Last weekend our friends in the Emerald Garrison put on the third Invasion Dublin in the Citywest Hotel with special guests Billy Dee Williams, James Arnold Taylor, Jeremy Bulloch, Mike Edmonds and Star Wars artist Will Sliney plus the convention had all the usual Invasion activities along with a couple of new attractions.
We arrived down at the hotel right in the middle of James Arnold Taylor's Q&A and I have to confess to rushing everyone directly to the stage so I wouldn't miss a second more than I had to. I've been a massive fan of James since first seeing his Youtube videos and hearing him on the Forcecast. Whether you're a fan of Star Wars or not you've definitely heard his voice before as James is one of thee best voice actors in the business.
This was worth the ticket price for Invasion alone, at the end of the day James performed his show, 'Talking to Myself' and it is an absolute must see. In the course of the show James lets the audience in on just how much fun and entertainment his job as a voice actor allows him.
If you haven't seen this video I implore you to check it out, it was filmed at a different convention but is part of the same show we got to see in Dublin. I did get the chance to speak to James but was embarrassingly star struck, which I don't normally get, so I gushed a bit then left the man alone but he was very welcoming and it felt good to tell him he was a hero of mine, plus he commented on my Forcecast t-shirt which was cool, think it got across the kind of fan I am.
We only got speaking very briefly to Billy Dee and unfortunately missed his Q&A. Shannen did get her picture taken with him and it was nice to say we met him.
Jeremy Bulloch and Mike Edmonds did a joint Q&A. Jeremy is absolutely great, I had the awesome opportunity to chat with him at length at last years Invasion Dublin 2, he has all the time in the world for fans and Invasion wouldn't be the same without him. Mike Edmonds I'd never met before and was amazed by the number of characters he's played, to name a few he's Logray the Ewok, the Ugnaught who puts Han into carbon freeze, Og from Dark Crystal plus he was in Time Bandits and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Also in attendance was Will Sliney, a Star Wars comic book artist, we didnt get meeting him but you can check out his blog at http://sliney.blogspot.co.uk/, if you're reading modern Star Wars comics chances are you've seen some of his work.
At every Invasion there's always great photo opportunities as their lifesize replicas are just plain awesome, above you can the Y-wing, AT-ST, AT-RT and the TX-130.
This is something the Emerald Garrison have done before but not at any Invasions I've been at, they call it Recreating the Magic and at Invasion Dublin these two guys live sculpted these in latex.
This had started out the day before as a solid bock of latex, hopefully this photo does some justice to how detailed it was one day later.
How to draw Star Wars was another of the activities I had seen at Invasion before and seemed like a great idea for the younglings.
As far as I could gather the Star Wars films seemed to be on a continual loop in part of the convention hall which would be great if you were down for the whole weekend, over the four days you easily could've taken in all six between other activities.
Also on display were some of the replica helmets and masks that have been created by members of the Emerald Garrison.
Below is just a sample of the Emerald Garrison characters that could be seen over the four days. These images are used courtesy of friend and fellow Star Wars fan, Owen Quinn, thanks Owen!
Owen Quinn is the author of The Time Warriors book series, so please take the time to check out his link: http://www.bibliocracy.com/e-books/Science-Fiction/the-time-warriors-tempest#.T66_zOspMsd
You can find the Emerald Garrison's website at http://www.irelandgarrison.com/garrison/home.html and the Invasion website at http://www.invasion.ie/.
I leave you with one final picture from the convention, Star Wars weddings, were I took Shannen as my non-legally-binding Imperial wife.
PS. Yes, I did buy some very cool action figures at Invasion, look for the first post this week.
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