Cosplay: Making Vs. Buying

Last week I wrote a post about the debate between subbed and dubbed manga. Following yesterday’s theme, I want to talk about a different debate, whether it is better to make or buy your cosplay.

A majority of the cosplayers I know prefer to make their own costumes. There’s more satisfaction in wearing a great costume if you can say you made it yourself. Even if it isn’t perfect, in most cases it shows you’ve put a lot of effort into putting the cosplay together. There are benefits of course, in that you can make it to your own specifications. It can occasionally be hard to find a cosplay of the character you want, and often a lot of the ones available to buy are either bad quality or have bits missing, this isn’t all the time of course but it happens enough. Wigs are also like that. The point is, making it yourself means that you’re in charge of what it looks like at the end, what materials are used, which parts you include and which you don’t, etc.

Of course to make things you need to know what you’re doing, and usually have some skill in the area. This is one of the main reasons I’ve seen for why people don’t like to make their own costumes. It can be hard learning to do something like this and if you don’t feel up to it then it’s a lot better to just find a good cosplay to buy somewhere. Money and time are also an issue. Despite what I said in the above paragraph, it is of course perfectly possible to have a great cosplay even if you are buying. When I buy cosplay items generally I spend a lot of time looking through all the options and choosing the one I find most accurate.  I spent about two weeks trying to decide which wig to get for my Zexion cosplay.

Of course, there is also the social side of it and the reputation you can gain depending on which method you prefer. Although not the majority, and there are very few I’ve seen, there are cosplayers who make their own costumes who look down on those who don’t (as well as others who do because they think they’re better) because it’s ‘not as good’. I don’t agree with that at all because different people have different strengths as well as different reasons for what they do. As a result, though this seems to occur in smaller numbers, there are some who seem to believe due to this minority of cosplayers that all of those who make their own costumes think like that. Again, this is incorrect. It is important to keep in mind why people cosplay, again there are different reasons. Most of the time, it is just for fun. A lot of people don’t care about being 100% accurate, I didn’t my first time. A lot of people do care about that, as I do now, but keep in mind at the end of the day it’s still for fun. Some do it for other reasons. Some make it their business and that’s fine too. There are probably some that do it just to show off their skills and get attention, and I even think that’s fine as long as they aren’t rude to people who don’t share that mindset.

As for me, when I first started cosplaying I bought everything I needed for my costumes. The first thing I made myself was the prop for my Zexion cosplay, which was really easy and I did it because it was a lot easier and cheaper than finding one available to buy. The next time I made my own things was for October’s Expo, when I made the sandals for my Jushiro cosplay (which got easier as I was making it) and altering a pair of cheap shoes for my Deidara cosplay (which still hurt my toes). Everything else was always bought though for the most part it was because I wasn’t going to have the time to try and make it myself, or in the case of Jushiro, I bought all the clothes I needed for that at Expo just because they were cheap.

I’ve said before, yesterday I think, that I’m making everything for my cosplays from now on, aside from wigs of course, that’s just too much. I’m really excited about it. I had so much fun working on the parts of my previous costumes that I made myself, a lot more fun than just clicking the ‘buy’ option on websites. I also prefer the idea of making my own because it means I’ll finally be able to learn how to make my own clothes. I already know how I’m going to make everything, but until you actually get to the point where you are making something you can’t know everything about it. It’ll be nice to have a new skill. I think cosplaying in general is going to feel a lot better for me wearing something I made myself.

Why I Love Cosplay

I’ve been cosplaying for two years now, but I’ve loved it for much longer. I don’t remember how I discovered it. I’m sure I was aware of it for much longer, because while it may not be an everyday sight in a lot of places the idea of people dressing up as characters isn’t exactly unusual. I mean, it’s pretty common even in childhood and it’s something almost everyone does at Halloween. Of course, I’m from London so it’s not uncommon to see cosplayers there either. A big part of it was probably when I became obsessed with anime a few years ago and started looking up everything I could to do with my favourites. I remember watching videos of people cosplaying as my favourite characters and thinking it was so cool and looked like so much fun. So yeah, I wanted to do it for a while.

So a couple of years ago a friend and I decided to go to the MCM Expo in London, something else I’d wanted to do for ages, about a month beforehand, so there wasn’t a lot of time to get ready. I was determined to cosplay for it of course and I was so excited about it all. My first cosplay was Sealand from Hetalia, which I decided on because I’d bought the DVDs that day and I already owned the perfect shirt for the costume. The rest of it was pretty bad if I’m being honest but it was my first time and I was more interested in actually cosplaying and being recognised as the character rather than being 100% accurate.

Since then I’ve had three more expos and four more cosplays and each time I’ve done my best to make the costumes as accurate as possible. While I hold the belief that cosplay is for fun and doesn’t have to be completely accurate, I am a bit obsessive about things like this. It can get expensive, but then so can any hobby. Plus they’re not exactly for one time use, after the expo or whatever they’re for, my costumes become every day clothes. I love them too much to leave alone and I don’t care about getting weird looks on the street. Actually it’s kind of entertaining. Well, I’ve used my Zexion cosplay almost monthly for my Kingdom Hearts group and the coat for it has been my every day coat for over a year. All the leathery material has come off the bottom now and my cat left a big scratch down the front once, and I’m surprised by how much I don’t mind. Actually, I think this was a really well made cosplay coat to last so long with so much usage. Well, I’ve bought all my coplays so far aside from a few parts I made for myself for the October 2012 Expo but this year on I’m making it all myself.

So yeah, that’s my cosplay history, it may have gotten slightly off topic in places but I hope it serve as a good explanation for why cosplay is one of my favourite things. As I said at the beginning, I don’t even need to be the one cosplaying to find it enjoyable. It’s great seeing other people do it, and I also like watching others make their costumes. Doing it myself is great because I’ve always loved roleplaying and it’s even better when you can actually look like the character. It’s fun being some of my favourite people and it’s fun getting the bits of the costume together. I love going out in cosplay, whether it’s for an expo or other event or if it’s just going out on a normal trip in costume.

Cosplaying as a character, regardless of whether I’m in character or not, feels amazing to me. I always feel happier and more confident around strangers when I’m doing it which is good because I also get more love than when I’m dressed as me. There are always people who start up conversations, even on the street where they usually ask what I’m dressed up for, and my favourite part is when people want to hug me for it. Very few people on the streets offer random hugs when you look ‘normal’ and those that do are not usually doing it out of good intentions.

Sub Vs. Dub: Which Should I Watch?

There’s a common debate among anime fans about which is better – subbed or dubbed anime. I thought I’d give my thoughts on the matter.

A majority of the vote seems to go to the subbed anime simply because that is its original form. There’s something more special about that, not to mention there are things in this version that don’t always work in translations. Translations themselves sometimes differ slightly from the original version. I’ve also been told it’s good if you want to learn Japanese. I’ve only picked up a few words from it myself but I’m sure it can work.

One of the things that make some people prefer the original language to the dubbed language (English in my case) is that they find dubbed voices to be either annoying or inappropriate for the character. The same is true for why some prefer the dubbed versions. I find it’s true both ways, where I won’t like a voice in a particular language. Usually I find whichever language I first hear an anime in, I’ll find the other version doesn’t work as well. Although sometimes when I’ve watched something only in English or Japanese there will still be times I don’t like certain character’s voices. Either way, I get used to it after a while so this isn’t a big issue for me.

Some people prefer dubbed versions because they don’t like to, or find it hard to, read subtitles while trying to watch the show. I don’t find it hard, though it is easier to just have to focus on what I happening. The main reason I prefer English dubbed is that I don’t need to focus on watching the screen every minute. I don’t like to look away anyway if I’m watching it for the first time, but if I do need to or it’s something I’ve seen before, having it in my language makes it easy to keep track of what’s happening while doing something else. I like putting some of my favourites on while working.

Of course, another big reason for watching the subbed version is that often a dubbed version may not be available. I prefer that to waiting for an English version, if an English version is to come at all.

I watch a mix of subbed and dubbed anime. Usually, as said above, I use subbed for those that don’t have an English version, or that I can’t find the English version of. I prefer dubbed where available just for what I said about simplicity.

I don’t want to say that one is better than the other, which is best to watch depends on the individual and which of these (and other) reasons they agree with.

I will also add that while I've been using anime as a focus in this post due to the nature of this blog the same is also true for films or anything else like this.

A Community I Love

I wanted to talk a bit about the anime and cosplay community. That might be a bit of a generalisation actually. Well anyway, like everything else on this blog, this is of course just opinion.

Community of course refers to a group of people connected by a common location or interested. I’m not really part of that many, but I want to say that this one is my favourite.

What else do I have? Well, there’s the area where I live, which I love, but aside from my parents and a couple of others I don’t have much to do with the people there. Everyone’s nice and there are occasionally parties or other events where we talk, but still.

Then there was school. That was bad. Aside from the odd couple of people now and then, people either ignored me or were abusive. College was pretty much the same with a little less abuse and a couple more nice people. University is a lot better, people in class talk to me, they’re all nice, but aside from a couple they’re not what I would call friends, yet anyway.

I haven’t really been a part of any other community. I guess you could say music. I was always going to gigs until a couple of years ago. I was one of the people who had to get there really early in the morning and wait all day. It was like a tradition, plus it was the only way you could really see anything when you got in there. The line was boring unless I went with friends though. I did make a couple of friends at some, but that was rare. People weren’t very talkative to those they didn’t already know, that surprised me because I thought that that was a place to make friends too. Usually when I tried to speak to someone though they’d either ignore me completely or be unfriendly. I wouldn’t have minded if they didn’t want to talk to me but I don’t see why they couldn’t have just said that. I wasn’t really enjoying it for the last year or so anyway and that wasn’t the only reason.

So when I got out of that I needed a new obsession and began focusing more on something else I’d loved since I was a kid – anime. I started getting more into video games at that time too. A while later I started cosplaying and getting more involved in the community surrounding these hobbies.

I love all the friends I’ve made from this; they’re great, fun people. In online communities everyone is so friendly, talkative and welcoming. There are arguments sometimes of course, but that happens everywhere. I hear about worse people but I’ve never had any experience with them myself.

The anime society at my university is something I look forward to every week. Again, they’re all friendly, fun people and it’s great to be able to spend time with people with the same interests. It’s so much fun watching anime together and it makes it a lot funnier too, even when it isn’t supposed to be comedy.

My favourite thing though is going to the MCM Expo in London. I’ve gone four times now, twice for the whole weekend (I’m going to both this year as well, along with Alcon hopefully). I still have all the wristbands, two of which can still be worn and I keep on me most of the time. It’s the place I most feel at home aside from my actual house. Unlike some other things in this post I feel like I actually belong there. It’s the one place I feel truly comfortable in a crowd. It seems like everyone you talk to talks back, even if it’s only for a little while.

It’s generally a great place not just for all the stuff going on and the awesome things you can buy (some of which being hard to find anywhere else) but for the people too. They make it an even more interesting and fun place to be.

Again this is all based on my opinions and experiences so others may feel differently about this.

I just wanted to thank everyone in this community for generally being awesome.

Anyone else feel like I used that word way too much in this post?

My Room Now Has A Cosplay Zone! (Room Tour/Pics)

So for the last couple of days I’ve been working on reorganising my bedroom (which seems to happen a lot more than it should). Well, there was a lot of stuff that was just shoved in the closet that I wanted to sort out when I came home for the holiday, but that seemed to have exploded outwards. Then Expo happened and well, I always manage to misplace something and make a giant mess trying to find it.

So it’s all sorted out now and I’ve added some new areas. Let’s have a quick tour before I show you the really special one.

Here’s where I sleep, complete with plushies. There's also usually a cat.

Here's where I sit. My computer is in the convenient location of being reachable from both my chair and bed.

Here’s the TV/gaming zone. This is a really fun place. The PS2, PS3 and Wii under the TV, second half of my DVD collection and my PC games are underneath. Keyboard on the floor off to the right because I don't have a stand. Floor shelf on the right with the PS1 and any old toys I still like to keep.

Here’s my library. My books have to be piled up like that because it’s the only way they fit. I’d prefer to have them alphabetical like everything else but piles like this are just easier organised by size. I have various things along the shelves as well. The first half of my DVD collection is at the top. My game and anime collection are on the central red shelf. At the very bottom you can just about see a box of old toys I found in the closet that I'd kept that are getting ready to be given away. Yes, those are flags sticking out of the top of that thing.

Entering the closet now. Bits of clothing and boxes are kept off to the side. The shelves are used for any framed pictures and ornaments that I have.

Below that are these storage units. The top one on the left contains items I keep for memories, the one in the middle is the 'miscellaneous' section and the bottom is for wires. I know it's probably a bad idea to keep wires together like that, but aside from tangles I at least have ways to tell similar ones apart.

Top right is for stationary, bottom is for papers and notebooks that have already been used, so I know to fill those ones out before moving onto clean ones and the bottom is for unused notebooks and paper.

Beside those is this box where I keep all my make up and any accessories. You can see my hat collection and an old wig from drama class at the top there.

And now for the most epic area, my cosplay zone!

Right, the desk is a bit of a mess at the moment because I've dumped some extra things there that need to be put away. This is also where Trixie's urn is being kept now in the corner, I've kept the other stuff away out of respect. when I'm finally able to start making my cosplays the sewing machine will be going there. There's now a lot of floor space around it so I have space to work as well. My Vincent scroll is behind it for encouragement and it now isn't blocked by anything.

 This is also part of it. I have some cosplay stuff in the top drawer including sewing supplies and some materials, that's where I'll be putting that sort of stuff. There's some on top too. The three shelves below that are for my clothes (I have others elsewhere) and CD's fill the bottom two.

So there it is! My room, feeling even bigger now I've found the best organisation for it, now with an area for working on my cosplays. It's really comfortable in here now and I can't wait to make use of that section.

New Year's Resolutions 2013

So it’s that time of year again when we start trying to make changes in our lives. I actually succeeded with most of mine last year, even if the progress I made wasn’t that much. I plan to make more this year. Once again it’s going to come in the form of a short list.

1. Get fit.

Yeah, basically just a different wording from last year’s goal: be healthier.

Yes, I know this is one of the most common goals and one of the most easily given up, but I’ve put a lot of thought into what changes have to be made over what period of time to achieve this, and I have a lot of motivation. This is going to include more improvement in my diet and the re-introduction of exercise.

2. Keep improving work.

One of my goals last year was to get better grades and this has been successful, so I want it to continue and hopefully reach the top grade finally. I’ve already put a bit of planning into work for the new semester to make sure it’s good.

3. Write every day.

This is a slight change from last year’s goal ‘write a story every day’ which while doable, isn’t very easy, particularly when you have other things to do. It’s certainly not a way to write a good story anyway. So I’ve just changed it to write every day. This doesn’t include blog posts but I will count any writing I do for university providing it’s a significant amount (which I’m sure it will be). This is just a good way to keep my writing skills working. I want to enter more writing competitions this year as well. I did my first last year and I think it would be a good idea to do more. I’d really like to be able to get something published by the end of the year.

Those are actually the only three resolutions I have. There are other changes I want to make and things I want to do over the course of the year, many of which I mentioned in my last post, so I don’t feel the need to add them here.

For goals in general, the best advice I’ve had recently from several sources recently is to break down big goals into smaller ones that can be achieved over smaller periods of time, which should be easy for me to do since I usually write to do lists for the day and things like that. My plan for achieving these and other goals I have at the moment is to come up with some type of schedule. The thing is, I’m good at planning things and good at following schedules but I’m bad at wanting to follow them because I don’t like doing the same thing all the time. I think that’s why previous attempts at following a schedule failed, because it was the same one for every week. I found just having to do lists for the day but no specific time to do them by was easier. The reason for wanting to try the schedule thing again is just because I have a lot to do now and I want to make sure everything gets done but my plan is to write up a different schedule each week so it changes and I’m not doing everything the same all the time.

So, anyone else have new year’s resolutions? What are your plans for sticking to them?

Hello 2013 (Plans for the Year)

Not a clever title but hey, it follows on from the last post well. Okay, I’m not good with titles, I admit it, not that there’s much to admit. I refuse to make getting better at titles one of my new year’s resolutions. I’m not even going to talk about New Year’s Resolutions in this post. I didn’t even start mine today, I’m starting them tomorrow. I’ll talk about them tomorrow. Okay? Good.

So the beginning of the new year, which as I said is pretty much the same as any other time of the year, but also as I said is a good time to make some changes. This post is going to be more about my plans for the year rather than what I’m going to change. Obviously I don’t have a full year’s worth of plans yet, I’m sure it will grow, but I do have some.

January to April will pretty much be focused on university work. I especially need to put a lot of focus on my Independent Study project since that one’s all me and it’s a bit behind at the moment. It’s good because I need something to distract me from the fact that I won’t be able to start making my cosplays until March or even April at the latest. I’ll be taking a couple of trips to London, one for the Chinese New Year celebrations and possibly one for my group’s meet in March. That one depends on whether or not I have class on Fridays, I’m still not sure whether I do or not, but if I do I won’t be able to go. I do still want to get one trip to London in March though. Then I’ll be going back after classes finish in April.

May will be spent finishing my cosplays among other things and going to the MCM expo. Hopefully I’ll be able to do more over the summer than I did last year and be able to make most of the group meets. I do want to try to get a summer job as well and of course I’ll be starting my cosplays for October.

Then from September it’ll be whatever work waits for me in the first semester of the third year, Expo again in October and NaNoWriMo in November.Then in December it’s back to London for Christmas!

So those are my plans so far for my year. It might not sound like that much at the moment but I’m sure there’ll be a lot going on.

I am very determined to make this a great year and determined not to have any major screw ups. I hope to have made significant progress in several areas of my life. I hope to have made a real start in my writing career, to have great times with friends and make some new ones, develop my skills in various hobbies, etc.

Okay, I admit it, this was a pretty boring post considering it's the first of the year, but it will only get better.

I hope.

Everyone else had a good new year?

And if you're part of a culture that has already had new year, well, same thing. And to those that may not have had theirs yet, I hope you have a good one.