Hi Fabrickind, I have a question: How do you stay motivated throughout the making of a costume? My interests tend to cycle rapidly, and while I start every project with excitement, I often find myself less and less interested as I advance. How can I keep myself interested until the costume is complete?
This can be a tough one. I usually either do things too impulsively or put things off for a long time. Having the motivation to do steady work can sometimes be hard to muster.
Thankfully, I tend to be a fairly determined person, so feeling the need to complete something on a deadline really helps for me. I also tend to fall in love with series pretty hardcore, so that helps just on a personal level, but I also totally understand the immediate hype and then falling out of love issue (I tend to be at either extreme).
One thing that can help is sitting on the project for a bit. Instead of rushing out to buy all the materials and starting immediately, wait a month or so. If you’re still just as excited as you were before, then go for it. If you have lost that excitement or feel like you “should” do it but don’t really “want” to do it, then don’t, because you’ll probably run out of steam halfway.
It can also help to set smaller goals along the way. Get the dress sewn this week, get the applique done in two weeks, style the wig the week after, etc. This can help you see the progress you’re making and keep you motivated -- if it feels like you aren’t getting anywhere, it can be hard to want to keep going, so being able to see steady progress can really help keep you excited.
If you need to do easier projects that you can make quicker before you run out of motivation, do so. It might feel good to mix a few of those in just to get something done. also, if you need to take a break for a while, do so.
Costume choice can also have a big impact here. I feel like personally, I get burned out more easily on projects from longtime favorite series, since I figures I can do them at any time and then eventually just never do (it took me years to do angela from SD3, for example), though doing new popular things might burn some people out, since the hype may wear off quicker, and you may end up not loving it after that dies down a little, so you may have better luck doing something from a childhood favorite series, for example.
You may also have better or worse luck with doing one costume at a time, or doing multiple costumes at once. Multiple costumes can keep things fresh, but you’re also dividing your attention. One costume at a time allows you to entirely focus on that one costume, but you may also use up all your motivation early on if it’s just one thing.
You can also put the costume aside for a while and then pick it back up later. It may help to keep yourself excited about the source material (rewatching/reading, listening to the soundtracks, looking at fanart or other people’s cosplays, etc.). However, if you tend to get sick of things easily, this may be counterproductive, since you may wear out the source material and never want to touch it again!
One thing that I would never advise is to start a costume right before the con so that you don’t run out of motivation partway through, but so that you are rushing to complete it. Don’t do that. You’ll just burn yourself out faster.
