Over the years, my family and I have created a number of costumes. Here are a few of our favorites!

In 2013, my daughter Jo created a Lady Doctor costume (long before there WAS a Lady Doctor Who!), and I built this steampunk K-9 to follow her around. It had a big remote control car as a base, and I could control it from off stage. She won Best Youth Costume in the 2013 DragonCon Masquerade!

In 2012, Jo and I entered the DragonCon Masquerade as Totoro and his little human friend Satsuki. I made Totoro–he was about sixteen feet tall! We won Best Cartoon Characters in the 2012 DragonCon Masquerade.

Totoro was so big, we had to rent a van to haul him to Atlanta!

That same year, Jo entered the DragonCon costume contest (a different event, with no performance element) with a costume she made all by herself–Steve from Minecraft! This was an amazing costume. She mapped out every pixel on the costume to match the actual character from the video game. Jo won Best Youth Costume AND Fan Favorite in the contest!

In 2011, it was a full-on family act as my wife Wendi and daughter Jo joined me on stage at the DragonCon Masquerade as Space Ghost, Brak, and Zorak from the 1960s cartoon Space Ghost!

Zorak (the mantis-looking dude) was a full-body puppet my wife, wearing all black, operated from behind.

At the end of the day, we were all beat–but we had had a great day.

In 2010, we took a lot of costumes to DragonCon as “hall costumes”–costumes not meant for any competition, but just worn for fun while walking around all day during the convention. One day, I went as the Prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius Black.

2009 was the first year we entered the DragonCon Masquerade. I am Aku, the tall black character, and Jo is Samurai Jack, characters from the amazing cartoon Samurai Jack.

 

I was really proud of the head!

And this has to be one of my favorite things ever–someone caught me taking Aku down the double escalators at the Marriott hotel at DragonCon that year. It was a trick–I couldn’t see out very well! But I had fun making Aku look around, like he was looking at everyone in the hotel. Check it out:

And long, long ago in 2002 (so long that our digital camera was pretty crappy!) I made a Starman costume, based on the DC Comics character. That year, the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 were the emcees, which was a pretty big thrill for me. My wife Wendi made the awesome Starman jacket! I still have it and wear it around town.