Instead of reporting Cosplay news, I thought I'd write an article about knowing your 'Cosplay Look' and running with it.
Let's be frank: Everyone has a look. Some are sexy, some are cute, some are badass, some are bishounen. Some people are curvy, some people less so, some people are mr muscles, some people are elvish.
Cosplay is not just about wearing a costume and pretending to be said character, it IS about the look. The people who are able to get as close as they can to said character's look makes a great cosplayer.
If you break down popular comic/ game/ anime characters, they all fall into different categories. Let's start with Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII
Cloud is slim built athletic guy. He has muscles but they're not super action hero huge. His face is rather effeminate for a heroic male character.
It's true, finding guys that actually look like Cloud is quite challenging. Which is why lots of girls have attempted being Cloud.
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| pikminlink as Advent Children Cloud |
pikminlink who mostly does Link from Zelda did this amazing cosplay of Cloud from FF7 Advent Children waay back. He fits the body type, the face shape and his overall costume is great, plus, he's smart to use shades cause you know, everyone loves shades and he's able to preserve the cool tough guy look for Cloud.
Let's look at Super Heroes from comics in general. Most times, the ladies are all very athletic and curvy. Let's look at Jean Gray from X-men
Jean Grey has very fiery red hair, an athletic busty build, and has a tough girl but sweet kind of face when she's not kicking ass.
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| gillykins as Jean Grey |
Here's
gillykins as Jean Grey. She has the tough girl but kind face for it, also the body shape and yeah she looks great overall!
Alright alright, Grimzy, you're being unfair! You're picking all the good looking people! It's true, we're not all given great looks and fantastic bodies but if you play to your strengths right, you can cosplay characters that fit you.
It's true, there aren't many plus sized characters about but if you do find them and if you fit the look, then that's super awesome!
Like look at King Pin from Marvel Comics
Kingpin is a HUGE guy. He has a suit, a cane, a cigar and he's a badass!
This guy is just perfect
Then what about big girls! It's true there aren't many big girl characters in comics and games HOWEVER big girls are the funny characters!
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| Lumpy Space Princess from Adventure Time |
Lumpy Space Princess from Adventure Time looks like a blob but this can work to your advantage when you're a bigger girl!
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| PERFECT! |
This girl is just PERFECT. The outfit, the purple gown, that priceless expression. She's NAILED it.
Also another thing is side characters are more forgiving than iconic characters. You can still have fun cosplaying!
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| Crazy 88s from Kill Bill are easy! |
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| hey Hey! Team Rocket grunts! - Pokemon |
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| FF7 Shinra Guards! |
If you know some people and they're really good armor crafters, you could attempt armored characters. Armor however is not easy to make and things do get quite expensive so don't attempt if you're just starting out cosplaying.
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| Halo Spartan |
Then what about THE GLASSES PROBLEM. It's true most characters don't actually wear glasses and people like me absolutely hate putting any foreign object like contact lenses into my eyes. There's always characters with glasses to choose from. Of course there is some limitations but still. You work with what you've got.
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| Quistis from Final Fantasy 8 |
Quitis is very bookish, she has blonde hair, blue eyes and she has glasses! She's also very prim and proper, slim (and she's also my all time favorite FF8 character)
Not too bad at all!
I mean, generally, play to your strengths.
If you have the curves, do the curve thing
If you have the muscles, do the muscle thing
If you're small and cute, do the cute thing
If you don't have boobs, you could do bishounen characters (guys that look like girls). Or you could do military, armor, stuff that doesn't show off boob.
If you're a big person, you could do big characters or mascots, fur suits, armor characters etc.
But of course, everyone is choosy and wants to be someone they're not but hey, we gotta work with what we got to make a great cosplay!
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