Are you a cosplayer? What's a cosplayer?

Ok so, I am so not asking for the wikipedia definition of a 'cosplayer'. But asking more in a figurative form…
what do you think defines a cosplayer?

Honestly, this is such a flammable topic but I just feel like talking about it so here it is. I can't remember when it started... but recently, I've started to feel weird and awkward to call myself a cosplayer. Before you start slamming me, calm down and read on.

Lemme explain. So, I've always felt somewhat awkward for liking this geeky sport and honestly its not exacy something I'd brag about throughout my 9 years of cosplay. So feeling awkward and embarrassed is nothing new. But that's another story for another day.

What I've started to feel is a little different. Not awkward to be seen with an awkward hobby but awkward for the hobby to be seen with an awkward me. Very complicated, I know.

In simpler and humiliated terms, I've started to feel both guilty for not living up to the name of a 'cosplayer'  and confused over ... exactly WHAT is a cosplayer? I mean, its hard to meet a standard when you don't have an accurate gauge of that standard right?

I've always been quite nonchalant about this whole definition thing because I believe everyone is entitled to their own interpretation. And by my own interpretation, I consider myself a cosplayer.

But as time progresses and the overall standards in cosplay quality improves, combined with the accessibility of ready made costumes. More and more commercial entities start looking to cosplayers for novelty profit. This is nothing new of course.But as more and more people jump onto the bandwagon, the definition of Cosplay gets more and more complicated.

Especially after the whole OTACOOL2 drama. It's starting to pry my eyes open to the commercialism and bastardisation of the hobby. I know I’ve mentioned before that I’m not against commercialisation. And apologies for the harsh words used here. But like many others out there.... I'm starting to feel the term  'cosplayer' just doesn’t seem much anymore. It's like anyone who dons a costume is a cosplayer, and they get acknowledged for it. For those of you out of the loop, there was a lot of hooha surrounding the publication, on how many of the cosplayers featured weren’t really “Cosplayers” but “Models”.

It’s like anyone who has a blog is a blogger. Anyone who sings is a singer. Anyone who can dribble is a basketball player. Which just makes me pull my hair in confusion and frustration… so exactly WHAT constitutes a “Cosplayer”?!

Suddenly, cosplay feels so easy and do-able. You don't even need any love for the character/Series anymore! Of course, I'm not penalizing cosplayers who buy/tailor costumes, most Japanese do it anyway. Also as a disclaimer, I don’t mind  people who occasionally goes to event, wear/borrow a store bought costume and started playing with everyone else. I believe everyone has the right to enjoy the fun lovingness of the community and I welcome them to join us.

 

What I'm disappointed with, is how the term “Cosplayer” is being used. I feel ashamed for admitting this because it just sounds so childish and whiny. But recently, this feeling has grown enough to make me feel like talking/blogging about it. But I guess we can't do anything about that, commercialisation and diluting of the hobby is eventual.

 
Another side of me feels guilty for not being more 'dedicated' . Despite myself still continuing with cosplays, I find my own dedication to the hobby pale on comparison to other cosplayers around. A lot of cosplayers seem to live and breath cosplay and invests a big portion of their energy, time and money into it. But I don't. This is where I feel like I’m not living up the the name of a cosplayer.

I don’t have elaborate costumes. I don’t have HQ Videos. I don’t cosplay cute characters. In fact, these days I only seem motivated to cosplay if I can do something fun and novel. So, if by measurement of dedication, I think I fail haha ^_^ ;;;.

 

Blah, I sound so whiny! But seriously, despite this post seemingly indicating otherwise. I'm actually really alright with not being a top notch/famous/popular cosplayer (okay, this is so NOT tsundere mentality). After all, cosplay has always been just a hobby to me albeit a very heavy one. I enjoy cosplaying the characters/series I like and I enjoy the memories etched.  And that's good enough for me =)

Alright, there really is no point to this entry, I just feel like sharing this thought with you guys. How do you guys feel about this whole “Cosplayer” identity' thing ? Share with me your thoughts !!!!

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Preparing to wear a cosplay almost after three years!

Next weekend we are going to do something we haven't done in almost three years. Wear Sasori and Deidara! We have worn non-canon costumes, but not their official outfits for a long time. It's quite obvious that things have changed after the last time we had Akatsuki gear on... and they will change before the weekend, when we are going have the photoshoot. Our wigs are going to spend some quality time with me and my scissors. And loads of hair spray, I predict.

We tried the outerwear of the costumes, in other words the Akatsuki cloaks yesterday. We both squeaked how nostalgic it was and how long it's been since then. We were standing in Yoki's room staring ourselves from the mirror, tilting heads back and forth. Just staring. That... was... wierd. But still, quite exiting to breath life to those costumes again. We'll see what will happen.

First try out! Looks silly without definitive make-up.

If you ever think you are going to put on a cosplay again after some undefined time, store it well. I didn't have a clue where Deidara's head protector was, so I had to go trough every possible hideout after all the possible wardropes and shelves. And that was only at Yoki's place, where most of our costumes are kept. Gladly, I found it. It was at my place, in a shoe box companied by a rank badge from Matsumoto Rangiku. What a discovery!

Another thing that pops in my mind on this matter, is to write down all the names and colours of the make-up products you have used on a cosplay. I think tomorrow I'm going to hit the stores after work to find some pretty coloured nail polishes.

This, by the way is my first cosplay accessory ever. And still in a good shape.

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Just Be Friends Cosplay PV (Behind the Scene 2)

Hi peeps~ After struggling with my lousy workstation, this video is finally out!

Yes, to commemorate the success on NicoNico, I finally got my lazy arse around to editing Day 2 of the filming. This video features footages taken on the 2nd day of our JBF shoot where we focused on the Flashbacks.

Now that I really sit down and look at it, I find it unbelievable that we took SO MUCH TIME to shoot those flashbacks alone! Seriously! We officially started around 1- 2+PM and only ended around 11+ PM. That’s like, pretty much the same timeline for day one’s studio shoot. And we have so much more scenes to cover at the studio! *faints*

I guess all the image /costume/hair changing plus running around really took up a lot of time =\ Without much ado~ I present to you, the making of our JBF Cosplay PV, Part 2 !

Leave me a comment if you like it alright ^_^?

Drew a short comic strip of what happened at our dinner area. Was goign to change into my next costume and this was what reiko did. She pulled my outer sphagetti top down (the yellow one) to reveal the white tshirt inside ahha.

Lastly, I’d like to apologise for the tremendous amount of JBF spam recently. It has pretty much taken over this blog and I know everyone’s really tired of me going on about the same project. This video shall be the last JBF related stuff I’ll be posting for a long time. Departure is saddening but it has to happen ne? But I guess this is for the better =)

Of course I’m not saying I won’t be talking/blogging about JBF entirely in the future. I just think for now, I have exhausted all materials (all the “Making” videos are up) to share and figures its time to slack this project a bit. Even reiko agrees with me (in fact I think she supports it more xD). So till next time ~!!!

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And things just continue to get more ridiculous….

Haha, in case you can’t spot the mistake. That is someone else’s Youtube channel. Not mine.

Some Naruto fan actually got the video from niconico, then uploaded it to Youtube. I am in some sort of shock myself so I don’t really know how to react. But I left him a nice comment as can be seen in the screencap.

Should I PM him/her to take it down? I know I should but I feel a little mean doing that =\ . So I need some help here peeps! Comment and tell me your vote for my action!!!

Much thanks to emmyp95 for directing my attention to this video.

Edit: He/she replied my comment with a PM! He/she have credited and put a link to my channel in the description.

|||||||||||| oTL

Now I feel even meaner! AHHHHHHHHHH I think I just made the situation worse!!!! SOMEONE HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !!!!!!!!!!

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Random Cosplay Tip #5: make up remover!

This is more a beauty tip than a cosplay tip but I find it amazing so I'm gonna share anyway :)

Yes, make up remover. By far, the best and non drying make up remover I have tried and is still continuing to use, is pure olive oil. I discovered this by accident one day and have stuck to it since then.

Not only are pure olive oil great at cleaning, they also moisturizes your skin very well. And you can't deny how much cheaper they are compared to regular make up remover. I believe extra virgin oil will work even better but pure olive oil will do fine too. My bottle cost my mom like $3.80.Yes, I stole my mom's bottle. She had originally bought it for her hair but I decided to try it as a cleanser and have used it ever since then xD

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Popping stuff , unhappy paintjob and the devilish cracking sound

We are taking heavy casualties! My snowtrooper costume took some damage on the battleground. Hiron wanted me to tell about it so I'm going to list the casualties here, right now:

After spending few moments on our yard

my kneepad holder said
POP
while entering a car
the armor piece on the back of my hand said
POP
I didn't notice as
my shoulder straps said
POP
and when there were no glue or tape around
my visor said
POP
and as I came back to the base
I saw that one of my details had said
POP

Conclusion: glue doesn't like the cold

You move and your armor parts sometimes rub against each other. That is how you come up with unhappy paintjob. Most of the areas, which are lacking paint, are luckily in hard to see places like your abdomen and outsoles.

And finally the devilish cracking sound. The one you never wish to hear. Which happens to us way too often, maybe Hiron wants to tell us wath happened to her sword. "Your sword belongs to cloakroom, mine however is small enough to be carried with me", she said and look how that turned out.

Back to the point. I thought that the whole shoulderpeice was going apart when I heard the sound, but it was only one detail.

Ever thought where our name stems from.

-yoki out

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Snowtrooper: Second step

References are important when the goal is screen accurate costume. That’s why I made whole post about it. The second step is much vaster. It inncludes all the ground work and material selection.

Step two: Initialization

When you are pulling your costume from the ground, you need to start with choosing materials for the clothes and in our case for the armour. Again searching trough forums and other sites I found recommended materials for the uniform. We chose flannel for the coat and pouches and for the pants I used thick cotton. I used same stuff on my Bubblehead nurse costume, where it proved to be really nice quality and forgiving material. For the shoes I chose awning cloth for its durability and thickness. For attachments I used Velcro, rubber bands with different widths and plastic buckles. For the helmet shroud I had to buy white vinyl, with a nice tint of pink. Better material is on search.

For the armour I needed to dig deeper and the extra work was worth it. First we thought we would do the armour parts from fibreglass, but with that we would have needed a lot of help from our commissioner. In The Definitive How To: Snowtrooper I was introduced to vacuum forming, so I started to Google and eventually found many helpful sites from model builders homepages to How to- Youtube videos. I collected all the information together to form a plan suited for our project.

Our version of vacuum forming set-up

I draw patterns myself, so I didn’t have to go trough the horrible mission of finding close enough patterns to be later modified for the purpose. I used size 38 (UK 12) basic patterns for us both. I didn’t need to add any extra looseness, so the whole pattern process was really quick and effortless. I drew the coats little more form fitting than they are in the movie and designed some extra cuts for the upper part of the pants, which are hidden under the crotch piece.

The plan and structure for the shoes were born also quite fast. I’ve made few shoe covers and sandal-type shoes, but now we were building boots. I ended up using techniques I knew would work. I decided to construct the shoes over a “base shoe” using hot glue, cotton sheet and soft foam with the awning cloth.

More planning were put on the vacuum forming molds. They can be made almost from anything. I have seen people using metal, wood, plaster and ready-made objects. We needed a material which we could shape in home environment, so we didn’t even think of any other material instead of insulation foam. We had work with it before with props and small accessories. We knew what could be made out of it, how it would react to spray paints and wood filler, which we used to smooth out the surface and to prevent the foam from melting.

The molds were made of insulation foam, which was stacked and glued if needed. For some guidelines I took The Definitive how to Snowtrooper measurements, which I then scaled to suit us. I smartly though, that the measures are made for full-grown man and we don’t have quite the same frame. It was rather challenging to get the shapes and proportions right, but thanks to art classes it wasn’t over-powering. The only object, which I really fought with and almost lost my mind, was the chest armour. Not only was it the biggest part, it was also curvy and needed to sit on your shoulders beautifully coming down to your midriff and sides. It could not be “tried on” because it was huge, bulky piece of foam. Measurements and taking them multiple times were the only option I had. It took some patience and re-doing, but in the end it paid off.

After the mold issue was solved, the next step was to find the right plastic. I was really proud of myself when I, by myself actually found a company which could provide us with the material needed. Before I even got to look for the company, I had few alternatives in my hand. I somehow ended up with PETG-plastic, which was provided in clear sheets.

First frame and clear plastic sheet attached

When we were waiting for the plastic to arrive via mail, we commissioned the frames and the vacuum table from Esa. We had to bother him few times, because the first frame was too small for some armour parts. The second time was my fault and stupidity, but gladly he’s patient commissioner and didn’t think ill of me. So please think carefully of your working space, equipment and everything you might need before starting! You will save time later and don’t do ridiculous mistakes. And if you commission anything at all, make sure you have enough time for the order and the commissioner has enough time to carry trought your order.

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