The Beast Bits of Halloween

See what I did there? The Beast Bits…
Posting a day early to celebrate the Spookiest Time of Year – Halloween.
Trigger Warning – There is (not real) Blood in this Post…

I love Magic and the Moon, and Pumpkins, and Blood and Gore (when it’s not real), and lacy Spider Webs, Bats and Potions, and Haunted Houses, and Cats…I always love cats! And they all come together for October 31^st – Halloween.

So what is Halloween for you?

Bats flying free, Trick or Treat, or Hot Chocolate in a cosy coffee shop decorated with pumpkins. Do Dragons sparkle across your Autumn sky? Gargoyles and Demons slink about amid the curl of Death as flowers and leaves dry while the Fae hold court. Pumpkins, carved and soup, Potions and Poisons, beware and be careful!

© Lisa Shambrook

We’ve never shied away from blood and gore… Bekah’s make-up artist years have served us well with Guts and Zombies, and Slit Throats, Bullet Holes, and Pencil Protrusions. As a family we embraced our Halloween Evil. Do you fear Clowns, Darth Maul, or Vampires, or does the Grim Reaper haunt your soul?

© Lisa Shambrook © Bekah Shambrook © Cait Shambrook  © Dan Shambrook 

We’ve also embraced the softer side of Halloween, I mean, who doesn’t love a Black Cat? We’ve rescued Bats, listened to Owls and kissed Toads! We love the Magic of Harry Potter, and any chance to Cosplay.

© Lisa Shambrook © Bekah Shambrook

And then there’s the Creepy side of Blood, and Skeletons, and Black Magic. Can you deal with Creepy Crawlies, and their fragile Webs? Full Moon and Darkness fill the Autumn night and take us into chilly Winter. Toadstools, Candles, and Cauldrons, and have you ever stayed in a Spooky Haunted House?

© Lisa Shambrook

What makes Halloween for you?

Destination Star Trek 50th Anniversary

I’ve been a Trekkie for a long, long time,
and I always wanted to boldly go to a Star Trek Con!

Since my teenage years watching Jean-Luc Picard, “Make it so” has been a watchword, a phrase that encapsulates my own dreams, and the spirit of adventure that we all need. So, throughout The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager… (sorry, haven’t seen Enterprise, yet) and eagerly looking forward to the new incarnation, I am right there. Got the movies box set and enjoying the new films and parallel universe, and handing the fandom down to my children too, yes, I’m parenting well!

© Lisa Shambrook – Caitlin Shambrook – Bekah Shambrook

Birmingham NEC was the destination for the 50^th Star Trek Anniversary in Europe and we spent our Saturday amongst a sea of red, gold, and blue. Uniforms of all generations, and wonderful cosplay! Data, the Borg, Klingons, lots of Andorians, and many more aliens.

© Lisa Shambrook – Bekah Shambrook

My daughters cosplayed as Spock and Jadzia Dax, Vince wore his Enterprise Haynes Manual t-shirt, and I wore sleek black with my DS9 communicator!

© Lisa Shambrook

We saw Armin Shimerman (Quark – DS9), Walter Koenig (Chekov – TOS), Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris – Voyager) and Nicole De Boer (Ezri Dax – DS9) signing photos. Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi – TNG), Gates McFadden (Dr Crusher – TNG), Will Wheaton (Wesley Crusher – TNG), George Takei (Sulu – TOS), and William Shatner (Captain Kirk – TOS) were also there. We’d have loved to have seen Brent Spiner (Data – TNG), Michael Dorn (Worf – TNG), John De Lancie (Q – TNG, Voyager), Jonathan Frakes (Will Riker – TNG) and obviously Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard – TNG) but many of these actors had other commitments.

© Lisa Shambrook

I’d hoped to find exhibits of the ships, Enterprise etc, which would have been cool, but there was a great art exhibition, talks, and lots of mechandise.

Destination Star Trek Art Gallery

Anyway, we had lots of fun, photo opportunities, great cosplay and the pleasure of being amongst our people! 

Here’s to the next 50 years
to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations,
to boldly go where no one has gone before…

Pumpkins and All Black for Halloween…

We don’t shy away when it comes to dressing up – you’ve probably noticed, but pumpkins are another thing all together!

© Lisa Shambrook

We’d never carved pumpkins before and trying to decide what to carve took more time than sculpting them!

Pumpkins and ghost cakes © Lisa Shambrook

I also made ghost fairy cakes…to take for the treat table.

Pokemon Pikachu, pumpkin inside a pumpkin and a lone wolf howling © Lisa Shambrook

Bekah opted for Pikachu from Pokemon, and the following day Caitlin spent a long time choosing to carve a howling wolf and I, with no idea, finally decided to carve a pumpkin inside a pumpkin!

The Grim Reaper, Hybrid Bat, Steampunk Cat and Gothic China Doll © Lisa Shambrook

Outfits, of course, were well-planned and fun, and we were ready to party, or at least hang out as socially as those with social anxieties do.
Note: we don’t all have socialising issues, hubby can be quite the extrovert, especially when disguised as Death!   

2000 and 2015 © Lisa Shambrook

We missed Dan, and we wonder kind of Halloween celebrations go on in Canada? So if you miss Dan too, like us, here’s a throwback to the Year 2000…and a contrast with now!

© Lisa Shambrook

…and lastly, my pumpkin won me bubbles and ballons! Yay!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!

How are you celebrating?

Families That Cosplay Together – Stay Together…Cardiff Comic Con

Have you ever wanted to release that inner geeky child?

If yes, then Comic Cons are the way to go! 

Getting ready to play – Lara Croft Tomb Raider 2013 – © Lisa Shambrook

My daughter, Bekah, of Arkhdrauth Cosplay, is a cosplay enthusiast and after her first Comic Con dressed as Thranduil, we were all raring to have a go… So after a few months of preparation and much costume design…we headed off to Cardiff Comic Con.

Lisa Shambrook – Lara Croft Tomb Raider 2013 by Antti Karppinen Photography, Alias Creative

Vince Shambrook – Indiana Jones by Antti Karppinen Photography, Alias Creative

Bekah Shambrook of Arkhdrauth Cosplay – Maleficent by Antti Karppinen Photography, Alias Creative

Bekah entered the Community Masquerade and placed First with her magnificent Maleficent cosplay!

Daniel Shambrook – Ghost Call of Duty by Antti Karppinen Photography, Alias Creative

Caitlin Shambrook – Daenerys by Antti Karppinen Photography, Alias Creative

This was a family affair and we had a great time. The atmosphere at Cardiff was brilliant and the cosplayers fantastic. I also really loved seeing all the families arriving with little cosplayers…start young!

Cardiff Comic Con – Daenerys and Margery, Ghost and Star Lord, Indiana Jones and The Penguin, Maleficent and Maleficent, two Indys, Daryl Dixon and Lara Croft – © Lisa Shambrook

Cardiff Comic Con, Maleficent and Star Lord, Daenerys x2 and Margery, Daenerys, Tauriel, Aragorn and Lara Croft, Daryl Dixon and Daenerys, Space Marine and Ghost, Star Lord, Lara Croft and The Terminator – © Lisa Shambrook

The organisers did a great job and special thanks must go to Antti Karppinen of Antti Karppinen Photography, Alias Creative who took the most amazing photographs of almost all of the cosplayers, because he believes that the fans, the cosplayers, are what Comic Con is all about and he wants to recognise the passion and work they put into their costumes! He made a lot of cosplayers very happy with his brilliant photographs!

So, to release the child in you…dress up…honestly, it’ll do you the world of good! 

Have you ever wanted to Cosplay, if so who would you choose?

If you have already – who did you go as? 

Family Photoshoot – Post Apocalyptic Survivors

Sometimes family life feels a little like surviving the apocalypse – and with the genre so popular right now – we decided to go dystopian with our family photoshoot!

We’re ready…

It had to be something big…Dan is going away for two years and we wanted to do something epic! So we sourced and customised clothes, made weaponry and set out to Pembrey Country Park. The old, hidden munitions tunnels were perfect!

What’s in there?

Cait, Dan and Bekah looked the part, with dystopian designs and post apocalyptic accessories!

Survivors…

Roxy accompanied us, ready to chase off attackers…

Nothing’s getting past us…

And I showed off my kick ass scar…

Don’t even try it…

We made it out of the bunker and scared off the enemy…

War cry!

And we were ready for anything…

Battle ready…

It was cold, very cold – but also epic, very epic!

Hardened survivors…

All photos were taken with Bekah’s Nokia Lumia 1020 via tripod, and we had lots of fun falling over on that grassy hill, so that may be why we don’t look so post apocalyptic serious!

Please don’t use our photos without crediting and linking to us: The Last Krystallos and Arkhdrauth Cosplay. But feel free to Facebook, Tweet, G+ and Pinterest them from here!

Weapons were made from children’s toys spray-painted matt black, Vince’s bullet belt is literally made from a belt and gold spray-painted batteries held on with black electrical tape!

Hair and make-up all by Bekah, and Bekah’s antlers come from the amazing Hysteria Machine!

We put together our own outfits, lots of ripping, tearing, cheese grating and painting to distress.

So, we’ve done Steampunk, railway tracks, snow, and more…what next? Who knows?

What would you do for a family photoshoot?

All of the things…

You can find me, Lisa, on my website and Facebook, and Bekah at Arkhdrauth Cosplay on FB and her blog Adofaer and Arkhdrauth. We also run an Etsy shop Amaranth Alchemy…come and visit us and like us on Facebook to know about all our latest special offers!

Cosplay Heroes – The Fans

My daughter just returned from her first Comic Con: Cardiff Film and Comic Convention at the Motorpoint Arena. She had an amazing time, and one day she’ll take me with her!

It was the culmination of great desire and months of hard, hard work creating her own costume…to go to a Comic Con and not cosplay? No way!

She finally decided on Thranduil from The Hobbit and got down to it. She needed much, including a sword, crown, elf ears, long blond wig and an elven coat. I saw it in many states of array and watched the whole costume come together. I was wide-eyed at the range of her talent, talent she already had and new ones! The silver coat was miraculously hand sewn from scratch, and is gorgeous!

The money, time and dedication that goes into a cosplay costume is legendary, and a lot…then she got to wear it, and she looked stunning!

Bekah – Thranduil by Antti Karppinen Photography, Alias Creative. Cardiff Film and Comic Con – Nov 2014

She got to take photos with Sylvester McCoy, the Seventh Doctor and Radagast The Brown and also sat upon the Iron Throne! She was stopped, too many times to count, by other fans wanting to take pics with her, and she loved the time to meet so many like-minded cosplayers! The costumes were first rate…and this is where the most amazing guy turned up.

Antti Karppinen, a young Finnish photographer, was there with a small set up and took photos of the fans. Seriously, this young man’s talent is fantastic, but his ethos was even better…he wanted to take pictures of the fans because he realised what the Comic Con was all about – without the fans the celebrities wouldn’t be celebrities – and he wanted to give something back.

Please read his story here, you won’t regret it and take a look at the other stunning photos he took! Assasin’s Creed, The Beast, Constantine,Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Super Girl, Spiderman, Loki and more…they all rock! Follow him on Facebook too.

His photo was probably the culminating moment of Comic Con, a permanent photographic record of a costume that took hours and hours of blood, sweat and tears, and lots of determination and love! And a photo of my daughter that I can treasure…Now take me next time!