the ATM was longer than any stall, with a waiting time of approximately 1 hour 30 minutes. It was worth the wait.

There were special guests such as Hattie Heyridge and Robert Llewelyn from Red Dwarf (played Holly and Kryten, respectfully), James Cosmo from Game of Thrones, Ian McNiece from Edge of Darkness & Doc Martin, Hannah Spearritt from Primeval and Raphael Sbarge from Once Upon A Time! Being a fan of both Red Dwarf and Once Upon A Time, I got to meet and get autographs from three amazing and lovely people! 

Robert was so lovely; he gave me an extra autographed picture as part of my dad’s Father’s Day gift! 

Hattie talked to me about riots that occurred at the last place they went…

… and Raphael was just amazing. He thanked me for doing a drawing of his character and his smile and reassuring pets on the arm were enough to make me gooey inside. I was so star-struck by him, it was ridiculous.

Next came the browsing of the merchandise! I was trying to be careful not to get carried away with purchases but in the end I came home with some really nice haul…

I met a big artist known as DestinyBlue on DeviantArt, who gave me some brilliant art tips for my future artistic endeavours. I bought one of her pieces of a forest, which I was just drawn to. To me, it represents coming out of the dark where you are lost, into the beautiful morning light where you have found yourself. I personally think it’s very symbolic and I love her other works (which you can check out at her DeviantArt page here: http://destinyblue.deviantart.com)

I bought an awesome Legend of Zelda poster since I am a huge LoZ fan. I love all the games (even though I’ve only ever actually completed one of them) and have proudly put this on my wall.

Lastly, I got two necklaces which were really nice. One has the Fairy Tail guild emblem on it (which is my personal favourite) and the other has the key sword from Kingdom Hearts.

I would have bought other things but I was trying to keep a good control over how much I was going to spend.

The last event of the day was the Cosplay Masquerade! Here, contestants who had made their costumes themselves could show off their stuff and get the chance to win a prize. There were many excellent costumes, but below are a few of my personal favourites.

 Pyramid Head (Silent Hill)

 Green Arrow (Arrow)

 Female Spock (Star Trek)

Female Loki (Thor/Avengers)

I give a huge round of applause to this trooper who embarrassingly tripped on her way upstage, but like any true professional, she got straight up and flaunted her stuff like nothing ever happened. Kudos to you, kid!

Female Captain America (Captain America/Avengers)

The judges eventually decided on the winners at the end of the event and here they are!

3^rd: Battle Bunny Riven from League of Legends

2^nd: Captain Sheppard from Mass Effect

1^st: Pyramid Head from Silent Hill

So that was my first time at comic con, and it was a blast! I look forward to possibly attending Q-con next weekend and next year’s Comic Con when I will actually cosplay!

Until then, nerds, keep gaming!

P.S. Apologies for the very crap quality photos but I had mistakenly forgotten to bring along my HD camera. Sad times...