Cosplaying is a Superpower that most People Underestimate

It’s hard to miss when a comic convention is happening near you, especially when you pop down to the shops for your weekly groceries and bump into Spiderman casually picking up his lunch with his palls Link, Super Mario and Sailor Moon. Cosplaying, for those of you who are knew to the concept, is simply the act of dressing up as a character and then bringing them to life. Cos = Costume, Play = roleplay. One of the best parts about cosplaying is that you don’t need to be a fashionista or costume maker to participate; many people will pay pocket money for an already made costume online and manage to pull off as good an experience and character as someone who has spent the prior two months turning a sheet of fabric into fantasy armour. Cosplaying is simply the enjoyment of becoming a character you admire and loosing yourself in a fictional world for a couple of days where no one will judge you. At the convention at least.

There is, unfortunately, a stigma and stereotyping around cosplayers which I believe puts people off cosplaying as a whole and it does upset me because there’s so much more to cosplaying than what meets the eye…

People who have never indulged in the art of cosplaying don’t fully understand that cosplayers aren’t just a bunch of psycho-nerds with nothing better to do with their lives than play videogames in their parent’s basement at the age of 30. Cosplaying is an art. It’s a skill. It’s an enjoyment. And even if the said cosplayers are just nerds wanting to dress up, I’ll put it out to you there, they’re doing what they love and they don’t care what people think. That’s admirable!

For me, cosplaying is a different story...

I got into cosplaying a few years back. I have always loved Halloween, not because it’s the eve that the dead come out to haunt us and dance around their graves, but because there was a reason to dress up in costume, which was something I loved to do. Then, when I became aware of what comic cons really were like I was beyond excited to go to my very first convention - it was like a giant Halloween costume party but with character, flare and a room full of fictional worlds. So I sat for hours on end working out the perfect cosplay for my first visit.

After a while I settled on cosplaying as Lucy Heartfelia from the hit anime series Fairy Tail.

Her costume was distinct, popular enough to be recognised but wouldn’t be overdone and it was an elaborate outfit without being too complicated. Admittedly, I didn’t make the costume myself but that didn’t bother me, not at least for my first time. I had a lot of fun shopping around collating all the bits and bobs to pull together, a bit like a costume treasure hunt. Finding a pair of boots that looked remotely similar was definitely a challenge!

My second day I wanted so badly to dress up as Ferius Parfax from Sebastien De Castell’s best selling series Spellslinger, but I hit a snatch.

From the only two books of the series that were released at the time there was no content about the character’s bottom half attire. On a whim I decided to message the author himself asking for assistance. I was so shocked when De Castell not only replied to my message but conversed with me about the intricate details of Ferius’ clothes! I knew then I had to do it absolutely perfect or die trying. So I did it. Head to toe. I made Ferius’ playing cards from scratch, designing each one based off the cover of the first book, created the patches on her trousers and pulled everything together to fit exactly what De Castell had told me. After the convention I sent him my photos and he put my cosplay on his blog!

Walking into that convention for the first time was beyond magical. There were hundreds of characters strutting about the place in all shapes and forms; characters I knew and loved, some I didn’t know but was in awe of the magnitude of work that went into the costume making. Sure, the stalls were pretty awesome, the artwork all being original and a lot of the products sold were one-of-a-kind, but it wasn’t that, that had made my day memorable. It was the people. The people who would call out “Lucy! Lucy! Can I get a photo with you?” smiling with excitement as if they had just bumped into Emma Watson. Okay, truthfully that wouldn’t be impossible at a comic con as there are celebrity signings and pics there too. But for those couple of days I wasn’t me, I was someone else’s character, I was noticed and believe me when I say that being noticed isn’t just about looking the part, it’s about being the part. It was a room filled with people who loved to dress up, loved imagination and loved sharing it with their fellow community. It was a judgeless place.

For my second convention, 2019, I was determined to make my costume from scratch. So I did… most of it anyway.

My favourite, so far, has been my cosplay of Korra from The Legend of Korra.

I made almost all of her costume from scratch, from the t-shirt to the apron and the arm bands. The shoes I had bought out of Primark and added the leather and wool. Then, to fully encompass this Avatar master I made a water-replica ribbon-dancing-ribbon and spent days mastering waterbending (aka tai-chi). This has been my personal masterpiece so far, so many people asked for photos, and I was able to fake-perform a waterbending vs airbending fight with an Aang cosplayer.

Korra was also the cosplay that made me fall in love with cosplaying all together, but not because of necessarily being Korra. When I was leaving the Birmingham MCM Comic Con, fully dressed as Korra with jacket and all, a girl, maybe early teens, ran up to me shouting “Korra!” – of course I had got used to being called this by now. I stopped so she could catch up to me. “I just wanted to let you know that you have really made my day. Korra is one of my favourite and I love your costume.” She was blushing so much it was like she really had pulled Emma Watson to the side and told her how much she loves her as Hermione Granger. She stood there for a moment looking a bit shell shocked, so I asked her “Would you like to take a photo?” She beamed and took out her phone “No, one with you in it!” I laughed passing her phone to my friend who took the photo of us together. I watched her run back to her friends looking so buzzed and squealing. That’s when I realised; all I did was dress up as a character I loved, my love showed through my costume making and through how I wore it and just by being that character I made someone I didn’t know so happy. I was just a stranger to her, but now I will always be Korra.

The last cosplay I have done so far is Alicia Vikander’s Lara Croft from the 2018 Tomb Raider with weapons I adapted to look like the ones from the game Rise of the Tomb Raider, which the movie mirrors.

This time I put a heavy amount of focus into making the weapons and designing the hair and makeup. The clothes were bought, collated by myself, the bandages I teabag stained and once everything was put together I made myself look like I had fallen off a cliff and survived. I loved being Lara Croft, I felt so empowered and bumping into my fellow Lara cosplayers from generations before and after me was a very unique experience… though I know I worried a few travellers at the train station with my Lara attire as I walked through Edinburgh looking so battered.

I put the perfect cosplaying experience down to three elements:

Element One: The costume

Personally, I love making my costumes from scratch. The compliments you get from others become very personal and not just a ‘you wear that well’ comment. There’s also the enjoyment and magic you get out of turning a piece of fabric into a waterbending tribal outfit or a piece of cardboard tubing into a quiver. Even though drawing, cutting, gluing, laminating, cutting again and collating 42 playing-cards-weapons is tedious stuff, words don’t do justice the pleasure you feel when you finish and the end result sits there in front of you; “Yeah, I just did that. I just brought fiction to life”. Like I also mentioned, you don’t actually have to make the costume. But the one thing that I have found if you do decide to buy the costume, is make sure that you are comfy in it. Not in retrospect to physical comfort (though I advise that too, I walked in 8 inch heels when cosplaying as Lucy Heartfelia for 10 hours straight…) but the comfort of owning who you are. If you feel like you fit the shoes of your character (metaphorically) you will embody them without even thinking about it and you will have done yourself and your cosplaying justice.

Element Two: Becoming the Character

It’s one thing looking like the character, it’s another becoming them. This element, whilst it’s not essential, is one that can be incorporated on many different levels. When I went to comic con there was a group of people cosplaying as characters from The Walking Dead and they were completely immersed in their roles, walking around like zombies and really getting up in people’s faces. I don’t go that far. There is still an element of me there, but when I talk to people I become the character. When I was asked for a photo as Lucy I would ask the person who their favourite celestial spirit was and pull that particular key out just for their photo. I also picked up quirky mannerisms for all my characters. People who approached you would know who you were so would always appreciate and smile when you did/said something that was special to the character. If you aren’t an actor or super confident but love dressing up then this element really isn’t important but it’s always worth keeping in the back of your mind for at least yourself and your friends.

Element Three: Being someone you love

Picking a character you love is probably my strongest advice for any cosplayer. It’s my biggest key to success. If you chose a character you don’t love you will not enjoy the process nor the act of cosplaying and in my opinion it becomes counterproductive. If you go as someone you love, you’ll find like-minded people who will see you and will share the love with you. And of course, you will enjoy yourself and feel happy and powerful being able to step into the shoes of someone you admire or love, even if it’s only for a day. But not going as someone you love is not worth your time.

All-in-all people don’t see the finer details when they see a cosplayer. Cosplaying is a powerful tool for happiness, for yourself and for other people. Whether it’s making someone smile because you have managed to bring to life one of their favourite characters too or whether you have simply escaped into the footsteps of someone you love, it’s a genuine and very real superpower. Don’t believe me? Capital Sci-Fi Con Edinburgh cosplay professionally, they’ve dressed up for midnight screenings of big-shot films like Star Wars at Cineworld to raise money for CHAS (Children’s Hospices Across Scotland) and they go around the CHAS homes to visit the vulnerable children with shorter life expectancies dressed up as recognisable characters so that they can bring them to life for these children. They are the real superheroes here.

Now you don’t have to be a superhero, but if you ever watch something or read something and wish that you could be that character, even for a day, don’t ever let the muggles get you down. Train your dragon, become a jedi, save Gotham City or harness your magic because the only limit to your imagination is yourself. From creating the costume to becoming the character, cosplaying is my creative happiness and my superpower I will never underestimate.