Fun at London Film and Comic Con . . .

A couple of friends and I toddled off to the London Film and Comic Con at Olympia in London on Saturday. It was so much fun. I love going to these events and seriously getting my geek on. There were so many stalls and I spent far too much money. Plus there was a huge line up of celebrities there that you could see, including Benedict Cumberbatch. You can imagine my excitement! Except, it was to expensive too meet him, and tickets for his talk were sold out.

So I settled for spending neigh on seven hours wandering around and taking pictures - as you can see below. The cosplay that was going on was phenomenal...

 

  This was just half of Olympia.

To the left was a second hall just as big, filled with more geeky surprises.

Below: I think it's obvious...

 

 Saw DC's Bane wandering around a few times...

Assassins' Creed and some tall thing...

To the Bat Mobile...

Deadpool and Loki and a few more...

 

Some prosthetic heads...

 

Mr and Mrs Wonder Woman...

Cosplay competition: Look carefully and you'll see Mary Poppins...

Wash and Jane from Firefly...

 This was as close to Benedict Cumberbatch as we could get. 

They kept him imprisoned behind those walls...

 

Although I did see a few Doctor Stranges floating around...

 

But the most satifying part of the day? I found Wally...

Roll on Winter London Film and Comic Con...

"No S*** Sherlock..."

Well, it's official.  I am SHER-locked!!!

I've just spent the last few days catching up on Series 1 & 2 of Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman before starting Series 3 for the first time (all on DVD) and I'm hooked.  I don't watch much TV to be honest, which was why I had to recap series 1 & 2 on DVD as there were parts I had missed when they originally ran.  And then I got to watch them all back to back.

Nothing like a bit of 'binge-watching' :)

So what do I like about BBC's Sherlock?  The banter?  The plots?  The characters?  Cumberbatch himself? All of the above and much more.  It's so well written (hats off to Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat) and the dialogue just flows - and how Cumberbatch manages to say his long stints without faltering is beyond me.  I wonder how many takes they really had to do?

Sherlock Series 3 is actually interesting.  A writer friend of mine at the moment is worried that her current WIP is too character driven and there's not much plot.  She's read one star reviews (on other pieces) that say 'brilliant characters but no plot' and she's worried that she has to change her planning to find a happy medium.  But this doesn't have to be the case - and Sherlock is a great example in my eyes.

I can't falter any of the plots for Sherlock, except the second episode in Series 3, The Sign of Three (but then it's not even a fault).  This episode is very much character driven, and you know what?  It works.  The relationship between Sherlock and Watson is so solid.  And you can feel Sherlock's fear as a third member is introduced to their circle, threatening to change everything.  So what I say to my friend - and all others out there struggling with the same issue - is yes, plot is important, but it doesn't have to be the end all.  Character driven pieces work really well too, so don't let this thought hinder you're progress.  Write what you want to write, and if at the end you feel it doesn't work, tweak it.  But you'll never know unless it's written.

So on that note, I've decided to choose two pieces for today's Pic of the Week.  I like them both very much and couldn't decide which to share :)  The artist is Alicexz over on Deviant art, and over the last few years she's been building her own gallery of character portraits for the Series.  Be sure to go over there and check them out.  They're phenomenal...

Sherlock

Moriarty

Have a good week people... :)