Cosplay Planning

[angelmage99]

Getting Started

Sometimes starting out on a cosplay can be overwhelming for some. This guide will help you in will give you a check list on picking a cosplaying and planning it. This will not be a how to make guide. That is best for other areas, this is just for planing the cosplay.

As always if you have a specific topic that you want me to hit or any suggestions on things to add within precreated content, please tell me. I'd love the input.

 

[angelmage99]

Picking a Costume and Styling

Picking a costume is the most important part of making a cosplay. This will give you the right questions to think about when picking out a costume.


Who are you cosplaying?

Do you have a cosplay in mind already or are you thinking about what you're going to do?

There are three types of cosplay:

Character cosplays- These are characters from created worlds (ex. Frodo from Lord of the Rings). That means you're planning on creating that one outfit he/she/it wears in x movie/episode/chapter. This means the outfit is plan on appearance, but just needs to be planned in how you're going to create it.

Styled Character- This character is cannon as well, but you're not doing an outfit that the character wears in their respected media. This one also allows you to make a little story for the character like what happened with the musical Six in which the six wives of Henry VIII are brought into modern times and start a girl group.

Original Character: This one is one that you created. Usually this is in a made up world. This could be a fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk, etc. This means other than the rules of clothing within the world around this created, it is an open door.

The next post will deal with creating outfits.

How are you Creating it?

How do you plan on created it? Are you buying? Sewing? Mix of both?

Knowing how you're going to create the cosplay means you can plan for a timeline to complete it.

Take not that if you make it and you don't know the basic skills or have someone who knows how to do it, then you may need to spend a lot of time on Youtube or pay for classes to learn to do the making.

Budget

Do you have an amount you don't want to go over?

Another factor is how much you want to spend. The bigger the cosplay, the more armor, the more it'll cost.

If you want to go fancy, it's going to cost.

For more details on saving money please look at this thread.

This budget is more about does it look like it's going to cost some money, because if it looks like it will. There will be one more final check once you plan out the cosplay in a later post.
 

[angelmage99]

Outfit Planning with OC and Alt Style Characters

Characters that have our wishes and opinions in it are different from having to make a perfect match.

Planing OC Cosplays

OC characters are the easiest in finding material to use in the costume, but it's also the hardest. There are so many options out there and so many things that you can do. Here's some advice in making OC characters.

1. Is there a theme to the character?

Are you doing a group cosplay and everyone has to dress as a hobbit or maybe dress as an steampunk airship crew? That's going to make a different effect if you're starting from total scratch. This is because everyone is going to be dressed similarly.


2. What is the story for your character?

It's important to know the story for the character you're portraying. That character has some details to them that in turn you'll need to put into the costume.

Remember to to think about the details with your character. If you are doing a steampunk airship crew then are they a cargo ship or are they military. What class do they hail from if they are a cargo crew or if they are military have they been in battle recently? Details like that are important. It wouldn't make sense to have a airship crew who are poor men or just been in battle to have clean clothes. It would be dirty and maybe some holes in it.

3. Look at what other people have made costumes for or look at what sewing patterns there are.
Inspiration can be a huge issue when you have a blank character. Sure you may know what the character would wear, but you don't know how to execute the thoughts in your mind. This is when you go look at what other people have done or maybe patterns that are available to you to give some a wardrobe of ideas for your character.

Remember that you don't have to make the costume from scratch. Visit Goodwill and other secondhand places for ideas and maybe a piece or two.

Planing alternative Styled Characters

Restyling a character is the easiest. Most of the time you can get an outfit done with a quick look in the closet and a run to Hot Topic.

1. What character are you going to switch up?

Picking a character is the first thing you need to know. Otherwise it's just a OC character.

2. What is the theme?

Are you making a boy band Sailor Senshi like the Try Guys did? The theme will tell you which direction you want to take the character and give you an idea of what clothes to look for.

3. Are you basing your look off of Fanart?

Many people base their alternative images on fanart, however, please don't feel like you have to. Feel free to do what you want to do. Fanart can also just be use in inspiration.

4. Does your costume plan reflect the character?

Does your costume scream the character in any form. It's important not to look like the exact outfit that they normally warm, but it's also important that people can understand which character you're doing too.

As an example if you're going Sailor Moon you need to have the buns (You do not need the whole hair hanging down, but to have some form helps). That iconic SM. You may want to throw in a few crescent moons and a black cat piece too.  

[angelmage99]

Outfit Basics: Canon Characters

Doing a canon character is a little harder and less flexible than doing a styled character or an OC character. The main reason is you have to start getting unflexable details to give an accurate appearance to the character.

Gather the Images

The first thing you want to do is gather images of the character that you want to cosplay. Pick images that give you different angles and also look for things like head shots as well. Sometimes they'll give a detail that you didn't think before. Many cosplayers also look at official figures to get ideas on how to create a costume.

Below is an example of images for Itachi Uchiha from Naruto. This is example of some angles you may want to look for. I'll be using Itachi as an example for the rest of this post.

show spoilerhide spoiler

Once you collect your images you want to make notes about his outfit and rebuild it from the bottom layer up.

Use something like this to help you. Remember to use as much detail possible to help you later:

Accessories:
Shoes/Socks:
Outer layer:
Bottoms:
Top:
Nails:
Eyes:
Make Up:
Props:

For Itachi I made these Notes:

The images that show his under clothing show that he's wearing a shirt with a mess top and sleeves and a pair of dark pants. He also has a necklace. You can't see any underwear, so you know that all you really need is standard underwear.

The next layer is the outer layer. He's wearing a cloak. Note how many clouds are on his coat and where are they. The clouds are red and are lined with white. He's collar also pops up and ends right under his nose. Another feature of the coat is that it goes down a bit or (if you notice other members of Akatsuki) could be to the top of the jacket. There are no visible buttons so he must have a zipper on the coat and it's also lined with red on the inside and where the zipper is.

His shoes are standard black ninja shoes with what looks like white loose socks on top.

His other accessories include a leaf headband with a slash through the leaf and a ring with the kanji for scarlet or bloody on it.

The wing needs to be black and goes to about his mid-back and pulled into a ponytail.

Make Up includes purple fingernail polish and lines that come from his face. His eye are always the Uchiha red eyes. Otherwise his face is rather plan.

How are you going to Construct it?

This is probably the most important to know how you're going to make the costume. Are you buying, making, or some combination of the two.

If you're going to buy it is there a website that sells the costume that you want or will you have to commission it?

Are you making it? How are you going to make it? Is there a pattern that you plan on using? It's important to know how you're going to make it. most costumes cab be made with patterns, but some can't. Do research no matter what on how you're going to make the costume.

There are some great resources if you decide to go a harder route. First you can ask other cosplayers about how they made their costume of the same (or similar) character, check out youtube, maybe some cosplay blogs, and Pinterest is also another good resource.  

[angelmage99]

Measurements

When getting ready for a costume it is VERY important to get your measurements. This is if you're going to buy your costume, use a pattern, or making it from scratch all together. You can't really do anything unless you know your measurements and it's really important to who your measurements correctly.

It's really easy to do it right as much it is to do it wrong. There's two main ways to do measurements wrong 1. Measuring yourself incorrectly and 2. picking the wrong size to buy/make.

Measuring your body

I can't really explain the best that so I'm posting some links that I recommend using to help you. I can tell you that when you're measuring yourself make sure not to have the measuring tape too loose or too tight. It should be relaxed tight.

Basic Measuring Infromation
Measurement Charts: Men and Women

Measuring and Your Body

The most important thing is to make sure you pick the right size.
I don't care if the size doesn't match you exactly, but it's easier to deal with something that is a little too big than something that is too small. So when picking a pattern for your costume make sure to pick the size based on your biggest size number. You may match a 14 in waist and hips, but if your bust is a size 16 you want the size 16.
If you're buying your costume not that many sizes are based on Asian sizes which are normally two sizes smaller than US sizes. So unless they are stating US sizing (even then I wouldn't trust it) I would get something two sizes bigger. You can at least adjust the sizing to better fit you.  

[angelmage99]

Making a Costume without a Pre-Made Pattern

Sometimes there isn't a pattern (Or anything similar) to the costume that you want to make. This means you can't buy a pattern or modify a pattern to avoid drafting a pattern.

That is when you may want to consider throwing a few extra dollars into the costume to make a sample outfit. This will prevent you from assembling your costume and not have it fit and can be a money saver in the long run.

What you basically do is make the pattern, cut it out, and then assemble it with cheap fabric to confirm the fit before using more costly fabric. A popular fabric for a sample outfit is muslin.

Consider this is you're doing a pattern from scratch.