Character: Yeah, this is really only a pair of jeans and a t-shirt (and candy cigarettes, lol), so it's basically the easiest costume ever. But Ashley and I couldn't help but wear these at Dragon*Con, complete with a gun (to shoot a trash can), "smokes", Gordie's Boy Scout knapsack and, of course, LEECHES!!! Stand By Me is an amazing movie and The Body (what it was adapted from) is an incredible story. So we took the outfits from SbM and wandered around the convention blabbing about dead bodies and how dorky Teddy and Verno were sometimes. These were so simple and comfortable but so much fun -- if anyone wants to be Teddy or Vern in the future, you let us know! ;D

Character: Like Peter McVries, there's no real art of Lisey Landon, since she's a character from a novel, so I got to be creative with this one too. As I was reading the book and hit the part where she went to Boo'ya Moon after getting the CAN OPENER CUT (ugggggggh D:), I got this visual in my head of a costume. And I loved the book so much that I wanted to do the costume and show the story some love. I tea-stained the towel and added the fake blood, Aphy did an awesome cut for me with her makeup skillz -- and I made sure to carry around my little shovel and a strand of Boo'ya Moon's flora. ;D And of course, the yellow square from the afghan (thank you so much to Lusa for knitting it! <3). Lisey is one of my favorite literary characters out there and I was so giddy to be able to do this costume at D*C, even if I was the only one (besides Aphy, lol) who knew wtf I was.

Character: Obviously there's no real art of Peter McVries, since he's an obscure book character from an old Stephen King Richard Bachman novel, so I got to be creative with this one. I went off of the descriptions in the book and then added a few personal touches. Peter is one of my favorite characters of all time, so I was happy to finally show him and the book some love. Over the years, others have gathered (who have all read the book) and we have become a group of Walkers who hit up D*C every year! Makeup and all! And of course, thank you to Aphy for all of our awesome makeup.

Each year we have a few people remember the book and talk to us about it and that is always really, really awesome. We're glad we're not the only ones who remember it! That's one thing I really love love about costuming (especially since I usually have obscure characters/outfits XD) -- when someone recognizes something you're doing when you thought you'd be the only one. It always makes my day for that one person to be like, "HEY YOU GUYS ARE FROM THE LONG WALK! I LOVED THAT BOOK!" I think my favorite was the first year when we were walking back from the Hyatt to the Marriott and a dude in a red zoot suit who looked very evil and amazing started pointing at us and going, "OH MAN. OH MAN THAT IS SO COOL, YOU GUYS. AWESOME JOB! THAT BOOK WAS GREAT~" It made my weekend. XD

Character: One Columbus Day weekend I was straightening up all my costume crap and found lots of Halloween makeup. This was dangerous because I had just finished reading The Dark Half and I had actually just watched the movie adaptation (in which George Stark has amazing makeup XD). So of course, what do I do? LET'S TRY GEORGE STARK MAKEUP!!11 I had to balance it all out too, with Thad, so I quickly yanked some closet cosplay out (Thad wears women's shirts, apparently) and took a few Thad shots and then went crazy with the Halloween makeup and managed some George Stark. I was very happy with it, for it being a HEY-I'M-BORED-LET'S-THROW-ON-SOME-STUFF thing. Plus, I adore Thad and George and have always wanted to wear George to a convention or on Halloween or something. I feel like a King group would be needed though. Maybe a King villain group! XD