Phoenix Comicon 2014

Well, I think I’ve delayed long enough writing about what I did at the Phoenix Comicon this year. I didn’t mean to delay this post as long as I did, but my life became very busy since I came home from the convention… and life comes before blog posts.

This year I decided to stay in a hotel, which was a very wise idea. I liked going to a hotel if I got tired of the convention or I wanted to drop something off. Usually I drive to the convention so it was a wonderful change and something I want to do in the future.

Contrary to my original intentions, I didn’t cosplay at all during the weekend… unless you count wearing a skirt that looked like one of Clara Oswald’s clothes with my normal clothes. A few days before the convention I developed a huge, nasty blister on my foot. The shoes I was wearing were well broken in so it was an unpleasant surprise. Also, the blister-giving shoes were the shoes I planned on wearing the a majority of the costumes. Since I didn’t have a back-up pair and my foot already hurt, I decided to dress like myself all weekend. It did make me very upset to not cosplay because I had three costumes I planned on wearing to the convention and all three were created for this year’s convention.

Still, I had fun and mostly ran around the convention, looking at everything and doing some exploring in the surrounding streets of the convention center. I never really explored the area like I always wanted to, so I did. Since I was more focused on exploring, I didn’t take photos at that time and most of my adventures are not exactly worth mentioning in detail. I’ll still talk about what I did on specific days and include photos I took in addition to links to my Flickr albums from that specific day. The Flickr albums have the rest of the photos I did not include in this post so if you’d like to see more photos I took at the convention, feel free to look at them.

WARNING: This post is very image heavy!

Thursday…

Thursday was the first day of the convention. I debated if I should go to the convention or lounge around my hotel room, but I decided to go just to get my badge. Wise decision. The lines were long, but I’m assuming not as bad as the other days of the convention. It was then that I began to miss the twenty-something thousand people crowds the convention had back in 2012. According to the Phoenix Comicon, the convention had over seventy thousand people attend this year so for someone who attended the convention in the past, it can be a shock to see that many people there.

Although the crowds that weekend were large, I wasn’t frightened by them. It reminded me of the last time I went to Disneyland. In fact, some of the lines were shorter than the ones I saw at Disneyland! So, it could’ve been worse. MUCH worse.

After I got my badge, and found the crowds not as intimidating as I originally thought, I made my way to the exhibition hall to have a look around. One of the first things I did while there was find the Legos. I have a friend who loves Legos but usually can’t got to the convention. So, I take as many photos as I can so she can see what the set-up looks like. I tend to take more photos that I’d like to admit just because I wanted her to see everything.

This year, my favorite Lego building was the “wedding cake” building, the Tovera Castle…

It’s a real building in Phoenix Arizona and it does look like a wedding cake. The photo beside the Lego model is of the real building. If you’re interested in knowing more about the building, here’s a link to the official website of the Tovera Castle.

They also had a Captain Hammer Lego figurine on display…

I don’t remember seeing Lego Captain Hammer any other day than Thursday, so it’s a good thing I went crazy with the photo taking? Maybe?

Next I wandered to the Star Wars village…

And found my favorite little droid…

After that, I headed to AzTardis’ booth. During the convention, it seems to be the place I go to when I didn’t know where else to go. I guess after all these years, I haven’t gown up and I still gravitate to the Tardis just because I don’t know what else to do with myself.

This year they had three Daleks on display…

And wandering around…

The yellow one I’ve seen (and been chased by) back in 2012 and I’ve seen it at the convention ever since….

The two other Daleks are new this year.

The first one was silver…

And the other one was a Special Weapons Dalek from Remembrance of the Daleks…

Az Tardis also had a Tardis console with a DVD player that played Day of the Doctor….

The Tardis itself was very popular. I’m always amazed how the Tardis has become so recognizable. It was always recognizable, but I remember when I was a kid it was almost impossible to find someone my age and lived close to me who even heard of Doctor Who. Times have changed!

Since the Tardis was so popular and everyone wanted their photo with it, I had difficulty getting a photo without anyone standing with the Tardis. I was successful though… and I got two photos instead of my intended one!

Eh. First one is fuzzy, but I was lucky to get one from the front at all.

After having my fill of Doctor Who, I went outside and looked at the cars on display. On my way out, I saw Bumblebee from Transformers…

Once I got outside, I saw KITT from Knight Rider…

And the Time Machine from Back to the Future…

I cannot tell you how much I wanted to hug this car and it made me so happy to see it at the Comicon.

After looking at the cars, I went back to my hotel. I’m a party pooper when it comes to running around late at night, even if it’s Comicon. I’ve always been like that so it’s no surprise to anyone who knows me. 🙂

Here’s the Flickr gallery of the photos I took on Thrusday!

Friday…

Friday was a kind of boring day. I didn’t watch many panels and the panels I saw were not the guest’s panels. (I thought there would be huge lines for the guest’s panels) I didn’t hang out with my friends that attended the convention either (They were either busy or we didn’t get in contact with each other in time to meet up somewhere). I mostly wandered around the convention, looking at things, buying things, and sitting in the top floor of the convention hall enjoying the view of the city. This was also when I made the sketches I talked about in this post here.

I didn’t take many photos either. I mostly enjoyed just sitting and wandering around. I did take some photos of the cars I saw in the car show. New cars showed up in the car show since Thursday so I took photos of them. My favorites by far was Harbbie from The Love Bug movies and the Delorean because it had it’s door open and I could see inside.

 

I also got some photos of another Transformer figure outside the dealer’s hall…

Here’s the Flickr gallery of the photos I took on Friday!

Saturday…

Saturday began uneventful and fairly boring. I went to the Comicon earlier than I anticipated, so I ended up wandering around the convention. I mostly stayed outside, looking at a second Delorean that was on display at the car show. After 15 minutes, I got bored and wandered inside. After sitting down and looking at the programing schedule, I saw that the Batman panel with Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar would start in 30 minutes. I originally didn’t plan on going to the panel because I thought I wouldn’t find a seat, but since I had 30 minutes to get to the panel, I thought I could get a decent seat.

Due to traffic problems, Adam, Burt, and Julie were late to to panel. So the panel was delayed. Really delayed. Everyone at the PCC did a good job entertaining the crowd, but I ended up taking photos of the stage and the north ballroom (Where the panels were held) from my seat. I did this so I could test my camera’s settings and if I needed to change on my camera to get clear photos.

This is what the stage looked like from my seat when I zoomed in with my camera….

An this is what the stage really looked like from my seat….

Yep. Pretty far back, but not as far back as I had to sit in another panel.

Of course, I took my I-can’t-believe-how-wild-the-carpet-is-in-the-convetion-hall photo of the floor…

That’s my foot on the bottom of the photo. 😛

After I-don’t-know-how-long wait, the Battman panel started!

After the Batman panel, I stayed in the same room and watched John Barrowman’s panel.

 

After Mr. Barrowman’s panel ended, Bruce Campell’s panel was next.

After Bruce Campell’s panel, I left the room to go to the bathroom and eat. I used almost all 30 minutes I took to eat and such and by the time I got into the room, the seat I had for Bruce Campell’s panel was taken so I had to sit in the back. I didn’t mind because at least I got to see Stephen Amell’s panel.

And after Stephen’s panel, I was able to move to a seat in the same row I sat in during the Bruce Campell’s panel. From there, I watched Nathan Fillion’s panel.

As you can see, I took the most photos of Nathan Fillion. My camera, which loves to be picky about when and where it takes photos, decided to behave the best for Nathan’s panel. So, most of the photos I took during the panel turned out clear.

After the panels were over, I wandered around the convention and then went back to the hotel. Saturday was the most popular day and I didn’t want to stick around for the parties. Although I thought about going to one of the parties, I figured it would be a popular party and would be crowded. So, I went back to the hotel and edited some of the photos I took that day.

Speaking of photos, here’s the Flickr gallery of the photos I took on Saturday!

Sunday…

Sunday was supposed to be the day I skipped the convention and went home to rest. Instead, I stayed for a few hours and took photos of everything I thought I’d miss the most from the convention.

Of course, the Daleks got their pictures taken…

And when I was taking this photo I thought I was going to get chased by the Dalek. Like I did back in 2012. Spooky….

And to my joy, K-9 joined the Daleks in driving around and seeing everyone standing near the Az Tardis booth…

It’s kind of dumb how much I love that Tin Dog. I’m serious. XD

I saw R2-D2 again…

And last but not least the Delorean/Time Machine made my list of to-take photos….

I also took photos of cosplayers, but I have a “no posting photos of cosplayers I don’t personally know” rule here on my blog. (It’s a long story…) I did post photos of the cosplayers in my Sunday gallery on Flickr here and on my Tumblr in this tag here.

While I was at the convention, bought some stuff while I was there. My favorite purchase is the Warrior Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. I’ve been searching for the Warrior Doctor’s sonic screwdriver since I watched the 50th anniversary episode, but I could never get one. I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw one for sale at the convention. I bought it and now it sits with my 10th and 11th Doctor screwdrivers. :3

I also got autographs! I didn’t get as many as I thought it would be… actually I got three, but I’m happy with the ones I got.

Well, that was my adventures at the 2014 Phoenix Comicon! I hope you enjoyed it and I can’t wait to go again next year!