Summoner Wars Cosplay at GenCon
Sera Eldwyn Appears at the Convention in Person
[Note, this has been re-posted with cmarie's permission from the PlaidHatGames.com forums. Click here to view the original post.]
Without question, the highlight of my GenCon experience this year was my Summoner Wars cosplay!! This was my first year attending GenCon, and I wanted to have a costume to really embrace the whole experience. From the very beginning, I always wanted the character to be from Summoner Wars. There was never any question whatsoever about that, OR about who specifically it would be. The project was in the works as far back as April, and I did most of the stuff for the dress/accessories in June and July. The staff came together in the last couple weeks. I got lots of help from creative family members. Here’s the final product:
On Thursday, mr. cmarie and I did True Dungeon, Friday was starter deck tournament day, and then Saturday was the long-awaited Costume Day. I had recruited BTBAM as an inside track -- he knew about it and helped confirm when it would be a good time for me to approach the booth (thanks!), which was really helpful (although in retrospect it seemed like most of the people -- minus Bistro perhaps -- were there most of the time). As I was heading into the dealer hall, I was recognized by someone who said he was a playtester and took a picture. (Andrew, maybe?)
I was thrilled to share the excitement with the guys at the booth. Yay! Colby declared that it was the first Summoner Wars cosplay ever, and we got a picture.
Then I asked Colby to sign my Sera Eldwyn card (and had it in my badge holder for the rest of the day to show people the art). When I mentioned needing a second deck so I could keep the signed card safe, he shrugged and said something like, “I can’t sell Sera Eldwyn her own deck, just take it” and gave it to me. Then I chatted with some people individually -- below is a pic with BTBAM.
After that, visited more folks at the SW tournament. Also a very fun time! More picture taking and general excitement.
Then came the costume parade and contest. Here's a great picture by the Indy Star (please disregard purchasing info below, it is the only way I can directly link to the photo). For the contest I wrote a blurb for the emcee to read, which included the following statement: “Christy is portraying Sera Eldwyn from the board game Summoner Wars. Sera Eldwyn is the original summoner of the Vanguards, a faction with healing powers.” So there was a brief plug for SW.
At one point during the con, I walked past a father-son pair playing SW on the floor, and said hello to them and showed them the Sera card since they weren’t familiar with the VG. The father was playing the Filth and the son, who was quite young (5? 6?), was the Benders. This kid was excitedly jabbering a mile a minute about the game, showing me the Sorgwen card in his hand and admitting that he shouldn’t talk about this in front of his dad (since that would reveal what card he had), but she can get somebody else to attack again and isn’t that cool, etc. The dad good-naturedly pointed out that he was getting his butt kicked by the kid. They were having a great time and it was a passionate SW fan in the making.
All in all, the costume was a BLAST. Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive and enthusiastic. I am enjoying all manner of post-event reflections via the interwebs/social media -- battle reports, emails/PMs, photos/video, blogs/Facebook, etc. Loving it all. Not sure what will happen next year, but I am already looking forward to it!
