Cosplaying: What is It?

Whether it be characters from books, movies, cartoons, video games, comics, TV shows, anime or manga, many people around the world choose to cosplay as their favorite characters. Cosplay is the practice of dressing up as a character. This costume play also involves becoming the character through costumed role-playing. Cosplay definitely goes beyond your average Halloween costume that you throw on for a party or for trick or treating.

Cosplaying is it's own subculture and is growing in popularity. Originally very popular at anime conventions, cosplaying is continually showing up at comic cons, sci-fi cons, multi-genre cons and even at niche cons such as Harry Potter cons. The great thing about cosplay is that it creates a platform for interpretation of a character. There are no rights or wrongs of how you interpret a character. Cosplayers adopt the mannerisms and body language of the characters they portray. Some cosplayers will take this more seriously than others and will hardly break out of character.

Cosplayers often create their own outfits and accessories and style their own wigs. With technology these days, YouTube is a great place to check out how to DIY videos. There are many forums where you can find patterns and tips and advice to create an outfit or how to create accessories such as a staff or sword. However, sometimes it's all about trial and error. You can always use a pre-made pattern from the fabric store as a base and build to it. Depending on the outfit, you can scout out pieces at thrift or consignment shops and alter them. Craft stores and even hardware stores are great places to start at if you are creating accessories.

Many conventions will offer cosplaying workshops from wig styling to sewing techniques. Photo ops are very popular at conventions whether it be meet ups for a certain universe or just a stylized posed photo.

Some cosplays I have done in the past include Kotoko from Chobits, Mizore from Rosario + Vampire, Cho Chang from Harry Potter, Sailor Saturn from Sailor Moon and Homura from Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

Me as Homura before wearing the heels.

Have you cosplayed before? If so, what characters did you cosplay as? If not, would you want to cosplay in the future and what characters would you like to cosplay as?