In 2010 I decided to try out costuming again. It had been 20 years at least since I had anything to do with costumes outside of Halloween. Not necessarily by choice, but because I was in the military and I moved so much I could not keep up with Geek culture you could say and I never really had friends who got into that type of thing. Actually, I didn’t know anybody who ever went to any convention. So my days of comic book conventions were slim and almost none.
I am not sure how I got to the point I wanted to go to a convention or how I became brave enough to dress up not knowing if I would be the oldest by far doing so, but it happened. My now wife and I banned together to form some costumes from Doctor Who in order to attend Chicago Tardis 2010. We were so dedicated that I was traveling on the road for work and staying in a hotel with my sculpt in progress, working on it little by little each night. I made sure I put up the do not disturb sign on my room so my terrifying skull like sculpt in progress would not scare anybody and also to keep it safe.
Unfortunately, we made no work in progress pictures, heck, we never thought we would do much after that or even get an award. We even forgot our camera at the convention but lucky for us the internet helps to pull in a few photos here and there.
My wife decided to go as a Vashta and we had to work on her shoulder harness and helmet on weekends hoping we came close to the show’s costume. Considering at the time there was no pattern or anything on the internet to help with the build, we had to guess and freehand it all. For our first build we did not think it was too bad. We even added a flashlight to the chest to give the same light effect from the show and in case we got lost. The skull was just a Halloween mask we found and had cut so she could throw it on quickly. Since this time new materials have surfaced to make this suit better, perhaps a rebuild is in the future?
The above costumes were given the Best Craftsmanship award at Chicago Tardis 2010.