Halo Outpost Discovery Anaheim Wrap Up

Table of Contents:
The Station
Photo Shoots
Costume Contest

On August 30th, Halo Outpost Discovery, an all-Halo event that toured multiple locations, had its final show in Anaheim! The con, which lasted three days in the Anaheim Convention Center, was made up of multiple Halo themed attractions and games for attendees to participate in.

One of those attractions was The Armory, a cosplay and repair station where attendees got to check out awesome community built Halo costumes and props! Everyone here at Anvil Station, partnered with the 405th, was proud to be a part of this experience. Our members contributed not only many fantastic costumes and prop weapons, but we also brought our A-game and created an actual set right out of the Halo universe!

The Station

Fearless leader and almighty Benperor, Benedict Choy, created a fantastic holo-table to display various props for attendees to hold and take pictures with, which was a perfect spot to take some awesome pictures of member Jordan Bailey in her debut Cortana costume!

Of course, it’s not a Halo space station if there isn’t a place to store your weapons, and that’s where Jose Valdez’s awesome weapon racks came in! We gave a little sneak peak in the last blog of his build progress, now feast your eyes on the finished product!

Then we had some awesome UNSC crates brought by Hazel Weiss and her husband, which made the perfect stand for the machine gun turret put together by Dani Yuan! This setup was a hot spot for attendees wanting their picture taken, and when moved to the cosplay photo area, never ceased having a line of people eager to pose with it.

On display, we had Cary Lee’s fantastic Mickey ODST suit for attendees to observe and appreciate, and next to it, Ian Milward’s ever patient 343 Guilty Spark kept watchful eye over the cosplayers and attendees. (SPOILER ALERT: TRUST NEITHER OF THEM)

And finally, we get to the walls. Oh the walls. Oh those magnificent, terrifying walls. The story behind the walls of Anvil Station is a good one. It would take a blog post dedicated to JUST the walls to properly tell their story, and don’t worry, THERE WILL BE ONE. But to sum it up here, Ian went all out. What was meant to only be a few walls connecting into an L-shape with some Halo looking patterns turned into an actual miniature base! And it was beautiful.

All these things came together to form our own little Anvil Station!! It took so much work and so many people deciding to put in the time (and then some) and it paid off so well. We were glad to see this set become a favorite spot to visit of many of the attendees. It was a grand culmination of team work and friendship, and we were very proud of each other for all the hard work that went into making it.

Photo Shoots

It wouldn’t be a weekend with Anvil Station if there weren’t lots of cosplay photo shoots. The entire weekend was full of many epic photo ops that everyone was very eager to take part in! The first of which was the fountain outside the convention center.

Anvil Station is no stranger to the Anaheim convention center. Every year we attend Wonder Con, which is a fantastic con and as a result very popular. The fountain space is usually crowded with lots of people, and quite the chore to secure for an all-Halo photoshoot. However, this was obviously not a problem at Outpost Discovery!

Every morning before the hall opened, the cosplayers got to take photos at the various exhibits before the lines formed. One of these shoots was with the con’s Warthog display. The dividers were taken down and everyone got to get nice and up close with the puma!

Then everyone formed up at the entrance so that the first arrivals of the day would have one hell of an awesome greeting, as seen in the image at the beginning of the blog! One of the best parts of the con was definitely getting to add to the experience for all the con-goers, and moments like this helped make that happen.

One of the best photoshoots of the weekend, at least in the humble opinion of this blog writer, was when we got to slip inside of the Covenant escape room! Yes, an escape room made up to look and feel like the inside of a Covenant cruiser, which was perfect for member Nick Yelsa’s Gold Elite cosplay!

The highlight of this photoshoot was actually when we left Nick inside of the escape room to wait on the con goers. When they finished the room they were in and entered the final room of the escape experience, they were spooked by an aggressive “Wort Wort Wort” from an alien towering over them. Now, one might have just concluded that this was meant to be a part of the experience, except that the guide was not filled in on the prank and panicked more than the escapists, only making the prank even better!

All in all, it was a unique experience only a handful of people going through that escape room got to have! How many people can say they encountered a Shipmaster class Elite and lived to tell the tale?

Costume Contest

The costume contest was a peak event of the con for many of the cosplayers there! The judges panel consisted of a lot of talented folk who know their stuff, one of which was our very own Cary Lee! Many of our members entered the costume contest, and many of them were winners!

Best in Show – Nick Yelsa

As no surprise to anyone, Nick Yelsa took home Best in Show for his jaw-dropping Fleetmaster Thel Vadamee Cosplay!

SFX 1st Prize – Benedict Choy

Finally gaining recognition for the utilization of magnets in his suit, as well as props towards his brand new light up energy sword he finally finished and debuted at the con, Benedict Choy took home first in Special Effects! Ben was sporting his signature blue multiplayer Spartan with no other helmet than the Air Assault.

SFX 2nd Prize – Andrew Danforth

Also taking home a prize in Special Effects was the awesome Andrew Danforth of The War-Drobe Armory for his Halo 5 MP Spartan, rigged up beautifully with lots of pretty lights!

Armor 1st Prize – John Beushauser & Madison Grant

Rocking Veronica Dare and Edward Buck ODST cosplays, John and Madison stole everyone’s hearts with a kiss on stage and took home 1st prize as a couple in Armor!

Needlework 2nd Prize – John Paul Polio

Two of our members repped the A.I. race, one of which was J.P. who nailed second place in Needlework with his Roland cosplay! J.P.’s attention to detail of the Infinity A.I.’s character design did not go unnoticed and was cited on stage as one of the many reason he took home second!

Needlework 3rd Prize – Jordan Bailey

Next of the A.I. winners was Jordan Bailey, who took home third with her Halo 3 Cortana! Little easter eggs on her suit that got the judge’s attention helped secure her win, such as little phrases like “I am your Shield, I am your Sword” hidden in the code on the costume!

Last but certainly not least were the judges’ choice winners, who all also took home prizes and recognition for their awesome costumes!

Paul Dang – Infantry Grunt

Paul always joins us for our San Diego Comic Con photo shoots and gives us something fun to shoot at in our pictures. We were very excited to see his Grunt take home a prize!

Dani Yuan – Halo 2 ODST

Dani’s costume captured the look of the debut ODST from Halo 2, and got lots of cheers when she hauled the turret she built up to the the stage and posed with it!

Chris Loomis – Halo Reach MP Spartan

Sadly there was a bit of an oops moment and the judges forgot to announce Chris Loomis as one of the Judges’ Choice winners, but made sure he got his prize! Don’t worry Chris, it wasn’t announced there but we are announcing it here. Might have been for the best though. If that sexy ass of yours had been up on that stage for one second longer I don’t think the crowds would have been able to handle it.

The real winners of the entire costume contest was everyone there, because they got to witness the debut of MASTER BEEF!

The result of a bet led to Arby’s shipping the 343 team a giant box full of Arby’s fast food containers, which was assembled into an epic cosplay for Jeff Easterling, otherwise known as Grim Brother One. After the contest, the mighty Master Beef was kind enough to grace our humble station with his presence, of which we were very grateful.

Well, that’s all for our wrap up on Outpost Discovery Anaheim! We can’t wait for what the future holds for Outpost Discovery, and all the awesome adventures we look forward to having in our favorite sci-fi universe!

DairyBoy117, over and out.