Discover what cosplay entails, and the things any beginner needs to know.
Cosplay is a vibrant hobby centered around embodying your favorite characters from various media. Inspiration can come from anime, video games, cartoons, comics, movies, and much more. Cosplay can mean many things such as dressing like a character with clothes in the closet, ordering a cosplay online and altering it to fit, or creating a full head-to-toe costume and props for a cosplay competition.
Cosplayers are often considered jacks of all trades, when dressing up can mean creating wigs, props, armour, blocking dances, and doing make-up. Sewing is an extremely useful skill for cosplayers, allowing them to alter clothes, or create costumes from fabric and a pattern. Learning to sew makes cosplay more accessible and no longer limited by thrift store finds, online sizing, and what a hot glue gun and a dream can do.
At first glance, the skills required for cosplay may appear to be the same as someone interested in apparel. In many cases, that can be true. However, there are ways that cosplayers must challenge themselves when recreating their favorite characters.
1. Character Inspiration
The biggest difference between cosplay and apparel is that oftentimes the goal of cosplay is to replicate a character’s outfit from some sort of media, commonly from anime, video games, or comics. This means that the designs can be less flexible, as the goal is to have a costume that looks or feels like a specific character.
2. Unconventional Designs
Because the characters most cosplayers are inspired by are fictional characters, their designs may not represent real life. Cosplayers often have to problem solve ways to defy reality because the designs of the characters may be extremely stylized, have animal features, or be of some other, non-human species.
3. Specialized Materials
Unlike apparel, cosplay can push makers outside their comfort zones by requiring unfamiliar fabrics to achieve a unique look. Furs, leather, and stretchy material can be present on many character designs, motivating cosplayers to understand how to use many types of fabric.
Beyond the technical skills, cosplay offers immense personal rewards. For many cosplayers, the fun of cosplay is the process of creating a vision, solving challenges and problems that come up along the way, and finishing something you’re proud to look at and say, ‘I made that’. Finalizing a costume often comes with the joy of having a small escape from reality, being recognized at conventions, and being able to showcase your love for a certain character or media.
Getting into cosplay can be a big leap if you’re brand new to sewing. If you don’t have any sewing experience, we suggest reading up on our beginner sewing page for guidance on your very first sewing projects.
Once you’re comfortable with your sewing machine and have a few projects under your belt, you’ll be ready to pick your first cosplay. Our next guides will help you feel confident to try this exciting new hobby.
Related Resources
Helpful pages to keep learning.