#build book

[beebookmagic]

So I don't normally share my build book for my cosplays, usually they're really half assed with pics thrown together and barely any order beyond section.

But Gale I did a lot on and organized it fairly well. The con is this weekend, let's see how well I do. ☺️ (The sound of a person trying very hard to remain positive and not get stuck in their head.)

[pins-snip]

Heyo! I wanted to post our build book somewhere so here we gooo

We stole the table of context ontop of finished photo idea from @sarahspaceman who I'm sure saw it from somewhere else. Our cosplays are a little out there so I wanted to give a debrief on just how we came up with this concept along with a way for the judges to find more materials.

Since this wasn't a thing that existed in any sort of media it was very important to me that the judges would know that we picked from historical imagery, so I wanted to have pictures as examples of what things were supposed to look like. In addition to giving examples from the games of imagery that we used in case they were unfamiliar.

You'll begin to notice a trend of pictures that have their background removed, I just wanted to be able to fit more stuff on the page without compromising space. I also tried to block like sections together to draw the eye easier when reading about certain pieces.

Another thing that I tried to do was keep in mind what the book would look like in physical form, so we tried to mirror where we could.

Fun fact, because I had this pattern notated I was able to go back and use it to make more trim when I decided my butt was too bare. Luigi's Hosen page too a log of finagling to get it too look right with the amount of text I wanted to be on there.

Because we ended up condensing some stuff together, we ended up with an extra page, page 12 became a "here's everything we haven't talked about yet that we want to talk about" By the time we sent off the book for Metro, we hadn't updated the shoes page with their new stained leather- they look much nicer now.

Snip went into a work frenzy and didn't take any photos of him covering the base in worble, but you can take my word for it that it did happen! (I was busy weaving when he was knocking Chain2.0 out) I love love love how the Poltergust turned out. It's a functional backpack and is super sturdy!

Hope you enjoyed our build book! It took us probably about 12 hours to put it together originally and then another 5 to redo the parts of it that didn't make sense in our late night frenzy the first time.

[prosperdecay]

I put this build book together when I was gonna enter Nimona in the GalaxyCon costume contest (got a judge’s choice yeahyyyy) anyway I’m making one for my Kris now and actually doing it as I go, which is easier but also reminded me I never posted this and it might be of some interest?

I mean, I didn’t really know build books existed until I asked the cool people on the NorCal TLT Cosplayers server for advice on costume competitions, so I had to make this pretty last minute! Now that I know about them, I’m making my Kris one as I go, and it helps me remember to actually take progress photos….

[mrthehair]

I was digging about in my internet scraps and look what I found...a build book for my 2024 Marko(The Lost Boys)cosplay...heh heh heh. It's weird looking back and seeing myself so...youthful? Twinkish? De-muscled? Whatever you'd call it. It sort of worked for Marko anyway.

I'm still quite proud of this cosplay, so I thought I'd share it all with you! I've censored my grinning visage and my unspeakable name so my enemies won't find me, but otherwise it's unaltered. About a year of effort total...my oh my

[888xiicos]

Cozmez (Paradox Live) Build Book

This build book won me and my partner the Best in Show title at EvilleCon 2025, so I wanted to share it for other people to easily reference and use as inspiration for their own!

Long post, lots of pages, so beware!

More in depth process posts coming soon!

[radcatcreations]

If anyone is interested, here is my Katamari build book! I realized I never shared it even though I’ve had several people asking how I did all this. The only thing not pictured here is my swatch pages. Also if you want even more info, I made a really long YouTube video about it

[castrian-cosplays]

More obscure anime cosplay creation!