Oh so you're self-conscious about your body? The art of making cosplay flattering (Patreon)

I'm going to have three posts today! One blog post (now), one tutorial, and one surprise one! So get ready :D

Some of the skinniest people I've ever known have STILL been self-conscious about certain parts of their body. It's in our nature and is not something we should deny, I feel. 'Loving every part of ourselves' takes too much energy and I'd rather spend time progressing than learning to love every single fat roll on my body and get stuck there :D

The animated characters we love, though, seem to never have those insecurities :D (well, duh, it's because they're not real). I, personally, love characters that wear revealing costumes. A lot. And with Sylvanas, I made adjustments to the design this last time to better fit my body type and insecurities.

This side-by-side is the exact same costume, adjusted to be more flattering on me. Keep in mind I have lost a lot of weight in six months, but still. I added a strap in the back of the pants that connects to the bra so the belt stays up, since my lower stomach is probably my least favorite part of my body. I also tightened my straps on my bra so that more of my upper stomach/ribcage showed, one of my favorite parts of my body :D I also contoured the crap out of my face, to the point of putting dark curved lines under my cheekbones, to help create a gaunt look to my face. I think in person, without the wig to enhance shadow, it would've looked weird, but in pictures it looks perfect!

This post is NOT about giving a shit what other people think. I don't care if YOU think I looked good in the first photo. My own boyfriend told me that he thought I looked amazing, and it didn't change how I felt, which was absolutely terrible.

Cosplay can be about feeling great about your own body/skin, and it's okay to make adjustments in anyway to your costume to get there. And I feel that my own insecurities should never reflect on anyone else-- I hope I've made it clear that my body confidence issues stem from a long life of mental discouragement (if that makes sense) and never feel the same about other people. In other words, just because I feel the need to lose weight, doesn't mean I feel other people of similar size should lose weight :D Unless you want to, then go ahead and kick ass!

Other ways to make costumes make you feel awesome:

--SPANX-- for both men AND women. Heck, even especially men. Nick has a compression shirt he wears under almost every cosplay, and it just smoothes everything out and makes him feel more confident. Win win. I just started wearing spanx under my clothes and I'm definitely going to add it to my cosplays :D

--Create an original design for a character-- Oh, don't like that this character exposes her stomach? Make a steampunk version and add a corset! Or combine multiple designs to create your own (for example, I almost made Sylvanas' 'master' skin body suit under her original costume just because I thought it looked cool).

--Can you think of anything else?

I really think you should rethink your cosplay if you're NOT cosplaying a character because of how revealing their costume is or "you don't have the right body type". I think it would be awesome to see a fully covered Ryuko Matoi, or any other character. Heck, they just redesigned Jasmine at Disneyworld to be less revealing, and she still looks beautiful and highly recognizable. Just have fun!!