Michelle Heart Cam: Treasure Valley Comic Con

The first ever Treasure Valley Comic Con wrapped up yesterday afternoon and it feels a little strange to be back in the office out of character!

When I went to get my coffee this morning and the barista asked how my weekend was, I proudly answered "this may have been one of the most fun weekends of my life!"  The Nampa Civic Center's first ever Treasure Valley Comic Con was a HUGE success and I had a blast getting to play dress up as my favorite Mario Kart 64 character of all time, Yoshi!

Here's some of the cool things I experienced over the weekend and some selfies I snapped along the way!

The Cosplay Costume Contest

I had the chance to MC the first ever Treasure Valley Cosplay Costume Contest on Friday night and was absolutely blown away by the costumes!  Not only were just totally cool to see, one of the rules of the contest was that contestants had to provide documentation of their "fabrication." That means that 70% of their costume had to be made by the contestant. That means the contestants did everything from welding, to sewing to painting their own costumes.  Store bought pieces/accessories could only account for 30% of the outfit.  I had a chance to grab Taylor Van Akern (Superman) after the contest and ask him about his suit.  Every detail on the jumpsuit was hand painted with puffy paint, not just the signature "Superman S" on the chest. He carefully painted every little scale down to the boots on it, sometime creating layers of puffy paint.  It took him 4 months and he got the finishing touches on it just before the contest on Friday.

Cooper Andrews Q&A Session

I had to give myself a big pep talk before heading out to MCing my first Q&A panel of the weekend.  That pep talk? "Don't totally fan girl! Don't totally fan girl!"  Cooper plays Jerry, a member of King Ezekiel's Kingdom, on AMC's The Walking Dead.  I make my fiance watch all of my shows (Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, The Bachelorette, Nashville) so when we moved in together, he insisted that I watch at least one of his.  His pick was The Walking Dead and I actually ended up falling in love with the show! Cooper was such a fun, easy going guy and his description of what it was like working with a "tiger" on set were the best.  If you caught last season, you know that King Ezekiel has a pet tiger name Shiva.  I'm sure you're not surprised, but AMC didn't use a live tiger on the series.  Cooper told us in many scenes Shiva's one of two animatronic tigers, either the one they made in a sitting position or one that was made in a standing position.  For Shiva's action scenes (the season finale,) Shiva was actually a guy in a blue morph suit attacking "The Saviors."  They used CGI later to go back in and fill in Shiva's details.

Slenderman Gets Some Love from Celebrity Guests

Our friend Aron is the man behind "Slenderman Idaho."  He's just an all around great guy and our heart's ache for him as his oldest daughter, Leia, is going through cancer treatment for a second time. 100% of the money he raised from photo donations and selling Slenderman t-shirts at Treasure Valley Comic Con are going to help pay for his daughter's medical care.  A lot of the celebs at Comic Con took pictures with Aron to support his family's fight against cancer.  Charles Baker (Skinny Pete from Breaking Bad) retweeted the a photo of him and did a Facebook video as well! If you want to help out this local family, but weren't at Comic Con, you can HERE.

More Treasure Valley Comic Con Photos