The art of choosing a cosplay (Patreon)

At the cosplay panel at Tampa Bay Comic Con this past weekend, Leeanna Vamp, Jessica Nigri and I were asked "how do you choose which cosplay to create?" and each of us had very different answers.

For me, cosplay isn't always about the love of something. Sometimes it's to cosplay with friends to in a group with them (I didn't watch Queen's Blade until AFTER Abby Dark Star wanted me to join their cosplay group as Leina :D ), or maybe I love what a character represents in a community (for example, I'm not actually a huge fan of Legend of Korra, but LOVE Korra as a character and love what she is to the community). Sometimes I love a characters' design or just have a really clever idea (I've never picked up a Batman comic book, but a punk Poison Ivy was something that just spoke to me and I needed to make it a reality!). I've also made a lot of superhero costumes to wear for charity events of characters I've barely known to make kids smile!

In other words, cosplay is about having fun, and there can be many many different reasons to do it. I just feel there's this stigma to cosplay something you don't know much about, or cosplaying for any other reason than love for the character. And even if you're just cosplaying for attention, that's totally fine!! Does it make you happy? Then you're cosplaying right. This is what happiness in cosplay looks like:

Right now, though, I have no clue what to do. I have the next three days off from work, and I was hoping to power through the majority of my Scyther, and I'm just not feeling it. Maybe it's because I just made a Pokemon cosplay, or maybe it's because I've moved on to other ideas I'd like to make a reality (Sorceress Jessica Rabbit? Viking Elsa? Knight Cinderella? My brain is always racing). Hopefully I'm hit with a spark of inspiration that will push me to make Scyther, or something else entirely! I guess we'll see! I'm gonna record and stream as much of the process as I can, no matter what I pick, so get ready!