One thing I found really surprising about C2E2 is that they have a really lax policy when it comes to prop weapons and accessories. I remember when we were in line waiting to get into the main hall there was a girl behind us who had an aluminum baseball bat as part of her costume, on top of that she had a friend who was dressed as Link from Legend of Zelda and her friend had a metal sword with them. It wasn’t sharpened but it was made out of metal and you could still fuck somebody up with it. Like I said, it was really surprising how lax they were since I’ve been to other conventions where they were confiscating toy lightsabers, and cardboard and foam swords from people.

When I started running around C2E2 looking for cool costumes to photograph I felt a bit demoralized. Part of it was that I was scared that I would do a shitty job, but part of it was early on  my request for pictures was rejected from a Dr. Who whom had to meet a friend, and a Queen Mera and Wonderwoman who unfortunately were being swept away to do a photoshoot with one of those dudes who rolls up to a convention with a bunch of two SLR cameras, a crap tone of flash and lighting equipment, a Batman utility belt and a fishing vest with all those pockets. I talk shit on those guys but honestly, I think I might end up like one of them. I mean I won’t show up with a utility belt and fishing belt but I have been debating bringing an extra camera so I don’t have to swap lenses, and I have been meaning to bring a speedlite with me to help with lighting.

Anyway, after a couple laps around C2E2 I started to relax and just started snapping at anything that caught my eye and, in the end, I thought most of the pictures I took didn’t turn out that terrible.

Don’t believe? Well check out all the cosplayer photos I took below.

Here’s a storm trooper. I’m not sure if this guy is part of the 501st Legion or not. Looking back at my photos I just realized that there weren’t that many Star Wars cosplayers at C2E2. I’m not sure if I was just oblivious to them or maybe people in Chicago just aren’t that into Star Wars. I figured due to the weather I doubt I’d see that many Slave Princess Leias (the high was like 40 degrees that day), but still with Star Wars as big as it is, it’s pretty much a given I’d run into a bunch of Star Wars guys at a convention.

A Fry and Leela from Futurama. The Slurm can is a good detail.

A Hayley Atwell Peggy Carter wearing the red hat and blue coat that was so prevalent in all the promotional materials for the Marvel’s Agent Carter series.

A little Tick and Arthur. Compared to DC and Marvel the Tick is a pretty obscure comic book character so I was a bit surprised to find somebody having their kids dressed up like this, but I’m guessing the popularity and success of the Amazon Prime Tick series starring Peter Serafinowicz and Griffin Newman as the Tick and Arthur is enough to maintain interest in The Tick.

A family dressed as Team Rocket members Jesse and James with their baby dressed as Pikachu. The wigs are a good touch but if you want to be nitpicky their baby should be Meowth and not Pikachu.

An Aquaman wearing the classic orange shirt/green pants combo.

Emma Frost White Queen wearing the costume she wore in Astonishing X-Men vol. 3.

Evil Morty. Seeing this guy makes me hope that they’ll feature him more in the upcoming season of Rick and Morty. If they don’t resolve his storyline I hope that they at least continue it since it is 1 of the more interesting storylines they have going on.

Elsa and Anna from Frozen. I probably should have asked them to move so we wouldn’t have gotten the urinal display from the Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell in the background.

Lilo Pelekai and Cobra Bubbles from Lilo & Stitch. Compared to the Frozen cosplayers from the previous photo I actually like these guys better because I prefer people who choose to dress as characters from older or less popular Disney movies.

A father and son duo dressed as Link and Young Link respectively. The swords and shields were good touches. I also like the color contrast they created with the different shades of green.

A Swamp Thing on what look like homemade platform shoes. On those shoes I think the guy was like 8-feet tall. Those shoes really remind me of watching reruns of the Munsters on Nick at Nite when I was a kid and I would see Fred Gwynne playing the Frankenstein’s Monsteresque Herman Munster on thick ass platform shoes.

A little Miles Morales Spiderman.

Emperor Kuzco and Pacha from the Emperor’s New Groove. I remember when this movie came out it was considered a box-office disappointment but to be fair this movie did come out late in the year 2000s right after the Disney-Renaissance of the ’90s when everything Disney was cranking out was a smash hit. Although a lot of critics do consider it to be one of the better post-Disney Renaissance films made.

Here is what looks like a store-bought Captain Marvel costume. With Captain Marvel being released like 2 weeks before C2E2 I knew I was bound to run into a couple of these.

Tyrone Biggums, Dave Chappelle’s squeaky-voiced crack addict character from Chappelle’s Show.

Two members of the Water Tribe from Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra. Not sure if they’re supposed to be Katara and Sokka. The guy is missing Sokka’s manbun but the girl is rocking Katara’s hair-loopy things.

Speaking of Avatar: The Last Airbender here’s the Cabbage Merchant who kept getting his cart of cabbages wrecked. The guy was really committed to his character. When I asked him for a pic he really dropped all his cabbages on the floor and got down in the middle of a busy walkway. I had to ask him to move so he wasn’t in people’s way.

Sarah Williams from Labyrinth. I’m not going to lie, out of all the movies I’ve seen over the years Labyrinth is actually one of the few that I’ve never seen.

A Pyramid Head from the Silent Hill franchise. You know, Pyramid Head in real life isn’t that scary.

Although seeing this scene from Silent Hill 2 makes Pyramid Head fucking creepy as hell.

Deadpool in a Hawaiian shirt anda. Knife in his head. I feel I saw this in a comic but I can’t think of which issue or storyline it’s from.

An Infinity Gauntlet complete with all the Infinity Stones. With Avengers: Endgame coming up, something like this was expected, but I figured it would be a couple of Thanoses. This guy was a huge hit at the con with so many people asking for pics.

Fred and Wilma Flintstone. I really like how these guys were committed enough to walk around barefooted.

Walter White from Breaking Bad in his yellow jumpsuit/3M respirator mask meth cooking outfit.

Grunkle Stan from Gravity Falls. The giant ears, oversized glasses, the cane, and fez with Pacman on it. This guy really nailed this character down.

Batman’s rogues gallery. In case you have no idea who any of Batman’s villains are outside of the big ones like Joker, Riddler, Penguin, and Catwoman or in case you don’t know anybody who hasn’t been featured in any of the movies. From left to right you have Catwoman, two Poison Ivys, Scarecrow, and Dr. Hugo Strange. I didn’t notice this until I was resizing the photo but I managed to get these guys by the DC Comics booth.

The Doppleganger AKA Spider-Doppleganger that was created by Magus during Marvel’s Infinity War limited series in the ’90s. While Doppleganger did have six arms and spiked teeth I don’t think he had six eyes.

The Other Mother with buttons over her eyes from the stop-motion film Coraline. I remember seeing this movie on Netflix a while back and it is really creepy for a kids’ movie.

Disney villains Cruella De Vil, Mother Gothel, Maleficent from 101 Dalmations, Tangled, and Sleeping Beauty respectively.

I don’t want to sound mean with this but I’m guessing by the yoga and sweat pants these girls were going for like a Disney princess slumber party-theme with their outfits. Judging by their outfits I’m guessing from left to right we have Rapunzel from Tangled, Snow White from Snow White, Ariel from Little Mermaid, and Pocahontas from Pocahontas.

Psylocke from X-Men. The glowing katana is a good touch.

A unique touch on Mercy from Overwatch. I’m a bit surprised they let her in wearing rollerskates considering what a liability nightmare she could potentially be. I guess like the lax weapons policy staff at C2E2 must not give a shit about stuff like this. Although all it takes is one slip and fall or her bumping into somebody the wrong way to ruin it for everybody else.

Lilith from Borderlands 1. I’m a bit surprised I saw more than one Borderlands cosplayer at C2E2 since this was way before the launch trailer for Borderlands 3. I guess maybe she’s just really into Borderlands.

Some Disenchantment cosplayers. Considering that Disenchantment has been renewed for a twenty-episode second season which is due out sometime between 2020 and 2021 it is only a matter of time before some more Disenchantment cosplayers start popping up. From left to right we have Bunty, King Zog, and Princess Bean. I’m a bit surprised the chick on the left chose to do Bean’s lady in waiting, Bunty instead of like Queen Oona or Elfo or Luci, although I’m guessing she probably did it cause it was the easiest costume to pull off.

A Little Sister from the first Bioshock. This chick has really nailed that cold dead-eyed stare that they would give you in the game.

Hades and Meg from Disney’s 1997 animated film Hercules.

A Squirrel Girl. With Phase Three of the MCU coming to a close I’m wondering if Squirrel Girl will be making her live-action debut in Phase Four. I know there was supposed to be a live-action half hour TV series on Freeform based on the New Warriors featuring Squirrel Girl being played by Milana Vayntrub, the girl from the AT&T commercials but Freeform decided they weren’t going to air it so Marvel is shopping it elsewhere. Maybe this could be one of the shows that’ll be on Disney+?

Shuri and the T’Challa AKA Black Panther. I remember Shuri’s gauntlets looked like they were hand-made out of Styrofoam but the rest of their costumes look store-bought.

Another Captain Marvel cosplayer. This one wearing the ’90s grunge disguise that Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers had to wear while moving around on Earth, complete with a stuffed cat fulfilling the role of Goose who (spoiler alert!) isn’t a cat but an alien called a Flerken.

Foot Clan ninjas from the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series. These guys really bring me back because like anybody my age I loved the Turtles when I was growing up. I really wish I managed to get these guys straight on but unfortunately some guys were blocking my angle so this is the best I could do.

Luke Skywalker circa Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Looking through my photos he is probably the only other Star Wars cosplayer I got on camera.

The Cyborg Ninja/Gray Fox from Metal Gear Solid. He did a really good job on the helmet and the suit looks good. Although I wish he made actual bodyarmor instead of going with just a bodysuit.

The late Olenna Tyrell of House Tyrell from Game of Thrones. As you can tell by the black outfit and wine glass this is from Lady Tyrell’s final appearance on the show when the Lannisters attack High Garden and Jamie Lannister goes to personally kill Tyrell by giving her poison which she drinks with her wine.

The Ox-King/Goku’s father-in-law from Dragonball Z.

Cousin Itt from the Addams Family. On top of the costume this guy also had a sound machine with him to play Cousin Itt’s meeps. I kind of wish this person went through the hairs with a hot iron to straight them out. Cousin Itt looks a little unkempt.

Another Peggy Carter. This one wearing the military uniform from Captain America: The First Avenger. I really like how she got the hairstyle down too.

A Hulk Hogan that really reminds me of the animated version of the Hulkster that was in the episode of American Dad, “Stanny Tendergrass”.

A girl dressed as a 17th century French soldier. I’m not going to lie. I have no idea what she’s from.

A gender-swapped and pretty hot Indiana Jones.

Matt Foley, Chris Farley’s motivational speaker character on SNL who would constantly remind people how much his life sucked and how he “lived in a van, down by the river.” According to Wikipedia the inspiration for Matt Foley came from a real-life friend that Farley had, who during a rough patch in his life actually lived in a van near a river. Eventually the real Matt Foley became a Catholic priest and appeared in the 2015 documentary I am Chris Farley.

I’m like 90% sure this guy is supposed to be the DC version of Static. I’m sorry but as I’ve said before I’m not that knowledgeable in DC Comics stuff.

A Freddy Mercury. At this point I’ve realized that he’s a pretty easy costume to put together. All you need is a white wifebeater, blue jeans, some aviator sunglasses and something to slick your hair back with.

The Will AKA Sophie and Lying Cat from the Brian K. Vaughn series Saga.

I’m going to close this post out with a Dr. Mrs. The Monarch from Venture Bros.

Thanks for checking this out. I still have plenty of content for 2 more posts about C2E2 as well as my Wondercon and Corgi Beach Day stuff.