The term cosplay comes from the words costume and play. Basically, it is where people dress up as characters from their favorite anime, televisions shows, movies and even video games.
What makes it different than a costume?
Cosplayers take their craft seriously. They make their costume from scratch with the intention of wearing it for more than just Halloween. They don their homemade Mario (or even store bought sometimes as well) costume and parade it around conventions, interacting with people, posing as their character would and even speaking as if they were that very character.
Why would somebody cosplay?
Why not? It is an extremely fun way to show your dedication to a series. Its easy to tell who likes what from what they're wearing, and if you see someone dressed up as Sora from Kingdom Hearts and you absolutely LOVE Kingdom Hearts, you can march right over and talk to them. Chances are they'd be excited to talk about the series. Plus, its fun being somebody else for a day (or the case of some conventions, a few days).
This sounds like fun, how do I start cosplaying?
The majority of cosplays are done at game launch events or conventions. Find a convention you'd be interested in attending, either a comic convention or an anime convention, depending on your interests. After that, start thinking about what you want to cosplay as, how much time you have until that convention, whether you're going to make or buy your cosplay and if you're going to make your costume, how difficult it is going to be.
From my experience, I'd say go for an easy costume for your first cosplay to test the waters. After that, you can move up to more difficult cosplays depending on what your skill level is. Make sure that you cosplay as a character that you love. Chances are people will approach you, whether your costume is top notch or a beginner one. They want to talk about the love of a character, show or video game with someone else who loves it just as much. You don't want to be standing there not knowing what to say to someone who actually watches the show with the character you're dressed as.
There are countless videos on youtube about conventions and cosplay in general. There is a huge community that cosplays. The best cosplaying website, for everything you need to know about cosplay is cosplay.com.
You can also watch the series Heroes of Cosplay on SyFy that follows the lives of competitive cosplayers.
Thank you for reading! :)
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