Cosplay Tutorial #1: Where to begin?
TLDR at the bottom, but please read!
Ahh, so you’ve decided to step into the world of cosplay, short for “costume play”, used as both a noun and a verb in reference to the act of recreating a specific character in the form of a costume and roleplaying as that character, perhaps to a convention, for halloween, or just because.
It is a very fun and rewarding hobby, just as it can be challenging and perhaps overwhelming at times. There is a wealth of knowledge online, and perhaps you can just figure parts of it out. But, even in my personal experience, it can be difficult to understand or even find instructions, or they may be far beyond your current skill level, or the instructions may not even exist! At any rate it can be very beneficial to have some basis of where to start, regardless of if you’re new to the hobby or if you’re experienced and looking for a new way to do things. I consider myself to be an intermediate cosplayer, and parts of this will be experimental and new to me as well.
Enough talking, where do you start? The first step, naturally, will be to pick a character. With cosplay, you can transform yourself into any character you would like! But before we get ahead of ourselves, there are two factors to consider when picking a character to cosplay: relatability and difficulty.
Relatabilty of the character is important because “getting into character”, while not a requirement, is a very fun part of cosplay. In my own experience, choosing a character that you really can’t relate to makes for a poorer cosplay experience. You are less motivated, and the cosplay turns out mediocre at best. And if the roleplaying aspect is important to, it’s really difficult to do so if you can’t relate on some level to that character. For example, I might choose Dipper Pines from Gravity Falls because I can relate to the nerdy, sweaty awkwardness and how much he cares about his family and his sister (I love my own sisters to pieces) or Princess Luna from MLP because I’ve experienced similar feelings of being unloved and unwanted and have had to heal from that. However, I would struggle to cosplay Mabel, Dipper’s twin sister, because I can’t match her brighter, bubblier, more spontaneous personality, nor would I cosplay Applejack, another MLP character, because I can’t relate to her more down to earth personality nor can I stand the “country folk” stereotypes that surround her. As you can see, relatability to a character can play a huge factor in deciding your cosplay, and how it can turn out.
Difficulty is just as important as relatability. If this is your first cosplay, I do not recommend recreating that amazing Mercy from Overwatch cosplay or creating an intricate set of cosplay armor with LEDs and fancy pieces and props. Don’t Do It. You will become overwhelmed very quickly without the prior experience of designing and making costumes. I’ve tried this, my first ever Homestuck cosplay was Eridan. A somewhat intermediate cosplay, and the first I had done in a while. It was difficult, and to be perfectly honest I’m thinking I should have chosen one of the human characters (I almost chose Dave, and I still want to do that). The time will come, but in the meantime choose something somewhat simple if it’s your first time. A little challenge is okay, too, don’t get me wrong. But you don’t want to choose something too difficult that will be miserable and become nothing but a massive chore.
TLDR: The first step of cosplay is to choose a character, and it’s important to bear in mind both the relatability and difficulty of the character.