Meet Blair Heald. By day, human services specialist for the County of San Diego. By night, an award-winning cosplayer. Blair has participated in amateur costuming competitions since the late '90s. At his first Comic-Con appearance, he won Best in Show for a massive Giant Robo costume. He's become well known for specializing in robot costumes.

But this year, Blair decided to do something different. He created an original 7-foot rock monster as an homage to the popular Masquerade "rock" chant. This year, he took home three awards including Best Original Design. Here is his routine, posted to YouTube by a member of the audience. You can see many of his other costumes in fan videos posted online.

Congratulations to Blair and all the other creative cosplayers who make the Comic-Con Masquerade a must-see event every year.

Summer's here and superheroes, stormtroppers, gundams and sexy babes are about to invade America's Finest City. That's right, it's time for Comic-Con International. The Con's completely sold out. I have been attending the Con for more than two decades, and it is one of the things that I look forward to most every year. This year I'm particularly excited about the fact that KPBS will be providing extensive coverage of the Con with videos of panels, highlights of booths, interviews with cool people, and recommendations about what's hot in comics, film, gaming, and collectibles. We also want to focus on the Con-goers, those wonderful fans who have embraced their obsessions and just want to hang out with like-minded people. One of the things that we'd like to do is to follow one person through the process of designing and creating a costume for the annual Masquerade. If you live in San Diego and plan to enter the Masquerade, please contact us! We are looking for one talented, passionate individual who's putting their heart and soul into a costume and is willing to let KPBS invade your life to record the entire process. Ideally we are looking for someone who will be competing in the Best Original Design (check out last year's winner in that category to the left) or Most Beautiful category. I have seen some stunning costumes in my years at the Con so I know the perfect person is out there. If you have any questions or would like to be considered as the subject for out Masquerade web feature and video, please email me at .

You can check out last year's Masquerade or find info on this year's event.