Being broke while doing cosplay: the struggle!

Hello Charlie!

Nice to write something here for the first time. For a good start, let me make a fool of myself by showing you how bad I am at cosplay. I here am going to teach you how to create a cosplay starting from nothing, making the whole result look terrible. Here we go!

First, you may be wondering; “what is cosplay?” (I mean, I doubt people in the OIB don’t know what it is, but we never know.) 

So, cosplay consists of recreating the outfit (and accessories) of a fictional character and embodying them the best you can. It is mostly done for fun and conventions, but some people are actually professionals.

I am what you can call a “closet cosplayer” (lol), which, according to urban dictionary, means someone who does cosplay, buuuut with what they already have:

 I did very few cosplays, I am currently “working” on my third one. My first one was a shame I never want to reveal ever, and my second one was Dipper Pines from the cartoon "Memories of Gravity Falls", that many of you may know! I cosplayed him along with my friend who did the character’s sister, Mabel, and another friend of mine who embodied……..a pig. A cute pig, though, his name is Waddles (I don't have a picture for it, though).

Please don't make fun of me

 Now let me introduce you to the real talk, the real subject of this article, the combat, the struggle, the effort: actually making the cosplay. Fasten your seatbelt, I’m going to teach you how to create your weeb outfit with zero budget, prepare to cringe.

As I am BROKE, I can’t afford fancy fabric and sew it myself (it’s totally not because I have no sewing skills, obviously!). Therefore, for my current cosplay, which is Yato from the anime Noragami I had to get me this: 

As you can see, it does not really seem that much of a pain, it’s easy… right? WRONG! I started working on it around last week I think, while it has to be ready for Nov 10, WHICH IS NEXT SUNDAY. Yet, here I am whining about how it should be done already, instead of actually working on it. As you can guess, two weeks is a way too short amount of time to create a whole cosplay. Please send help.

Anyway, to make the sweatsuit, I had this cool jacket my dad got me from a random thrift store: 

 

It fits perfectly with the character, doesn’t it? However, the writing on the front and back were on the way, and it was such a pain to me to get rid of them… they looked so cool. I had to turn the zipper yellow, and sew a small yellow crown on the right side: this is my first time ever sewing something; I think you can see it.

 Then I had to make the scarf: thankfully I had some bed sheets that were exactly the right colour. I cut it in a 140x140 square, poked some ugly holes in it and bam! There you have a scarf.

Then comes the wig. Oh boy, the wig. I bought this ugly blue one off Viva Samba, for like… 9€. (Told you, no budget)

 It was way too wavy for Yato, so I looked up videos online and decided to straighten it: for that, I brushed it a lot and then put in on the bathtub, on a broom, on a chair, to put hot water on it. Just like that:

 (I don’t even have a mannequin head to put it on… now its currently laying on a volley ball so that it doesn’t entangle too much!)

I did that twice, and the hot water straightened the hair. Then I had to cut it. I have no idea how to cut hair (when I do it to myself it looks horrible… so I just stick to the hairdresser). Then I styled it with whatever I had, there’s the result:

The colour isn’t the right one; I still have to dye it. To do that, I will use rubbing alcohol and black ink that I will spray on it. Please, please wish me luck.

Finally, all my very low budget went on contact lenses: 20€ (the lenses + the preserving liquid)! Woohoo! It was such a pain to put on; I teared up so, so much. 

And here’s the almost final result! I have to figure out the makeup by Sunday, and then I will be able to wear it at the Hero Festival this weekend! Total 29€!

Two of my friends are also cosplaying these two characters from the same show: 

Overall, even if I suck at cosplay, it’s still a wild adventure, its very fun to stick to a character with nothing to start with. It’s such a great experience to get excited looks from people recognizing you and taking pictures with you at cons, to team up with your friends and try your best!

I hope you enjoyed reading my article! If you want to cosplay but you are too afraid because you don’t know how to, just go for it! The most important is to have fun even it looks atrocious, and I know what I’m talking about!

PS: I may have made some more experienced cosplayers throw up… I'm sorry! I'm open for criticism though!