San Diego Comic-Con 2011 Day 1 (photos)

The first day of Comic-Con 2011 saw cosplayers spilling out into the streets of San Diego, decked out in custom designs as well as homages to favorite characters.

Well-known in the Star Wars fan community are these two fans, Pirate Pimp Vader and Boba Phat, who put a more personal spin on two of their favorite pop-culture characters.

Sometimes, all it takes to express your adoration for "Star Wars" is a Chewbacca backpack. If the wearer had been dressed as C-3P0, it almost would've been ironic.

The Joker from the movie "The Dark Knight" (as portrayed by Nick Frederickson, 25) and Harley Quinn (20-year-old Stephanie Horner), his sometime-girlfriend and psychiatrist from the comics, cartoons, and the video game Arkham Asylum. Both Frederickson and Horner are from Anaheim, Calif. Horner made their costumes, with the Harley Quinn outfit taking more than 170 hours of work, she said.

Denver resident Liz Welch, 21, dressed as a custom-designed Star Wars Snow Trooper, while her friend Thomas Beyer, 33, created a Boba Fett-inspired character he named Solos Kyr. From Phoenix, Beyer got interested in making his costume when he started making one for his son. The costume pictured took him three months to put together, and he noted that he'd just finished the gun holster the day before the convention.

Wonder Woman as portrayed by 22-year-old Brittany Weckerly; Caroline Knight, 20, dressed as Vampirella; and Lizzy Brattland, 23, costumed as a Cenobite from the Hellraiser movies. All three are from San Diego, and each day of the convention they wear different costumes.

John Greenswei, 34, of Bloomington, Calif., came dressed as one of the virus-mutated humans from the Doctor Who episode The Empty Child.

This collection of action figures depicting all 11 Doctors Who costs $125 on the convention floor.

Well-known for their convention appearances, the West Coast Busters are, from left to right, Bryan Fear, 42, as Peter Venkman; Jeffrey Kirby, 28, as Ray Stantz; and Eric Eseke, 37, as Egon Spengler. Their replica Ectomobile, with the California license plate "Ecto I," is a fully functional 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor limo-style endloader with an ambulance conversion, and took five years to convert to its current state.

With its engines roaring, this Iron Man-branded monster truck was brought in to San Diego's Gaslamp District to promote a Marvel Comics-monster truck video game.

Though the first comic with the new version of Supergirl has yet to be published, 23-year-old Nicole Marino from Staten Island, N.Y., made a costume based on promotional images DC Comics has released. The new version of Supergirl debuts in September, as DC Comics relaunches all its superhero comics.

Brian Kruise, 23, came dressed as a Soviet Waldo, from the "Where's Waldo" books. No stranger to dressing up for conventions, he runs the costuming Web site SDCosplay.org.

Though not practicing strict cosplay, these women were hired to walk around the convention wearing backpacks that powered videos playing above their heads. It made for as striking a sight as some of the costumes people were wearing.

No Voltron cosplaying was seen on the first day of the con, though the robot made up of five lions dominated the con floor as a statue.