Cosplay Girls Daily

People about cosplay...

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’m going to address this question from a different viewpoint. Why is cosplay popular amongst those that do it?

There is the factor of honoring the source material/fandom that you love. There is the creative outlet. Then there is the sharing of the work with other fans and making new connections with like-minded people. Getting complimented for your work can create a sense of accomplishment, as can having a photographer ask to take your picture. A three day event like a local comic-con or Anime/SF/Fantasy Convention can be more rewarding than a two week vacation in the tropics, to some people.

This all has a spillover effect, those that aren’t doing it, see the results and fun that those that are having and want to do it themselves next time. This keeps the world of Cosplayers growing at a currently staggering amount. I’m staff on a 2,200 person Anime Convention and we are constantly amazed at the ~60% cosplay attendance.

Cosplay is used to portray a character, in complete characterization, sometimes even down to speech and acting.

Culture appropriation, in my opinion, is always negative, portraying double standards that favor white people. For example, hairstyles used by black people seem trashy and inappropriate, but in white people they are deemed edgy.

Cosplay is a representation of the love for a character, they are acting as the character, their race or cultural background of said character usually has nothing to do with the character, it is a simple fact about them.

When a person does “cosplay”, by making fun of another race, say they dress up as a black character by simply putting on brown makeup, this is racism.

However, correctly portraying the character who happens to be black, is cosplay and is not appropriating the culture of said character, simply using their image to act as them.