Cosplay is a form of role-playing using costumes, makeup, props, etc. Everyone in the cosplay world is striving for character rendition to get closer to their favorite characters. Highly recreated cosplay does not only allow the cosplayer to experience the life of the character but also gives the viewer a sense of the beauty of the secondary world. Recently, many of you have asked me how you can improve your own character restoration.
How to Improve Achieve the Best Result with Cosplay
#1: Prepare sufficient funds
Anyone who has ever played cosplay knows that cosplay is a very expensive hobby that requires a lot of money. If you’re a perfectionist and want to do the best job of recreating your characters, you’ll need to spend more money than others. A full set can cost a lot of money when it comes to recreating the look of a character with a complex costume.
At this point, aren’t there some guys who want to retreat? If you only want to do what you can afford to do to improve your cosplay reproduction, is there no way around it? Of course, it’s not, let’s keep looking.
#2: Order original cosplay costumes and the perfect hairstyle
I’m sure you know that the best cosplay costumes to go for customization, which of course costs quite a bit of money. If you want to go for custom costumes, I recommend you to look for a professional cosplay website or studio. Provide the staff with the character you are going to play, and order the full costume, hair, and props.
However, before ordering a costume, you should consult as many cosplay networking groups, local forums, and reviews of the store’s website with pictures as possible, and choose carefully.
#3: Find good makeup artists, stylists, and photographers
Once the character’s costume, wig, and props are ready, the next step is to find a good makeup artist and photographer to help you. You can look for them by posting information on various cosplay communication platforms, such as groups, local forums, etc. Cosplay makeup artists, stylists (people who help with wigs, which is generally not the job of makeup artists), and photographers are there to help you get closer to your character from the outside. With their help, you’ll be one step closer to your character.
#4: Love and know your character’s soul
For many people, the love of the character is the reason they want to cosplay. At the same time, your love of the character is essential to improving the quality of your cosplay. Familiarity with the character doesn’t mean simply knowing the character, but rather that you are familiar with the character’s personality, mannerisms, and demeanor, and that you are unapologetically at one with the character when cosplaying. So you must choose the character’s soul as your only criterion.
#5: Matching Scenes and Actions
Character-appropriate scenes and actions are a very important part of the design. For scene and action design, you can think carefully about the following two questions: In which scenes do the character usually, appear? What is the character’s canonical action? If you’re familiar with the character’s flowers, I’m sure you’ve found the answer.
If it’s a concrete scene, you have the option of manually arranging it or finding similar locations; if it’s an abstract or surreal scene, you can use post-production compositing. A word of caution: cosplayers should pay attention to their expressions and movements when shooting.
#6: Post-production image processing
If you are not very proficient in image post-processing, it’s best to find an expert to assist you with the post-processing of your images, especially those that require a composite background. Usually, you can turn to your photographer, and some photographers are also good at image post-processing. For the average cosplayer, this is often the end of the cosplay, but it’s not enough for those who are looking for a high level of reproduction.
#7: Shooting the same character over and over again
Shooting the same character over and over again can give you a big boost when you want to improve your cosplay reproduction, regardless of the cost. Every time you get a photo, you can try to find something wrong with it and try to do better on the next one. Don’t be impatient. Spend a long time with a character, play it over and over again, shoot it, and become more familiar with it.
These are all ways to achieve a high degree of cosplay reversion, which may seem complicated. But for cosplayers in general, as long as they have fun in the process, it’s a great play. Finally, I’d like to recommend Cosplaylab – a great site for cosplayers to buy cosplay costumes, with a good selection of products, good quality, and fast delivery.