This Motor City Comic-Con was my third time out in the Storm Shadow and there’s a lot of repairs and updates that need to be done.

First is the backpack — it’s finished.  An unfortunate side-effect of going on the cheap and using cardboard with wood-grain contact paper is that it’s still cardboard.  Cardboard can’t quite hold up to the rigors of convention crowds so as the bow attached to the back kept getting jostled, it eventually broke the point where it was attached to the pack.

Next, the uniform.  It’s too big.  It was big on me last year, but then I went and lost 15 pounds, so now it fits even larger.  I was hoping to get a smaller size in time for the con this year, but with a week’s notice that a bunch of other Cobras were showing up, there wasn’t enough time.

Finally the mask.  I hadn’t realized until looking at the pictures that I was wearing the wrong layer on top.  I double up on the mask because the material tends to be somewhat thin and a little transparent when stretched out.  The Under Armour version is worn inside out and on top because the stitching is correct on it though the UA logo is heat-sealed onto the damn thing and can’t be removed.  My first attempt at sewing one last year had turned into an unmitigated disaster so I go with the commercial version.

The 501st’s annual appearance at Motor City Comic Con in Novi is officially in the books.  This weekend was a tremendously good time.  Our plan was to attend Saturday only, with our now traditional “provide dinner for the masses” on Saturday evening to eliminate the usual problem of trying to wrangle approximately 20 people and coming to consensus on an agreeable place to eat, and then dealing with the crowd and wait time when there.

We arrived Friday evening at the hotel.  We unloaded boxes upon boxes of food and supplies, and set up for the next day.  Lori would stay at the hotel to prep dinner while I went to the convention (which really holds no interest for her anyway).  Friday night, we met up with a subset of the people at Gus O’Connor’s where I watched the Boston Bruins flame out in spectacular, embarrassing fashion to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Saturday was spent at the con.  I joined in on the Droid Hunt, and then later on, changed into my Storm Shadow while a friend put on her top-notch Baroness costume.  I returned to the hotel to then engage in partying for the rest of the night.  I also debuted my costume variant of TK Gladiator.

Today, we cleaned up the destruction in the hotel room, packed up, checked out, and had a leisurely lunch at Ruby Tuesday.  Picked up the dog from my mom’s house, came home and have effectively vegetated all day.