To everyone who modeled for me:

By Static. 15/09/09, 02:13 pm

First off, I love you all To everyone who modeled for me: 3772

you were all so much fun to work with, I really enjoyed it and hope to do it again! To everyone who modeled for me: Icon_biggrin

These weekends, while time-consuming and stressful and hard on my poor laptop (lol running out of space in Dunedin AND Auckland...) it was fantastic to meet everyone I hadn't already, and catch up and cuddle those I had :) And the angus burgers...OH ANGUS BURGERS. I'd make love to them if I could. Sweet, sweet, greasy luuuurve. Noms.

Secondly: now that I have all my visual material, and have decided how to lay out my book for hand-in, I need some written stuff! The layout I've decided to go with will feature an image of a cosplayer on one page, and facing it will be a small piece of what they have to say - this can be about anything! You could talk about your favourite character, what you had for breakfast, why angus burgers deserve secks, or why you chose the character you did. I don't mind! In fact, I'd love you all to just write as much as you like, not all of it will go in (or I'd have like a billion page book and I would have to sell my first born child to pay for printing) but I'd like to give a very clear idea of who the people in the costumes are.

This format is used in the book 'Class Pictures' by Dawoud Bey, if anyone is familiar with it (link to amazon listing here:).

So yes! You don't have to send me written stuff, though if I end up with enough text to make this viable, I won't be able to use images of people who haven't sent me anything. So no pressure To everyone who modeled for me: Icon_razz

Also - I do realise I've already asked a bunch of people to write stuff, and I'll bedrawing from those interviews in other threads as well :) Some very quotable quotes in there!

Post written stuff here if you like, or email it to me: sylvie @ little-noise.com. I won't be putting surnames in, and I may not even use first names; so don't worry about anything like that. No more signing of stuff required!

ALSO: I will probably PM people in a few days, so if you get the message twice, my apologies To everyone who modeled for me: Icon_razz

By Rikki-Leigh. 15/09/09, 02:16 pm

YAY WRITING 8DD!

I'll get something written up for you.

By Tails. 15/09/09, 02:18 pm

Me too! Once I think of something to say...

By Static. 15/09/09, 02:19 pm

Awesome! ILU GUYS

Oh and anyone who's interested in photography should totally go to the library and look for Class Pictures. It's a book of portraits of highschoolers in the states, with a little bit written by them - it's fascinating, and it's a really cool look into what teenagers have to say. Some are incredibly eloquent, some are incredibly not, and it's a very honest and quite compelling book. And the photos are amazing Very Happy

By **JVCA**. 15/09/09, 02:31 pm

Whee! I'll try and think of something for you. C:

By Mandie_Chan. 15/09/09, 02:33 pm

EXCITING~

This is going to be fun! Now what to say...
*ponders*

By sakuramiyabi. 15/09/09, 02:51 pm

<33

we did that for our yearbooks as well where every class used to make a page with pictures and something written about the people there though they changed it in the last year i was there so XPP

and will write something up for you static <33

when do you need it by?

By Static. 15/09/09, 02:53 pm

As soon as possible, please! According to everyone else, printing shouldn't, in theory, take too long - but I'd like to allow as much as possible. This week would be great :)

By sakuramiyabi. 15/09/09, 03:14 pm

im so bad at writing these DDDD8

lol half way there XDDD

By Cactiberry. 16/09/09, 12:35 am

Hurr, us young 'uns welcome to write too?
If so, i'll come up with something with Dum Dum.

By Static. 16/09/09, 12:59 am

Yup! Everyone I took photos of I would love to have something by :)

By **Rowan**. 16/09/09, 10:38 am

So I was procrastinating an assignment (more than one orz), and I wrote some stuff for you on cosplay! (I'm surprised at myself for getting it done so quickly). Big chunk of text coming up~ Should probably have broken it up into segments to be more readable, but OH WELL Razz

~~

I love the challenge and the intrinsic rewarding nature of cosplay. You start out with a mere picture of an outfit that caught your eye, whether because of the character or the outfit itself (or both!), and slowly you research, scrabbling to find more reference pictures (pity us, we who fall in love with outfits only seen once – artbooks, I’m looking at you!) pondering techniques and material choices. And soon it starts to come together (most likely with a few false starts, whoops), and you end up with pattern pieces, fabric scraps and bits of thread all over the place, not to mention splashes of paint, paint or latex covered brushes, resin covered spoons (don’t worry, they won’t be sticky for long! Hope you didn’t like whatever they were resting on), pins hiding in the carpet to ambush you, and bits of feather fluff you will inevitably find clinging to your successive costumes, no matter how many times you vacuum. But out of the chaos the outfit takes shape (and if you finish with plenty of time to spare, you are to be both admired and hated by the other cosplayers who won’t be getting much sleep in the days before the event). No matter how good or bad the quality of the workmanship is, no matter how much you worry about all those rough edges and shortcuts no one but you will know about (shhh!), here is something to be proud of, an achievement you can share with other people simply by having the courage to wear it. And even though it feels amazing to get the excited attention of another fan of the character or series the cosplay comes from (making an instant friend in the process), the great thing is that even people who have no idea what or who you are cosplaying (other cosplayers, or fellow geeks, or that one person’s mother who was ‘dragged along to be honest but I absolutely love your outfit’) can appreciate your effort. Whether it’s a complicated competition piece you worked on for months or a simple outfit that took you a few days, it’s a physical manifestation of something you loved in fictional form, and as such you carry a piece of that character and that universe every time you wear the cosplay.

By Rikki-Leigh. 16/09/09, 11:21 am

... /is in awe of Rowan.

I have no idea what to wriiiite. D8

By sakura_petals. 16/09/09, 12:03 pm

Will think of something when I can't be bothered actually doing work and will just pretend that I am when writing... Razz

By Suixelo. 16/09/09, 12:46 pm

Hee.
Okay will write something up.

By GandalfTheGrey. 17/09/09, 02:10 pm

first post in so long its not even funny Very Happy

,
yay itachi here, although im not sure if its the same photoshoot but if it is, then :-->
yeah ill see what happens, and hello people Razz

By IcyRose. 17/09/09, 08:08 pm

Well I think I can spare some words for this.

******

Cosplay was something I used to look at and think I might do that some day, but only go as far as looking like the normal characters and not stand out with really elaborate over-the-top designs... Well look at me now and what I wear. That said, when it comes to me with cosplay, I do it for the love of the character, which takes precedence over the love of the outfit for me. I've always found myself to be more drawn to the play aspect of cosplay. I suppose I've always been one for theatrics and fancy posing which I feel makes the experience all the more enjoyable. There is just a certain thrill that comes with being able to deliver a performance to match with your costume to get a good reaction from those watching you, especially if they are a fan of the same series and recognise your character.

While I wear a lot of commissioned cosplays, I still enjoy the costume making process for the costumes I do make. There is just so much creativity involved, whether it's designing and cutting out your own patterns to help in the process of modifying an existing pattern to create those extra details, figuring out ways to add those extra tricky bits or playing around with materials to create that one prop that will truly complete the outfit, there is always some sort of part in the creation process that will just keep you motivated until you smile upon the final result, and it also gives you that little bit of knowledge you can pass down to others aspiring to do the same outfit.

Over the past couple of years, I've come to really love cosplay, it has allowed me to meet so many great people and become inspired by what they are able to create and how well they can perform. It is something I would encourage others with a slight interest in it to try out one day.

By Rikki-Leigh. 18/09/09, 12:26 am

I'll still try and get this done for you, Static. It just.. might take a little bit longer than I thought

By Reno. 18/09/09, 10:13 am

Does this work?

Spoiler:

By **seraphik**. 18/09/09, 04:11 pm

i'm going to write mine entirely in haiku.

By PIe. 18/09/09, 04:15 pm

seraphik wrote:: i'm going to write mine entirely in haiku.

I want to read this

By Static. 19/09/09, 01:32 am

ME TOO!

@Reno: That's fantastic, thank you so much!

By sakuramiyabi. 20/09/09, 07:29 am

Quote :: "I am Suzumiya Haruhi. JOIN THE SOS DAN! Haruhi compells you to! The purpose of the SOS Dan is to find aliens, time travelers and espers and have fun with them."
And that's enough quoting from The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi.
In a sense all of us are almost exactly like out cosplay characters personality wise. Though I'm perhaps most like Haruhi. Bossy, self-centered, loves attention. I think I pretty much usually choose characters because their personalities mirror mine to an extent. Though I have yet to cosplay a fujioshi.
But Suiseiseki is still my favourite character. Small, cute, childish, just a little violent and a crybaby although she is the older twin.

For me cosplay, I have no other reason for continuing it other than for the fact that I have friends to enjoy cosplay with. If it weren't for the fact that I made so many friends after the first time I cosplayed I would of most probably of never continued. Being in New Zealand with the extremely limited number of anime specialized events also shows this because for many events I go to, I go solely for the cosplay and as such I have somehow managed to bury myself in the participation and volunteering in events that allow me to wear my cosplay.

Why I do it? I don't actually know. It's kind of an impulse now to cosplay. Everytime I see a character with clothes that catch my eye I want to cosplay her. Or if I can personally relate to the character I want to cosplay her. Why her? Because I simply cannot pull of male characters. And as I once told Sylvie before. Cosplayers are all wig collectors in the making if they aren't already wig collectors. I have several wigs. And only one of them is an unnatural colour. I wonder why that happens ...

Another mystery I find is no matter how hard I try to keep the pins off the floor and in their proper place in a container or pin cushion, they always end up on the floor anyways. And you'll always have stray threads everywhere, random bits of fluff everywhere, not to mention scrap pieces of fabric and patterns stuck to the wall.

I guess another reason why I cosplay is because the whole process of making the cosplay whether simple or complicated, its an entirely enjoyable process (I strive on stress, it may not seem it, but I honestly do. What through all the stressing of not being able to find the exact fabric or colour in our limited resources. Or having to juggle the making of the cosplay with other life commitments.

<333 i kind of wandered off on a slight tangent XDD

By Rikki-Leigh. 20/09/09, 06:42 pm

Here you go~
Hope it's okay ;;; And don't mind any mistakes. I'll fix them tomorrow >.>

Quote :: "Ahahaha. What's this? A new game? Looks like fun!"

Cosplay. It's a sport. Many people partake in it. Some dedicate their entire lives to it, while others just do it as a casual hobby to pass time. The amount of money put into it varies with the amount of dedication - often times, the more dedicated someone is, the amount of money put in is lower. Blood and sweat not only goes into the sport, but into the physical components (usually the stitches of white parts of the costumes where it is most visible), and sleep is often lost.

The thing that makes cosplay most like sport, however, is the community. It has the players - the cosplayers - and the supporters - usually the family - as well as the idols and famous people - cosplayers that are well known.

I, personally, am in it for the sugar honey iced tea and giggles that come along with the friendships I've made. The cosplay community isn't just limited to each company. Often times, people who are into cosplay generally tend to form friendships with cosplayers worldwide. I know an extensive list of my friends these days originated from cosplay, both nation- and worldwide. It's even how I met my girlfriend!

As well as social networking, cosplay is a chance for me to learn new skills and let out my inner child. I'm usually quite a serious person by nature, but the moment I get into my cosplay outfits, I tend to let loose.

While not overly elaborate, this cosplay here - Yamamoto Takeshi, a sub-main character of the popular manga/anime, Kateikyoshi Hitman REBORN! - will definitely be my favourite. Like many of the characters I choose to cosplay, I am attracted to his personality. Yamamoto is a carefree guy, who likes to joke around and laugh at everything, though he can still act the serious part when needed, and is extremely dedicated to his friends.

tl;dr?
Cosplay is an excuse for people to meet new like-minded people, and to act like complete children without consequence.

By **Rowan**. 21/09/09, 03:11 am

/worships Rikki

**Sponsored content**