I knew today would be a good day when I ran into the Winter Soldier, Rorschach and 40’s Captain America on the Skytrain. Fan Expo Vancouver Day Two!

You know, I have this weird thing about cosplay – I only want to wear a suit if it’s perfect or an original (or funny) take on a classic. Unfortunately, I don’t have the skills/materials/time to make anything approaching a decent outfit that fits these guidelines, so I’m constantly blown away at the quality of the cosplay at the Expo. Just look at what was waiting for me at the bottom of the entrance escalator:

Look at that attitude! Tiny Cap is always ready for action. Then, as soon as I got in the front door:

A fantastically made set of *Street Fighter II*’s Ryu and Chun-Li, ready to kick all kinds of ass. So, yeah, nothing but respect for the time and effort that fans put into their costume, and you’ll see a whole stack more of these when we upload Mark’s hi-res shots from the weekend. Trust me, they’re great!

I’d already decided that today would be the day of waiting, and it certainly lived up to my expectations. First off was Kaare Andrews – after missing out on getting a sketch for the last two years, I was determined to get my own Spider-Man this year. After thirty minutes of waiting and watching him effortlessly draw masterpieces for other people, it was finally my turn, and then this happened:

…which soon turned into:

Seriously. I’ll freely admit, it was my intention to give this to my son, but I think it might conveniently end up on my wall! It’s a thing of beauty and was a real privilege to watch him form it right in front of my eyes.

Then it was time for the big one – Bruce Campbell! His line-up had already formed in earnest, eagerly waiting his arrival after the photo ops session. After an hour of waiting, the first 100 got counted off and everyone else told to come back after he’d had lunch, 3pm. I was ticket 102. Yes, it was extremely annoying, especially as I’d been reading on Twitter what a good time Matt was having in the Billy Boyd Q&A session, but I guess it was better to be told at that point that an hour later at the desk.

Anyway, by that time we were running empty, so it turned out to be a well-timed Starbucks break. Also, the place had really filled up with hundreds of excited attendees, young and old, many in various costumes with varying degrees of skin on show. The aisles transformed into slow-moving funnels that took some real negotiation, so it was good to escape for a break.

 

Back in the hall, I joined the new Campbell line and killed time by playing Terry Cavanagh’s *VVVVVV* on my 3DS with a very cool kid in a fantastic Transformers Bumblebee hoodie, while Matt headed to the Bruce Boxleitner Q&A. His fantastic live tweets kept me company as we finally shuffled forward and I mumbled some incoherent fanboy compliments to Bruce as he signed my *Evil Dead 2* limited tin DVD (oh yes). By that point, I felt six inches shorter and my feet were worn to stubs after a long day of walking and waiting, so I headed into the crowd of fantastic cosplay to enjoy the sights!

So good! That *Incredibles* set-up is the best family theme cosplay I’ve ever seen, and it’s one I’m definitely going to steal in the future!

Matt got his own Kaare Andrews custom *Iron Fist* cover (which, of course, is *amazing*) then we collected our own commissioned sketches from a fantastic artist we discovered at last year’s show. Her name is Toni Zhang and, for $15, she’ll take a face shot and draw you – *brilliantly* – as any character type you want. My garbled instructions were “Space pirate, mid action, lots of lasers”, and Matt’s was “classic Star Trek captain, in the chair”.

And this is what we got:

Unbelievable. Really, the more you look at then, the more tiny details you discover, and we couldn’t be happier with them. So, if you’re in the show tomorrow, go and find her (she’s near the tattoo stall that we visited yesterday) and get your own commission. You can find more of her work on her [Tumblr](http://zedlastportfolio.tumblr.com/). As you can see, she’s amazing and you won’t regret it!

So that’s it for another great day at Fan Expo Vancouver 2014. Matt will soon be posting a round-up of all the Q&A sessions he attended and you’ll also soon be able to find our day’s collected tweets and maybe even the first set of Mark’s cosplay photos. Really looking forward to our final day tomorrow, so see you there!