CRM @Fan Expo Boston 2018
Written by Aesthel
Photo: Emily Rey
Just 2 blue girls havin a good time
Cosplay Realm is so thankful for the fact that we were brought to Fan Expo Boston Comic Con 2018 as official press! This is the second convention we have covered as press, the first being Katsucon 2018. It was a huge honor to be invited to the convention and cover it and we had such a fantastic time! Fan Expo Boston 2018 was held August 10-12th at the Boston Convention Center. We attended all three days of the convention and we took so many photos and met so many incredible people!
Aesthel shot by Emily Rey
Emily shot by Aesthel
This was our first time ever attending this convention and also both of our first experiences at a Comic Con convention as opposed to a more anime based convention and there was a huge difference! It was amazing seeing creators, actors, and celebrities just right there interacting among the attendees. Celebrities featured at this year’s convention included Christopher Lloyd, Michael J. Fox, Tom Wilson, and Lea Thompson who were brought together for a Back to the Future reunion. Other celebrities attending the convention included Jeff Goldblum, Evangeline Lilly, Jason Momoa, William Shatner, Catherine Tate, Oliver and James Phelps, Mark Sheppard, Chris Sarandon, Cary Elwes, Wallace Shawn, Jewel Staite, Billy Dee Williams, Famke Janssen, Amy Jo Johnson, Freddie Prinze Jr., Paul Reubens, Brent Spiner, Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, and Joe Flanigan. The convention also hosted an assortment of voice actors, comic creators, professional cosplayers, and YouTubers among it’s guests.
Kylo Ren: Frank Swolo | shot by Emily Rey
Cosplay by: @MatthewtheHenry
Over the three days of the convention we met so many great cosplayers! Some who were new to the community such as @frankswolo who cosplayed an incredibly accurate Kylo Ren and @zz.cosplay who had an amazing Doctor Strange cosplay and told us that this was one of her first times going all out on a cosplay. Other cosplayers we saw at the convention for a while. Some have even been featured in the magazine like @cowbuttcrunchies who previously has been featured in the July 2017 issue. It was so cool to meet them in person! Some of our personal favorite moments of the entire weekend was when we told cosplayers about the magazine. It brought us so much joy to see the way people’s faces would light up after hearing that they would be published in a magazine. We loved letting people look at copies we were carrying around of past issues so they could see examples of the magazine!
Cosplayers:
Doctor Strange Cosplay by: @zz.cosplay
Cosplayer @sailorpandah
Another big note on meeting cosplayers; on Friday we arrived at the convention and picked up our press badges. We decided to take a walk around the exhibit hall so we could map where everything was. We ended up walking up to Jessica Nigri’s booth and getting to chat with her for a few minutes and that was pretty mind blowing. Jessica Nigri has been a huge inspiration to both of us since we first started doing cosplay, and meeting her in person was such a fun experience. She was so genuine and kind and we both got pretty excited when we told her about Cosplay Realm and she said she had heard of us before!
On Saturday of the convention we went all in on work mode! Aesthel geared up in her Star Wars Twi’lek cosplay and Em dressed in a stylish casual business look. We both really loved visiting the large booth belonging to the Rebel Legion, 501st Legion, and Mandalorian Mercs while Aesthel was in her Star Wars cosplay! The booth was a large four sided area surrounded by cosplayers, photo ops, droids, and even a make up demo from Wretched Hive Creations (whose work has previously been featured in the Women of Pop Culture issue of Cosplay Realm). On Saturday we also hung out with our friend Lucy (@Mourningdoves on Instagram) and her boyfriend, it was so nice to see them! Lucy was cosplaying as Raven from Teen Titans and she looked absolutely PERFECT! Emily got some beautiful photos of her when the two of them did a mini shoot during the con.
Black Rose Cosplay (Lucy) as Raven from Teen Titans shot by Emily
Cosplayer: @Harleyhaquinn
Aesthel in her Star Wars OC Vasani shot by Emily Rey
On Sunday of the convention we got up early and grabbed some Starbucks before heading back to our room at Yotel Boston to record Rebel Realm Episode 3. It was really cool to record an episode of the podcast on location like that! In that episode of the podcast we did a big in the moment overview of our convention experience so far and we had so many stories and things to share. After heading to the convention, Aesthel was able to meet three of the Back to the Future cast members, another huge experience! We both left a little early on Sunday before the convention closed. After working so hard all weekend we were so excited to jump right in and start producing and publishing content!
Luca CEO of Luca Jackets
We focused a lot on taking photos for our convention coverage, but we also tried something new and took a lot of video coverage of the con! We spent a lot of time through the weekend vlogging and Emily took a lot of footage on her GoPro! She has a really cool cinematic look at the convention and some of the cosplayers and has a vlog up on her YouTube channel! Aesthel meanwhile mostly focused on vlogging the experience and has a three part vlog series of the weekend up on her channel. We also did some feature videos like a look at the Luca Jackets booth which is up on the Cosplay Realm official Youtube channel along with the podcast episodes! If you would like to see the full album of our convention coverage photos, they are all up on the Cosplay Realm Magazine Facebook page! You can also find more Fan Expo Boston coverage in our Sci-Fi issue: available September 1st!
Check out Aesthel's vlogs here:
