Cosplay: A Labour of Love
As a cosplayer, I frequently encounter questions regarding how much my costume cost. I understand and appreciate people’s genuine curiosity, however I can’t help but feel slightly awkward. The ‘cost’ of making a costume from scratch is so much more than simply throwing money at a pile of fabric and making a costume appear.
In the quest to portray a perfect physical realization of a fictional character, the ‘cost’ of a costume should not simply be reduced to an amount of money. The process of converting a costume (often 2D) into an accurate physical artifact is often an incredibly difficult and time-consuming process. For committed cosplayers, the standard and quality of the costume they wear is extremely high, and much of the talent required to produce a detailed and accurate costume is often concealed under the finished product. Spending large sums of money on a costume does not automatically make it ‘superior’ to a costume that someone put together on a budget – it all comes down to creativity and skill.
On top of the lengthy research process that precedes costume construction, passionate cosplayers are often more than willing to try their hand at a number of new skills and techniques in pursuit of the perfect costume. Sewing, leatherworking, makeup artistry, hairdressing, working with plastics, 3D printing, pattern-making and prop-making are just a few of the expansive and time-consuming practices.
To highlight the lengths that dedicated cosplayers will go to in pursuit of perfection, I caught up with Zebbie and Kohana from One Minute Cosplay to discuss their stunning Madokami and Homucifer (from the Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion movie) costumes.
(Left: Madokami [source] and right: Homucifer [source])
(Left: Zebbie as Madokami, right: Kohana as Homucifer, Photographer: Creed Photography)
Their costumes took approximately one month to finish, however copious hours of research, experimentation and fine-tuning were required prior to their completion.
Exploring a variety of new technologies and skills were crucial to the realisation of both costumes.
Zebbie’s Madokami wings were modeled using Autodesk Inventor software, with the wings of the Figma Ultimate Madoka Madokami figurine as a reference. The wing template was then sent to a plastics company where they were cut from clear acrylic using an industrial laser-cutter.
After washing the acrylic, Zebbie recounts spending an extensive amount of time researching suitable types of spray-paint and gradient-spraying techniques. This process was extremely difficult and delicate – just touching the clear acrylic had the potential to seriously jeopardize the smooth finish of the entire model. Through practicing spraying a gradient on extra pieces of acrylic, Zebbie was able to refine her technique and flawlessly complete her wings.
Kohana printed a scaled image of her wings to use as a life-sized template, and created the physical structure by pain-stakingly bending a length of copper pipe into the desired shape. Kohana explained that this process was challenging because although copper pipe is malleable, it is difficult to bend it in particular places. However, using the corners and curves of her cat’s scratching post, Kohana managed to manipulate the pipe to achieve her desired result.
She then made a paper template of the white parts of Homucifer’s wings and used this to cut the same shape out of foam board. After spray-painting the copper pipe, each feather was individually hot-glued onto the foam board, resulting in an immaculate finished product.
However, both Zebbie and Kohana agreed that their hoop skirts were the most challenging aspects of their costumes, simply due to their size and gravity-defying structures. Zebbie explained that the particular shape she was after for the skirts was incredibly difficult to achieve. Because of the huge size of the skirts and their open fronts, many previous cosplays of these characters used cross-braces to support the skirt structures, which were often visible. To avoid using a visible brace, Zebbie and Kohana incorporated crab traps, hoola hoops, wire and sinkers into their skirts to get the ideal shape.
Both cosplayers agree that this extensive process of trial and error has not only enhanced their creative abilities, but also provided them with the knowledge and skills to make future costume construction easier. Clearly, their huge outlay of time, effort and ingenuity has paid off – both costumes look absolutely fantastic.
