Megacon 2012 - Wampaless, but not void of Awesomeness!

Trooping with the Dark Lord (yep, that's me on the left)

Megacon is the biggest Florida con for the 501st (well that is when Lucasfilm isn't bringing Celebration to the same building 2 times in a row... woohoo!)  So for the Florida Garrison we use this event as our big showcase. But I had one goal in mind and that was to meet David Prowse, Darth Vader himself. For those who haven't been following it, David and Lucasfilm have been fueding, and his health hasn't been the best. But when it comes to being a fan, you can't pick sides, and I wanted to take advantage of the chance to meet him when I could. Not only did I get a great pic with him, I also got to participate in a ceremony in Stormtrooper Armor from one of the local costuming groups dubbing him Lord. This is one of those "once in a lifetime" moments for me. But at the same time, being in the 501st, this is almost getting to be the norm. While in costume now, I have been able to troop with David Prowse, Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), meet Warwick Davis (Wicket)  and open Star Tours at Disney's Hollywood Studios with George Lucas.. not a bad resume, to start!

One of the other things I got to do was take out my work in progress, Palpatine, while I was still waiting for the mask, Tim who does our maul INSISTED I walk with him around the convention with it. So here are some pics taken by Nathan Carter.

The 501st expanded their booth this year and there were tons of helmets and costumes on display, and included the Shoot The Trooper for charity again. There were some lesser quality stormtrooper helmets around too, but as you can see above, the rest of the costume made up for that.

We also gathered for our annual group photo, can you tell Phantom Menace is in theaters this year? The first 2 years trooping I saw no Darth Mauls, now we have 3 in the state! Plus now we have a Tarfful, which is the first of many wookies to come... Don't be surprised if you see a Attichicuk (Itchy) build thread coming up on this blog soon!

And how can I have a post from Megacon without the 501st dinner, good times as usual. 

Want to see more pics... click here to check out the full gallery.