RaptorCon 2021

I put one together last year and had fun taking pictures of my raptor toy figures interacting, so let's do that again! This year's con doubles as a Halloween party, and triples as a birthday party.

Welcome, scalies, featherfloofs, and all those inbetween!

 

Or outside of that spectrum, I suppose, as our two organizers are, fittingly for the theme of the evening, skeletons.

Attendees are starting to show up, such as Grappleclaws, Leader, and Elusive here. Taking in the shiny, new decoration of the convention center. Some of it literally shiny.

Catching up with acquaintances from last year, making new friends, or wandering around in the same groups they do every day. Either way, it's getting crowded. Delta and Ansa the Dromaeosaurus compare notes on new paleontological finds since the last time they saw each other, and on that I finally got around to giving one of them a name.

"Hey, you three look like you're also a bit too big to play with the smallest babies like I am. I'm still a juvenile Stenonychosaurus, though. Can I hang out with you guys?"

This year the "let's teach each other our respective traditional Velociraptor screams" workshop is run by an expert with an even bigger list of qualifications. Or maybe it's just the expert herself who's bigger.

Her name is Malva, and she only arrived earlier this week. Maybe I'll make a post about her and the other new raptors I acquired with her later, but for now I just wanted to include them.

Zoomies and snacks, as the evening progresses.

Singer and Beetlebiter chatting with another couple who have shown up together.

"So how did you two meet?"
"On a shelf."

This may sound like a hastily thought-out cover story for a Dakotaraptor and a Dromaoesaurus' embarrassing actual first meeting, but 'On A Shelf' is in fact the name of a local raptor gay bar, as all local gay raptors know. Which is to say, all local raptors.

Whirlwind and Triptail guide their parents through the crowd and show them the best fun things to do here as they didn't get to attend last year. Sometimes it's hard to hear each other over all the borks, though, and the other raptor noises. Speaking of which...

Whirlwind and her new friend seem to have taken a liking to each other's raptor noises, and exchange lots of them whenever they run into each other. Well, Malva is very tall, dark, and handsome.

The little chicks are gathered together again in their own corner, to plot little crimes.

Grappleclaws and a beautiful Buitreraptor, probably complimenting each other on how pretty and bright they both are. Their feathers/scales match each other's eyes!

Finder and his son trying to find their way to the snack table. I haven't  taken photos of or drawn them together before, but I'm pretty happy with how I managed to give them some family resemblance despite the different patterns, with the "dripping mascara" stripe under the eye, even though Beetlebiter's design is based on one from Trespasser, and this wasn't planned when I came up with  Finder's design before coming up with Beetlebiter's anything.

"I'm glad to see another Microraptor, too, but can you stop climbing on my back?"
"But you can fly, and I can only glide."
"Let's hope science soon definitively solves the mystery of which one of us has the abilities we should have. ...I guess in the meantime you can ride on my back sometimes."

Dash and Dare also wanted to solve a mystery, it being that Ansa the Dromaeosaurus and Malva the big Velociraptor are never in the same room at the same time. No, not the same raptor with a secret identity, it turns out - they just share a base right now because I had trouble attaching posing rods to Malva's own base.

The littlest chicks are getting tired. Soft steps and Daydreamer the JP raptor babies find their mom and dad to take them to a quieter room for a nap while the adults and bigger kids continue to party.

Triptail and Charlie are discussing practical uses of a tail for catching prey and annoying siblings. Starlight and little Velo are sneaking past for some undisclosed hijinks, before running into little Velo's parents who may not approve - or they may, as it's the season for trickstery, I'm told, and anyway we're all thieves here.

As the sun sets, so do the convention hall's main lights dim...

Let the spookiness begin!

The Deinonychus doesn't seem too excited, more like questioning whether she is all that well-suited for a nocturnal lifestyle. Perhaps she, too, will go nap and sit this one out.

"So, who wins? Are scaly or feathered raptors scarier?"
"Oh, right, I forgot to keep score. And to recruit an unbiased jury, too. Oh well."

And before the night's over, let's all gather round for a wishing of happy birthday! As I've said before, I consider October 31st to be the date of the Indoraptor prototype's hatching, because come on, what other date could it possibly be? Considering how many references to classic movie monsters were included in his screentime, of course he was born on Halloween. And considering that he was made in a lab and humans had at least some control over his hatching date, it could even be deliberate in-universe, assuming Dr. Wu has a similar enough sense of humor to mine.

There's even a present! Who wrapped it? Who knows!

It's a fun new toy!

And looks so tiny in his hand, lol. I did reference its size from human figures in the Mattel JW toyline, though, so it should be to scale?? Big raptor is big.

(Here are some WIPs for the skull, which I made myself.)

Dance party? Dance party!

...And now the sun's up. At least JP/W raptors are cathemeral (apparently,  judging by that we see them active at all times of the day in the movies), not  sure how badly the rest of you may or may not have messed up your sleeping schedules so far.

"Yes, hello, has the convention started yet? ...Shit, I got the dates wrong, didn't I? Well, I'm here now, I'm a maniraptoran, and I'm ready to party."