Getting started with Cosplay

Starting with your first cosplay is fun!

Cosplay is an amazing hobby – creative, challenging and exciting! As someone who is just starting with cosplay, things might seem a bit overwhelming at first however. Luckily the community loves to share tutorials, work-in-progress and behind-the-scenes videos. Let me give you a quick, simple guide where to find everything you need!

Just pick your favorite character!

First, pick a character you love and want to bring to life! They can be from your favorite video game, anime, manga, movie, series or comic book. Keep in mind though: Cosplay is for everyone and doesn’t know gender, age, body shape or skin color. It’s a hobby about having fun and dressing up, not about creating a perfect costume or look 100% accurate. If you want to be a male Wonder Woman or a green, mighty Orc, go for it! Just have a great time and become whoever you want to be! Cosplay is a great opportunity to follow your dreams, portray your favorite heroes and express your personality. I also mostly dress up as mighty amazonian warriors since I just want to feel as strong and mighty like Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn or Captain Beidou from Genshin Impact!

Everyone starts small!

Don’t compare yourself with others! You might feel intimidated by social media and all those wonderful costumes and artists you’ll find on the internet. It seems just everyone is a professional costume designer, mastered every crafting technique, has a professional photographer and is incredible beautiful on top. However, nobody was born with a hot glue gun in their tiny hands. We all start small and our very first costumes were quite crappy. My first costumes weren’t great as well!

Over the time and with a lot of patience and practice you’ll get better though. Cosplay is just like a video game: You start a level 1 with zero skills, experience or equipment and get only better if you’ll fight yourself through tough dungeons and don’t give up. So, people obviously only want to show their shiniest armor, best craftsmanship and most recent work. And a social media account is just perfect to present something you are extra proud of. It’s just natural and that everyone wants to show off their best work and even uses filters and Photoshop to fix some details here and there. This doesn’t mean though, your cosplays cannot be that awesome. You might just not be there, yet. So don’t compare yourself to others. Only compare yourself to who you were yesterday. 

There is inspiration everywhere!

There are many ways to create a costume. You can choose from all kinds of materials and techniques, some more and some less beginner friendly. Luckily the internet is a great place to learn, discover and improve new skills and talents. A costume doesn’t need to cost a fortune either and even Iron Man can be made out of cardboard. Starting with cosplay is about having fun and dressing up, that’s it! Just search for helpful tutorials and get inspired by the cosplay community. These are my favorite sources for inspiration:

kinpatsucosplay.com

Kinpatsu is an amazing costume creator who is also very generous in sharing her knowledge. She offers a ton of tutorial guides and patterns!

punishedprops.com

Bill Doran and Brittney love supporting cosplayers and makers. This power couple uploaded hundreds of informative and inspiring video tutorials on YouTube. It’s is the right place to go if you want to get into prop- and armor making.

joycedesign.nl

Also known as Pretzl Cosplay, Joyce is an incredible enrichment for the cosplay community! She has been supporting and sharing her knowledge for many many years.

youtube.com

As for many skills, YouTube is the best way to learn! Just follow the work of other artists and gather inspiration for your next costume. You’ll find pretty much everything you need! Just use the search bar.

We can give you a helping hand!

We also upload plenty of making-of videos, tutorials and guides to our Youtube Channel. Here you’ll see how we make simple costumes, huge armors as well as tiny and elaborate props. We show you in detail how we do everything from beginning to end. So if you need some inspiration on how to get started or plan a costume, just check out our channel!

In my blog I also uploaded several write-ups for costumes like my Zinogre armor from Monster Hunter. You’ll also find a detailed cosplay tutorial about how to work with EVA foam or how to get into sewing. In addition I also complied a list of shops in my shopping guide for cosplay materials and tools.

Last but not least I also wrote several cosplay crafting books for beginners and those who are searching for new tips and tricks. My overview gives you a little guide on which book might suit you the best. But in general you’ll find everything about sewing, armor and prop making, installing lights and even painting.

You want to start now? Use our patterns and books!