This past weekend was Mother’s Day but it also coincided with the third year of Ottawa’s Comiccon. I knew that Sunday would be spent with family, celebrating my beautiful mother so, I resolved to spend my Saturday at Comiccon wisely. For many that might mean attending as many workshops, events, autograph signings or Q & A’s as possible; however, that’s not even close to how I ended up spending my day.

To begin with, this was my third year attending this particular event at the Ernst & Young Centre (I attended the inaugural convention in 2012) and last year was my primary foray into the world of cosplay. Cosplaying is a term applied to the action of “costume playing” which means that an individual dresses and/or acts like a particular character from a television series, a movie, a book, manga or anime. Last year, since three out of the nine main characters from one of my favourite television shows, Firefly were due to attend I figured that my cosplay should pay homage to the series that was unfortunately cancelled before its time. I selected Inara Serra as my character of choice – like many of Joss Whedon’s female characters, she is fierce, beautiful and strong.

*Yes, I am flanked by Canadian stars: Nathan Fillion and Jewel Staite.

I resolved several months ago that this year’s cosplay would be Morgana Pendragon as she appears in BBC’s television series Merlin, which also ended before it should have, on December 24, 2012. I have been fascinated with Arthurian lore and the myths surrounding Merlin for many years and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to showcase my interests. However, I was at a loss with regards to how I would procure a dress that could pass as belonging to Morgana. My sewing talent is limited and I did not have the funds to order anything custom-made online.

My saving grace came in the form of a red velvet dress that I discovered while browsing through the racks of a random vendor at the Vintage Clothing show held on April 13. Surprisingly, it was also a reasonable buy that did not break the bank.

I intended to emulate this particular look from the beginning of the series when Morgana was still *spoiler alert* a good human being who was well equipped with timely sarcastic comebacks and well versed in swordplay instead of magic.

And this is how my cosplay turned out:

I was quite pleased with the overall effect though I eventually want to be able to fashion my own cosplay with my own two hands.

Attending Comiccon solo was an interesting experience, it took awhile for me to warm up to the entire event without having anyone else around. However, being alone meant that I was able to spend time observing and studying everything from the layout to the attendees. Below are some of my favourite snapshots from the day.

*Cinderella

*Maleficent

*The Evil Queen and her Magic Mirror

*The Eye of Sauron; one of my favourite anecdotes of the day included this guy and his interaction with V, from V for Vendetta.

V: “The Eye of Sauron sees all.”

Sauron: “Except for garbage cans!”

*Captain America and Captain Canada

*Effie and Katniss

*I have no clue, ghost of the American Civil War?

*Fiona and Shrek

*Dalek

*Thorin Okenshield miscellaneous elves and dwarves

*Red skull and Elvis minion

I portioned my day into people watching, shopping and photography. Despite not being able to find a single booth selling wands I procured a silver pendant in the shape of Hermione’s wand along with several other fandom related jewelry pieces including a S.H.I.E.L.D medallion and a key to 221B Baker Street.

It was a day well spent in my opinion (though my feet were sore about making at least seven tours of the building) and I look forward to Comiccon 2015!

Farewell for now, from Lady Morgana.