Sunday, December 5, 2010

Week 3: Cosplay

What is Cosplay?
Cosplay  is shortform for "costume play". 
It is when one dresses up as a character from manga, anime or game.


You can do it alone.

In pairs.

In a Small team with a photographer (:

Or in a huge group of the same theme (:



Today I am gonna teach u...


5 Basic Steps To Be a Cosplayer


1. Pick Your Character!



Long hair, shoulder length hair, short hair , bob hair, NO HAIR. Up to you. (: 
Preferably a character you like alot and dont mind turning into. 
If you dont have any idea, start watching animes or u can analyse other cosplayers and see if you would be inspired to do something similar.   


2. Time To Get Hairy!

(my own collection of wigs :D)


After deciding your character, you can purchase wigs.
Preferably http://www.taobao.com/ or http://www.ebay.com/ or singapore shops (they are exorbitant & lousy though)
Getting your desired colour & length is important!
Hopefully the seller styles the wig for you so you can save some trouble doing it yourself.


3.Get Your Anime Eyes!

( my own collection of coloured contacts)


You do know that its impossible to have huge pupils like the anime characters.
(Especially if u have small asian pupils like me haha.)
So you can buy 14.0-17.0mm coloured lense of different colours to suit your character (:
The more prefered brands are Geo & Eos Lenses.


4.Making Your Costume!

(my own stash of costumes)


If you are talented in sewing you can do the costume yourself ( more pocket friendly too!)
But if you are lazy &/ cant sew you can get a tailor & show him/her pictures & pick clothes to get going.
Caution: It wont be cheap, so dont expect like 30 dollars. 
A minimum charge is normally around $100.
  

A suggestion to people with tighter cashflow, you can buy 2nd hand costumes (if you dont mind) at sgcafe.
Because some cosplayers need to make new costumes and requires space/money to do so they might sell their current 1 at a lower price (: 



5. Go To Events & Show Off Your New Self



The most popular events are SOY (Jan), Cosfest (June-July),AFA (Sept-Oct) & EOY (Dec).
There could be some street festivals now and then that could include cosplaying.
But these 4 events are where you will see MOST of the cosplayers.


I personally like to go to Cosfest because its free entry for all (:
For the other 3 events, you may need to buy tickets to get inside the exhibition area.
Well, you can still go because not all cosplayers(including me) like to pose in the exhibition room because it has dark lighting & you get people at your background.




Something that really bothers me ):
Well, not all people are generally acceptable in the way we do things.
Some people call us Freaks, Retards & Clowns.
But, I will not stop cosplaying because of those silly remarks.
Why bother to get agitated by remarks by ignorant people right?


If you want to be..

  • A different person for a day(in my opinion most cosplayers looks the best while cosplaying) 
  • A model where people (with hugeass DSLR-s) frantically snaps picture of you 
  • Asked to take pictures with random strangers
  • Interacting with other people in costumes & even making friends.


I really urge you to try Cosplay! (:
(well haters will always hate, so who cares?)




&&....  the winner for the freebie was Aravind.
Congrats :D