I was lucky to be one of the people from the Belgian Costume Division/Belgian 501st Garrison to be invited by Celebration Japan by Lucasfilm Ltd.

As this was maybe the one chance I'd ever get at attending a convention in Asia and because there was a demand for it, I not only brought Star Wars costumes, but Belgian Beer Bug Barney tagged along as well. As it turned out, he was so damn popular and became the talk of the last convention day, due to an infamous nightly outing to Tokyo Bay beach...

LFL just loved Barney, who now has a whole bunch of fans in high places.

Complete gallery from CJ is here:

http://www.troopers.be/gallery/index.php?cat=18

Belgian Beer Bug Barney in our club's snowspeeder.



Belgian Beer Bug Barney on the most excellent Dewback, made by a professional, who is a member of the Japanese 501st. (apparentely I whacked him twice with my tail, while climbing on there)



Barney shares a drink with Ponda Baba.



Barney grabs this female Australian scout trooper from behind, copying Ferro's death scene.



Barney didn't get much time to walk around on the convention, so instead he chose to trash the hotel on Sunday evening.



Barney poses with the other 501st members who were hanging out in the hotel relax seats.



Onto the infamous "Barney goes to Tokyo Bay beach" photos. After appearing in the hotel, I went to the beach for some pictures. First of, Barney had to recover from a slight hangover in the public toilets.



Barney phone home.



Barney at Tokyo Bay beach.




And here's what made the beach trip infamous. It was past midnight and thus already Monday, when there's some "Celebration of the Sea" in Japan. There were groups of people on the beach, most setting off fireworks and getting drunk. With the group you see here, I snuck up from behind, slowly placed Barney's head next to his and gradually leant forward. When the guy finally turned around, saw the alien head hanging next to him in the dark, only a few inches away from his face, he screamed out loud, jumped up and ran... with me chasing him all the way down to the water and back to his friends.
It also just happened, that we shared breakfast with Lawrence Noble that morning and told him about the alien's outing. Lawrence then told Steve Sanwsweet and before I knew it, everybody on CJ came to me asking whether I was the alien and whether they could see the pictures. So here they are.



This one was taken with the nighshot mode. No editing is involved.



And I'll conclude the teaser pictures with one showing Barney's new favourite headgear.

Awesome, Hope you had a great time. That picture in nightshot looks Spooky!

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Amazing! Abe is so Jealous. He loves the Japanese.

I am. That's what he's there for. Barney gets booked a lot. Usually event organisers asked for a Star Wars-theme with "Darth Vader and the stormtroopers". Now, they ask for a Star Wars-theme with "Darth Vader and the stormtroopers and if possible the alien too". Then I go: "Well, that's possible, but the alien doesn't fit the Star Wars-theme you're asking for..." Their answer: "No, but we don't care. We want it anyway."

I just noticed I messed up a name. I wrote Larry Lorne, but it's supposed to be "Lawrence (Larry) Noble, sculptor for LFL. Corrected it.