People about Cosplay...

Cosplay is full of fun and creativity!

I don’t do cosplay but I do have a lot of friends within the community. Some of them do it for fun but most of them take cosplay as a job and it is their passion.

I’m an anime con goer and I know that cosplaying a certain character from scratch is difficult and take a lot of resources. From creating the costume, studying the character traits and personality and interacting with people while you’re in disguise, sure it needs a lot of confidence, energy and creativity.

Seeing your favorite character in person is amusing enough but to take a photo with them is a different experience.

I know that not all cosplayers are perfect, there are limitations since we’re humans after all. Regardless, you should respect them and don’t judge them. If they’re missing something like a detail on their costume or unable to do what the actual character does, you don’t know their history before deciding to cosplay that character. What I’m saying is, you can approach them in a nicely manner and tell them what does the character do and any improvement she/he can do for this character in the future. This method always work with me and my friends. Cosplayers are also fan of the character they portray, they’re open-minded and open for feedback since they’re like a public figure. Just make sure to be nice and I’m pretty sure that they will return it.

I just hate people who judges cosplayers based on their physical appearance. They can’t even cosplay the character itself, why do they need to attack the person? There are times when toxicity is inevitable in cosplay community but it doesn’t mean that you can always attack people who loves to cosplay. If you have a negative thing to say, keep it to yourself.

For cosplayers out there, just continue what you’re doing! Be proud and always look up. Conventions will not be alive and active without you guys!

Pick your favorite character, or one you would have the most interest in creating, and start looking for items that can be turned into props. Go to the thrift stores and find clothing that can be altered, or may even work as it. Figure out how to do an ‘adaptation’ of a character – for instance, I have a Rarity (My Little Pony) costume that is a purple skirt, purple and white blouse, large white hat and purple wig. I have either white or purple heels to go with it, but I forget which. Everything except the wig was repurposed out of my own closet.

If you haven’t done any costuming at all before, pick a character that usually wears ‘street clothes’. There are also a ton of eBay sellers out there that offer custom made cosplays, but you have to be careful and read reviews about their sizing – a lot of them tend to run small. I’ve also bought stand alone pieces like corsets, boots, purses, etc., from eBay and Etsy. This one store on eBay sold cheap corsets for ten bucks each – they didn’t stand up to long term use, but they did work for about a year of conventions, each, and held up pretty good for the per-wear price. Anything you buy from a China eBay seller, plan to give it a month lead time. I usually get wigs and whatnot within 2-3 weeks, but the sellers usually say to allow for 30 days. And there are a lot of good inexpensive wigs on eBay too!

If you don’t sew, there are a lot of ways to get started, even if you aren’t crafty at all! those are skills you can pick up later on if you have a desire to.

Good luck!

I have already emphasized elsewhere that I count cosplayers into the pretty small circle of subcultures that I consider “my tribe”. And that I will never hesitate to defend them from detractors and ridicule, be it online or offline, wherever the need arises.

That said, my personal stance regarding the enjoyment of cosplaying is a bit more complicated than that. Because… well… personally, cosplaying doesn’t really “work” for me. At least not in a certain sense.

See, right from the beginning of my anime career, I have always had this habit that I keep anime and real life strictly separate in my mind. In all sorts of ways, and for all sorts of good reasons.

As a result of this, I can admire the people and their awesome costumes, but I have a really, really hard time seeing the actual character “in it”.

Two worlds…

Mind you, it’s not the fault of the people. Originally my authenticity demands when it came to character reproductions were insanely high, anyway. Never mind cosplaying. For the longest time, I couldn’t even accept 99% of the released anime figurines because deep down, I felt that “they didn’t look right”.

These days? Well, as far as authenticity is concerned: you only need to look at my shelf with several figures on it to realize that this demand has dropped at least somewhat… but yea, I still keep the worlds apart so strictly that it prevents me from emotionally accepting the “cosplay illusion”.

Needless to say, I never discuss this with cosplayers. Because I fear they could misunderstand it as me disregarding their efforts. Or worse, as criticism of their designs or even their hobby. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. On the contrary.

Because I find it awesome what they do. I always have and always will deeply respect cosplaying for the amount of underlying fandom that it expresses, as well as for the effort people put into it.

Whenever I see someone with an elaborate/authentic/cleverly made costume, I cannot help but doff my hat at the driving passion behind it. Perhaps I’m even a bit envious about it. Either way, if I see that someone is willing to invest that many hours into designing and creating something like that… then that gives him/her my respect and a boatload fan cred. In short, it basically earns you the status of “card-carrying elite fan” in my book.

So no, when I look at cosplayers, I don’t see the character. But it still makes me happy – because I see a fan whose passion and efforts I wholeheartedly support and admire.