Hi everyone!
I am home from J-popcon and will write a blog post on my thoughts and experiences next week - but until then, here is a guide of how to choose your next character to cosplay. Enjoy!We all know the feeling – you need a new costume, but who should you cosplay next? For some these considerations come easy and for some they are rather difficult. Even if the decision comes easy a lot of things are taken into consideration when choosing a new cosplay – even if you don’t see the thought process. Of course, I can’t speak for anyone besides myself, but here I give you my considerations for choosing a new character.
There are
several categories of things to consider and how important each category is,
varies a lot from person to person, so you need to figure out which criteria is
the most important to you.
Below is a
list of categories that I always consider when choosing a costume.
- Interests
This one
usually comes naturally. What interests you? Is it a specific anime, a game, a
manga, a TV series or something else? When finding a character, you need to
choose someone that you connect with and that you’ll want to portray. If you
don’t feel a strong connection to the character you probably won’t have enough
motivation when working hard on the costume. There will almost always be days
where the only thing carrying you through the crafting is the love for the
character and the will to portray them properly.
Okay, so
now you have some shows/games in mind – then what? Maybe you’ve already fallen
in love with a character and maybe you just have a general direction… The next
things to consider are:
-
Reservations
You might
have some specific reservations when cosplaying. Maybe you hate shirts that are
tight fitting around the arm, maybe you refuse to wear heels. For some people
these reservations mean more than to others. I for one, refuse to show my
midriff and thus won’t cosplay characters with exposed stomachs. Other people
might change the costume to include certain reservations such as lengthening a
skirt/top, using their own hair or changing the shoes. When you have considered
your reservations, and know whether you will let this decide your choice of
character you can move along with the process.
-
Preferences
in character
This is
where people’s priorities differ the most if you ask me. You might have some
preferences as to the skin colour, body type, eye colour, height and gender of
the character. Skin colour, eye colour and height is something that usually won’t
be thought about twice when you see someone cosplaying a character.
Body type
and gender will – even though I would prefer it otherwise – be considered when
you’re cosplaying a character. At some point, I bet we’ve all given gender
and/or body type of another cosplayer a thought. But to be honest – as long as
you portray the character with confidence these shouldn’t matter much – but
consider this:
There is a
difference in the look of someone muscular cosplaying Son Goku as opposed to
someone skinny. If you do care about this, you should definitely consider the
body type – if you don’t care that’s just great for you because you’ll have a
lot more freedom when choosing a character. Just remember that your own body
will affect the outcome.
-
Skill
level
Now you probably
have a character in mind and the next question you should be asking is whether you
have the skill level to actually make the costume. To aim high is always fun,
but aim too high and you cause yourself a lot of stress and will potentially
fail the build. Look at what you’ve done before, what kind of equipment you
have available and look at how many new techniques you will be learning. A few
new techniques are easily overcome, but if you decide to learn 10 new skills
for a costume you might feel the pressure. This is also where you decide how
stressful you want the build to be. It all comes down to your self-confidence.
And don’t be afraid to fail – we all do at some point and it is a wonderful
learning experience.
-
Specific
skills used on the costume
Are there
any skills, you really want to learn/train on the costume you’re considering?
If not, it is possible that it’s not the costume you should be doing right now.
Perhaps you want to learn how to work with worbla, improve your zipper-skills,
dye fabric or style a pony tail wig? Who knows? Only you do!
Of course,
not all people care about this, but some do, and it should be part of your
considerations when choosing a build. (My Donald Duck is a great example for
this).
-
Time
This one is
super important! it doesn’t matter how high your skill level is or how well-planned
your costume is if you don’t have the time to build it. If you are pressed for
time it is always better to choose a smaller costume and let the larger builds
wait for another time. A build pressed for time will almost always come out
less than satisfactory to you and the level of stress will be higher. Time is a
factor that is hard to change. When building I always add 50% to the time I
think I will need – unless I am learning a new skill, then I’ll add 100%.
Estimating how much time you will be using for a costume is one of the hardest
things to do and will only come with experience – so be sure you have time to
make mistakes along the way.
-
Finances
We all have
very different budgets when it comes to cosplay. The only advice I can give you
is to plan your build well enough to buy materials along the way. This will
also lower the unexpected expanses along the way. The more you build, the easier
it will be to estimate the cost of a build.
-
Convention
When you
plan a costume you probably have an event you really want to wear it to.
Assuming that you have already estimated the time the build will take, there
are other factors you will need to include.
Do you need
to travel to the convention? If so you will need to be able to carry your
belongings yourself. If you’re flying, you will either have to pack in
standard-size suitcases or pay for oversize baggage. If you’re going by car you
are limited by the number of people and the model of car. If you consider these
things before building the costume, you’ll avoid trying to fit your whole armour
and a giant axe into a Prius.
If you have
the privilege to take the weather into account, then I suggest you do it –
especially if you are going to be spending a lot of time outdoors. As an example,
I decided to wear my wool-robed Jedi at the spring convention and is saving the
mini-skirted Mine for the summer convention.
If you have
a specific con in mind, you’ll also want to check out their cosplay rules. The
rules – especially for props can vary greatly even between local cons.
-
Friends
Again –
this is something which is important to some but irrelevant to others. Are your
friends cosplaying from a fandom you want to join? Or have they perhaps gotten
a magnificent idea for a group – or have you? If this is the case, you might
want to cosplay with your friends as a group. This limits your choice of
character – but you get to have fun as a group.
-
Inconvenience
Are you the
type of person who just want to play ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ all weekend? Do
you want to spend the weekend on photoshoots? Or perhaps spend it running
around with your friends? You might want to consider your priorities before
choosing a costume. Large armour builds are hot, exhausting and very limiting
to wear – but they look splendid in pictures. Whereas a casual school girl
outfit might not look extraordinary but will give you the room to dance and
have fun.
When you
have considered all this, you have the knowledge to successfully choose a
character which will suit, not only your skill level, but also how you spend
your time at a convention.
Of course,
your priorities might shift with each costume and this is completely normal.
Usually, your considerations are grounded in one or two of these groups, and
the rest will be considered, but are not as important as the first one.
Some
examples of this prioritizing can be found in my own costumes:
Mine
(Amnesia): The original plan was to have a whole group of friends cosplaying
from this anime – so I picked my favourite character from the show. (Priority:
Friends)
Miraluka: I
fangirled so hard over my own character from SW:TOR that I just had to make
her! (Priority: Interests)
Donald
Duck: I want to practice my zipper skills (Priority: Specific skills used on
the costume)
Remember: Costumes are different; thus, they are
separate adventures to build.
