I had the pleasure of shooting with ever-amazing Anna Fischer at DragonCon this year. Here are a few of the finished shots. I’ll add more to the Samus gallery as she releases then. Untill then, please enjoy my version of Samus Aran!

Per normal, our geeky vacation was filled with a horde of out of town friends, insane costumes, Film/TV stars, panels and more drinks than you can shake a sonic screwdriver at. And like every recent year, I didn’t carry a camera to capture all the crazy shenanigans (Yay no incriminating evidence!).

But this year, something very different and once-in-a-lifetime happened..

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Spiderman, <a href=”www.burnsactor.com”>Chris Burns </a> and I were asked by ‘the Man’ himself to ride along-side him as the grand marshals of the DragonCon parade as Spiderman and Mary Jane!

After peeing our collective X-men underoos with excitement, we realized in terror that we only had 2 days till the parade. Which wouldn’t have been a problem if we had either a Spiderman suit or a Mary Jane costume. Ok, great… Mary Jane we can put together with found clothing items.. Spiderman, not so much.. So we turned to our numerous spandex-clad superhero friends for leads on a suit we can rent or borrow. But as you can imagine, an awesome Spidey suit is expensive, more often than not one-of-a-kind,  and tailored specifically to the person who made it. Needless to say, they are insanely hard to come by, let alone find someone that will let their suit be worn by someone else.  So we were super lucky to have Sean Hettler as a friend (and <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcZ3VtNfQs0&feature=plcp”>Guardian</a> in Avengers Assemble the Series) love and trust us enough to lend his Spidey suit. To him, we are endlessly grateful. Without his generosity (Max too!), this experience would have never happened.

Thankfully it DID happen.. And We were Grand Marshals in the DragonCon parade with Stan Lee.. Talk about a one-in-a-lifetime experience. Thank goodness there were people taking pictures, because it felt like a surreal dream that no one would believe if it wasn’t for the glorious pixelated truth. Here are a few that were taken from flickr and the web (thank you to the watermarked owners for their use!).

And season 3 starts off with none other than a visit from Kang the Conqueror played by Grant Imahara from Mythbusters.

Look for more of Kang AND Future Tony in the upcoming weeks from Avengers Assemble the Series!
Until then, please watch, share and enjoy the nerd parody fun!

This is the first time in my costuming life that I have planed a costume around a wig. I came across this exceptional purple wig and just had to find something fun, exciting, and hopefully dealing with pointy objects, to do with it. Ultimate Alliance 2 Psylocke became the answer.

I had the costume, BGZ Studios had the camera/lights, Black Knight Martial Arts had the Dojo and pointy things. Here are a few images that came from it. Enjoy!

When Darrell Ardita of BGZ Studios first asked me if I wanted to be a part of a practical fire shoot as Dark Phoenix. The only thing I could say was, “So you want to set me on FIRE?! Eff ya! Lets DO this!” I mean, it’s not every day someone wants to *safely* set you on fire as one of you favorite characters of all time for a photo-shoot.
We began the month long process of planning, training and working out our ideas for the shoot. I have done some stunt work in the past, but nothing more than fight training, high falls and a bit of parkour. Never any burn work. So we started with a day long burn training class with the pro stunt team that would be handling my fire education, safety and all my burns. These guys are all amazing at what they do, I was very lucky to have such a seasoned and professional team in charge of my safety.
The first thing I learned is.. NEVER WEAR A REALLY SEXY BRA to a burn class, it will get ruined! I didn’t expect to have to strip down to my undies in front of everyone and be submerged in freezing cold, viscus flame retardant goo in 40 degree weather. But all those things happened. My stunt coordinator kept saying, “If you are cold and wet, you are safe.” I must have been the safest person on fire ever.. Just look at my face in the first picture.. I’m pretty sure I said every cuss word I know and even made a few up as this cold sludge-covered shirt came into contact with my torso.

With flame school out of the way, Darrell went to work building his team & I started breaking down my costume. There was no way I could get all the wet safety layers under my unitard without looking like a sweaty, red Stay-Puff marsh-mellow woman. And with Spandex reacting to flame like plastic, I had to design a way to not ACTUALLY go up in flames. Not sure I can resurrect as easily as Jean can in the comics.
Our compromise to keep me relatively safe but still retain the look of the character was to cut the arms off my old suit and replace them with kidskin leather gloves. I found some 40in black leather gloves online, purchased 3 pair, stripped them, cut them to the correct shape and length, then dyed them metallic gold to match the rest of the suit. So on the day, I would have a Nomex sleeve, 2 pair of cotton gloves (both SATURATED in flame retardant goo), then cover with the long gold leather gloves. Stay-Puff design problem solved, and I would still have a few layers of safety between me and the fire.
Here’s the link to a little behind the scenes video from the actual shoot with commentary from Darrell, the stunt team and myself.

Dark Phoenix Ablaze BTS Video

If ever given the opportunity to do it again, I would do it in a second! I can not express how much I loved working with so many talented people for this shoot. I never felt unsafe, the experience was simply amazing and Darrell’s photo’s came out better than I could have ever imagined. In the end, I think we all did Dark Phoenix justice. And that, in itself is a cosmic achievement.

But don’t take my word for it…

New Wonder Woman and Donna Troy photoshoot shot by the ever amazing Chris Burns

So it was an honor to sit down with her for a Marvel.com cosplay interview (Click below image for the full interview).

http://fans.marvel.com/jstephens/blog/2011/11/28/cosplay_profile:_chris__miracole_burns

Big thanks to Judy for taking the time out to make sense of our costumed insanity!

And what’s an evil Villainess without her goons?!?! I was joined by the very loyal Chris Burns and Christian Sanchez

Here are just a few shots that are begining to serface from sets with the amazing Judy Stephens (Marvel.com) and Anna Fischer

I hope to update my Cosplay Gallery gallery with a section just for Madame Hydra very soon!

In the meantime… HAIL HYDRA!!

And here is a little video of me and my whip in action!

http://yfrog.com/jj2rcz

Click the link below for the full interview.

MTV_Geek_Dragon-Con-2011_Anatomy-of-a-Cosplayer

11/16 – Relocated myself, the husband, 2 dogs and a fish to our apartment on St. Simon’s Island which will be our home for the next 2 months. No small task.

11/17-12/5- 2 weeks of unpacking, inventorying, and organizing all Wardrobe from England and rentals from Western Costume. Summoning superhuman strength to fully control my spontaneous Nerd seizures from the awesomeness that is these movie costumes. All while having fun answering questions like, “What is a Hell Fire Club”, ‘What are So-and-so’s powers’ etc. Yep, I am SO in my element as resident wardrobe comic nerd.

I also got to violate, I mean dress Kevin Bacon’s dummy since he was so life-like, no one else wanted to touch him (after working FX makeup on Walking Dead, this was a cake-walk).

11/6- First Day of shooting! I watch our US Supervisors 7-yr old son Hunter pass Jennifer Lawrence in full Mystique makeup on a turn table for a promotional photo-shoot. She sees him, says hi and waves. He just non-nonchalantly says ‘Hey’ and continues down the hall like this is an every-day occurrence. We exchange looks, flabbergasted by his lack of reaction. She laughingly responds, ‘Kids these days; I fully blame video games! They ruin everything!’

During lunch, I remind all our CIA extras that they are wearing vintage suits and that if they get anything on them, I will cut them.  Needles to say, no extras needed to be harmed that day.

12/17- Chris makes the drive out to Jekyll Island where we are filming the beach battle at the end of the movie, passing at-least 10 signs stating this island is a park and there is NO Gas stations! Makes it on fumes. Thankfully Transpo saves the day with some gas. Returned the favor with a nice bottle of Whiskey.

Holy shit!! I touched Kevin Bacon.. Now how many degrees does that make me?!

The beach set (beached sub, downed Black Bird and the dunes)

Chris standing in with the cast as Alex/Riptide since he wasn’t in the states yet.

Can you see why he ended up becoming his Photo Double?

The Black Bird has seen better days.

Stunt men hanging out inside the Black Bird shell trying to keep warm. This thing was HUGE!

The kids suited up for the final battle

1st AD (2nd unit) Lee Cleary standing in for Riptide. He was a trip to work with!

Teased Jason Flemming about something he was seeing in the ocean. Completely had him going that it was a piece of the X-jet wing and was set dec (it was really a rock that you can only see at low tide). When he figured out I was pulling his leg, I was promptly chased down the beach by a howling Azazel.

12/6- Seriously cold today with 15 degree windchill. Helicopter was on set, the cast/crew got buzzed quite a few times. Still finding mini-sand dunes in my clothes from that one.

Kevin’s dummy waiting for his closeup.

Sebastian Shaw defeated.. or taking a nap.. Not sure which..

12/10- Open box labeled ‘Headdress’ from England. Gasp like a little girl when I see Magneto’s ‘End-game’ helmet. Immediately put it on and run around the wardrobe room like I’m 12.

Also got in Wolverine’s principal wardrobe from ‘Origins’. Guess that settled if there was going to be a cameo or not. Promptly put on his belt and ran around like an 18 year old fangirl.

12/11- Fassbender gets bored between takes , ‘borrows’ a Gator from the grips and takes off down the beach in full Magneto attire. I don’t know why, but seeing Magneto speeding around on a 4 wheeler makes me giggle.

12/13- Currently wearing at least 5 layers of clothing. Look a bit like a terrorist Ninja. It is so cold on the beach that the sand freezes solid. *eep*

12/14- Helping an X-men pee is funny. There is NO WAY they can do it unassisted. Ah the glamorous side of being a Set Costumer. If someone told me that in 3 years I would be helping leather-clad superhero’s use the restroom, I would have had them institutionalized.  (And F.Y.I. the worst suit to get in and out of is Havok. That suit is like a puzzle!!)

12/15- Mesmerized by watching stunt Azazal and stunt Beast cuddling for warmth wile hanging from wires spinning 10 feet in the air. Even covered in paint, fur, prosthesis, leather and wardrobe, they were sill freezing.
Beast had just finished his fight scene. This was his ‘mean’ face.

12/16- My stunt Banshee was doing wing tests for the producers/director today. He was in the flight suit with this ‘full’ wings laced into the costume, propped up on the back lift of the stunt truck. He looked a-bit like a leather clad yellow and black flying squirrel. I was lacing up his shoes when a black bird came to rest on the back of the truck, then another, and another. Before we knew it, there were about 20 black birds in very close proximity to their new winged pal. I called him Banshee the bird whisperer the rest of the day.

Watched the Azazal vs Azazal fight practice. Felt like I was seeing double all day (but it might have just been the hangover from the pub the night before). After catching a glimpse of my wrist tattoos (Phoenix and Dark Phoenix symbols) Flemming called me a ‘proper nerd’ and we had a nice little discussion about ‘how’ Nightcrawler was made.

The shiny balls and Azazal’s tail for FX

12/17- Spent the day watching the beach scene where ‘Charles’ get crippled by Magneto (deflecting bullets shot at him by Moria). I am happy to say that I have the shells that cripple Charles. Another neat X-Men nerd keepsake. This scene is so intense to watch. This collection of actors couldn’t have been chosen better for this film.

Charles with Moria and Raven

12/20-Spent a cold rainy night at ‘Atomic’ casino. Home of the Hell Fire Club

12/21- Got pulled over on the way to set going 60 in a 35. Thank goodness the cop was cool, I got off with a warning. One of our actors was 2 hours late to set. Our director left that actor dangling over the beach set on wire’s until he learned his lesson.

Note to self, don’t be late to set.. Even if I do get a ticket getting there.

12/22- The last day of principal photography in Georgia happened to be on my Birthday, what a present!! Everyone kicked butt and the day was amazing. I was even gifted a piece of the Black Bird as a Birthday present. It now sits on a special shelf in my nerd-cave. This film was such a blast to work on! I only hope it’s not the last epic superhero movie I have the pleasure to work on.