Laura and Emily Go to Comic Con

Emily and I with Tiny Batman

I suppose I should update all of you about Indianapolis Comic Con, which was the whole reason I made the Marauder's Map shirt in the first place. It was...an experience.

Let me preface this by saying, I have no idea what a con is supposed to be like. I had never been to one before, nor had I spoken in depth with anyone who had. All I knew was that it was a kind of nerdy nirvana, a place where fandoms collide, and that it might be okay to be very excited about Harry Potter, the Avengers, and Welcome to Night Vale there. That assumption was correct.

The con also was incredibly, incredibly crowded. When my friend Emily and I arrived, we discovered hordes of people, some of them dressed normally, some of them looking as if they had raided the shelves of the local Hot Topic (perhaps for a costume, perhaps for everyday wear--we could not tell), and a select few appearing as though they had put the kind of work into their costumes that put me (and the 20+ hours I slaved over the Marauder's Map shirt) to shame. Others were the "cosplay girls" who horrify Jennifer and I, who wear the most revealing, trashy outfits possible in order to be slutty in public without being accused of selling anything. There were lots of grown men and women dressed as My Little Ponies. The Brother said it was more socially acceptable for women to dress as My Little Ponies than for men. I beg to differ.

Some of those costumes were amazing. The Indianapolis Star was there taking pictures. You should really take a look. Someone came as a Big Daddy from Bioshock, and his costume was so awesome...you have to see it.

But more than anything, there were people. So. Many. People.

I later discovered that the reason for this was that the convention center could, in the area the con was being held, hold 6,000 people comfortably. The people planning the con expected 10,000 over the entire weekend. On Saturday, there were 15,000 people who bought tickets. This is not counting the people who showed up and did not buy tickets, including the many, many people who waited in line for hours and were turned away at the door because the room was too full for more people to come in. I'm sure there were well over 15,000 people there. It was...uncomfortable. The entire thing had sold out by 3:00 PM, which was just after we'd left due to the insane crowds.

Emily and I with stormtroopers from Star Wars Indiana

Imagine footage of a festival, or New Year's Eve in Time's Square, or that awesome colored chalk festival in Asia, or maybe a subway during rush hour. Add about a thousand people. Maybe 2000. Then you have what it was like at Indianapolis Comic Con. When I walked into that room, I was not claustrophobic. When I left, that had changed. If one person had panicked in that convention center, we would have all been trampled to death. If there had been a fire--let's not think about what would have happened then.

But the whole experience was so different and new, I would not have traded it. I would have just shown up very early, preferably with a large security escort. I'm wondering if the whole thing will take over the convention center completely next year, so that there will be plenty of space. I hope.

I found, overall, most of the exhibits were genuinely dedicated to comics and only comics. I had expected more of a range. There was one booth that had costume supplies for cosplay, but that was all we saw that wasn't comics and prints of comic book art. Have any of you been to a comic con before? Is it normal for the exhibitors to only be comics?

The Marauder's Map Shirt, Part 2

It's DONE. It's finished. I am all done, there is nothing left to do, I'm free, I'm free, I'm FREEEEEEE!!!

I spent four hours on the floor last night finishing everything off. I touched up the paint along the button band, and then I laid it carefully out on the dining room table and took this picture for you.

Never mind the shiny, still-wet paint. Never mind how blurry it is. Never mind how none of the buttons are buttoned because wet paint and therefore the text does not line up properly (but it does when buttoned). Also never mind that this picture was taken with a light right over the shirt by me, standing on a chair and leaning over at a strange angle. It's good. It's fine.

I'm just so glad it's finished. I'll never have to work on it again. It is a FINISHED PROJECT.

I am shocked it turned out so well, really. The truth is, I am no artist. This shirt is an aberration. I have no idea how I was able to draw any of this. I am a stick-figure artist. This is so out of my art-league. I am still in shock that it looks decent and is actually wearable.

And now that it's done, I will tell you how to make your own, because I am nice like that AND because I will never be making another one, no matter how much I love you. It was too much, and it stopped being fun about three hours in.

To Make a Marauder's Map Shirt

You will need: 
White shirt, dress, tee, etc.
Brown paint
Paint brushes (as tiny as possible)
Paint pens, fine tip
Marauder's Map images for reference
A ruler (or several)

• Prepare your canvas. This means you'll need to obtain a plain white shirt, dress, etc. as cheaply as possible. I picked mine up for about $4.00 at Walmart on big-time clearance. I wanted it to be over-sized, so I went for a men's shirt. WASH IT BEFORE YOU BEGIN.

• Tea-dye your shirt. This is relatively easy to do. You need a big pot, tons of tea bags, and hot water. Here's a tutorial on how to tea-dye things. This was cheap fabric, so it sucked up the dye very evenly, so I went back through and added blotches of tea to make it look aged.

• Get as many images and details of the Marauder's Map as you can find. There are loads of high-quality images on Google you can print out. Use these for reference. I found this map really helpful.

• Plot out where you want different parts of the map to be. I did the detail of the map on the back, close-up hallways and footprints on the sleeves, the front of the map over the front of the shirt, the Marauder's insults to Snape went over the panel just below the collar on the back, the far away view went on the cuffs...you get the idea. Look at each piece of the shirt as a different panel of the map and decorate accordingly.

• Draw out your map. I did this all freehand. I had a ruler to make sure my text was straight, but that was it. You can always use images you find and iron-on transfers for your shirt, but I find they print out nicely, iron on okay, then flake off after a bit of use. Not worth the money. It was way cheaper to buy up a bunch of fabric pens and draw right on the fabric. Make sure you put something (I used cardboard for the sleeves and a plastic mat for the body of the shirt) between the front and back of the shirt so that the ink and paint will not leak through to the other side.

• For the front image of Hogwarts, I drew the school, then added lettering. I used brown paint for the center section. After I painted, I let the shirt dry and outlined the letters again to make them stand out.

Good luck. If you have questions or want advice, leave a comment and I'll do what I can to help!

The Marauder's Map Shirt, Part 1

The Marauder's Map shirt is still a work in progress. I worked on the front yesterday, and it was way more labor-intensive than I thought it would be. I ended up glad that the library was closed yesterday (another snow day), because I realized by the evening that I would never have finished the shirt for Saturday if I hadn't had a full day to spend on it.

Here is the back. One arm is finished as well.



It was a lot of work, mostly because if you look closely at the rooms on the replica of the Marauder's Map, you'll notice that the shapes aren't really drawn with lines, they're a Latin (or Latin-like) phrase written over and over again, some right-side up, some upside down, all in script. I wrote it out so many times. So many, many times.

Yesterday I worked on the front.







And eventually ended up with the front the way I like it. I have to add in the Whomping Willow and the flags and pennants, and the paths leading out of the doors. But I think it turned out much better than I thought it would.

Still, I have reached the point in this project where I now think it sucks, I suck, and it will never be finished. I also think that, if by some miracle it IS finished, I will look like a freak wearing it, because I am a freak and only weird people make Marauder's Map shirts, even sucky ones.

In short, it's therapy time. Lots of therapy. So much therapy.

More work tonight, more work Friday, and it should be finished. And then I can check myself in to a mental health facility, so I can work through all this need for perfection and this endless sense of inadequacy that plagues me. Either that or I'll go to comic con in Indy. One of the two.