New Worlds

Have you ever felt like you don't just quite in? Are you the type to read a book and get so swept up in it and its characters that you feel as though you could easily fall into their world? That for a moment you could be someone completely different where the limitations of this world wouldn't be holding you back? As an avid reader I have felt this my whole life. Every book I read, every movie or TV show I watched I always found myself not only falling in love with the cute fictional boys but wishing I could embody someone else if only for a moment. Then I discovered cosplay.

I have been cosplaying for just over seven years now and I can proudly say it has changed my life. In high school I was quite a shy child, I never felt like I fit in anywhere, I didn't really have many talents. I had injured myself in sport so that was no longer an option, I couldn't play a musical instrument to save my life. I was just floating through this life hiding my interests because I believed I would be labelled too weird, too crazy, too much of a nerd.

I won't lie, wearing my first cosplay (Princess Anna from Frozen) was absolutely terrifying. I had no idea how to style a wig, I'd never really worn makeup before and I had never worn contacts, but now I own just over thirty wigs, I can change my eye colour in, for lack of a better term, the blink of an eye, and I am invested heavily in makeup styles and even bodypaint to change my features to fit the characters I want to portray. I have taught myself a whole bunch of different talents and techniques including sewing, fabric dying, working with foam and creating foam armour, making props painting and wig styling. I find that with each new character I am faced with a new challenge, something new to keep me on my toes and further improve my skill, and with each character I find my confidence grows immensely. On top of all of that I have found so many amazing, like minded friends that instead of shutting me down or thinking I'm weird, embrace who I am and get just as hyped about everything as I do.

While improving my skills and talents is an incredibly proud achievement for me, I've also come to find that with the help of Tiktok I've managed to build my own little community. I have a beautiful group of supporters who follow me, interact with my ideas that I throw out to them and not only genuinely care about me, but always hype me up no matter what cosplay I bring out. With their help I've been able to keep this passion going, create a patreon where they donate monthly towards new cosplays, new challenges and tutorials and I'll soon be working on setting up merchandise and even a calendar for them to buy!

If someone had told me seven years ago that I would become a content creator with over 22k followers who is earning money to put back into this amazingly creative passion I probably would have laughed and said that was ridiculous, but I have honestly come so far and become a confident person I feel I can really be proud of, with so many great friends who have my back. Cosplay has changed not only my life for the better, but so many others around me, and I only hope that I will get the chance to continue this passion and grow even further.