Getting Started

Where to begin and What to make.

Hey all! Some of the first questions you may have about your cosplay is "What do I make?", which then leads to the question, "How do I even start this?".

Well, the answer is easier than you think. The way that I gain inspiration for a cosplay is to look at my favorite movies, games, or styles (like steampunk or cyberpunk), and then I decide if there is a character I want to emulate.

Take my Hawke mage armor for example. Everyone who has met me knows that I absolutely love the Dragon Age universe. During my playthrough of DA:2, I realized how much I loved the Champion Mage Armor. I then began grabbing as much info as I could, aka screenshots, mods, artist renditions, etc. It looks like a super complicated cosplay to do. And while, yes it is considering I am still finishing it and it has broken my sewing machine a few times already, it is only daunting if you look at it as a whole. The best advice I can give to avoid the panic attack from there being so many parts to a costume is to break it up into sections and creating a daily schedule of what you would like to get done (I'm really bad about this because life gets distracting).

First off, I took the chest plate armor and created that first. Then I went to the leg armor and finished one of those off. One thing I learned from my time at UCF was to not spend all your time on one assignment and work on every assignment bit by bit, bouncing back and forth and bringing everything up at the same time. Believe me, it works and if you apply it to your cosplay, I can guarantee that you will start feeling less stressed and more accomplished.

One thing that I am still working on improving, is to not get stressed out about the details.

Sometimes you aren't at the skill level to make something completely accurate AND THAT IS PERFECTLY OKAY. We are all learning and like many other things, cosplay art takes time to perfect. (I wouldn't even say that I am perfect at it.) Just make sure you keep going and not to get discouraged.

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MAKE SURE YOU SCOPE BASED ON THE TIME YOU HAVE!

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I can't stress that enough. Scope is everything. I would drive myself crazy and ended up hating my cosplay because I would try to make something completely accurate to the reference in two weeks (impossible by the way if you value sleeping at all). It is not a good idea. It's tough to come to terms with it, but in the end, your cosplay with thrive and people will love it no matter what.

Welp. That's my advice on where to get started on a cosplay. Let me know how your projects are going! Just send me a message on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

Till next time,

Emzer (RezCosplay)