Adventures of Jin & Friends

Cosplay Questions

Hey, guys! I’ll be posting some answers to questions in batches! I’m doing my best to keep up! Tonight I’ll start with some cosplay-related questions.

Ah yeah, that! Actually, my friends and I have been meaning to make a whole new tutorial because that old one we did is outdated. Our process has changed a lot since then. I hope we find the opportunity to do so sometime soon!

I’ve been getting a lot of questions regarding makeup. It’s kind of amusing considering that before cosplay I hardly touched the stuff! My friends and I do a lot of trial and error with brands and products, but two of our favorite brands have come to be Tony Moly and Etude House.

They have BB creams (tinted moisturizers, basically) that even out the skintone well which makes a good base for cosplay makeup. Apart from providing good coverage, it’s also beneficial for skin because of sun protection, moisturization, etc. BB creams don’t feel as heavy as liquid foundations. Both brands also have good eye makeup items which is mostly what I focus on when it comes to cosplay. They’re highly-pigmented and are able to stay long on my eyelids that used to always successfully fight off anything I put on them.

Of course I will recommend the store that has supplied my contacts for years — Alice and Rabbit’s Shop. I’ve always been very happy with my lenses from them. They’re nice and bright even on my very very dark brown eyes. I had written a review on their Cosplay Lens series on this journal post.

Interesting question! For me, it really depends. If the event really focuses on cosplay and many of the attendees are dressed up, I will do my best to go in costume. As my normal self, people tend to think I look very young so I feel like they might wonder what the hell someone like me is doing playing around on the judges’ panel. Most observers might feel more reassured that a cosplay judge pretty much knows what they’re doing if they’re cosplaying as well. (Some people though, are well-known enough or are dignified and mature-looking enough to not need to wear a costume as a judge. I’m just not one of them, hahah!)

Something I think I ought to point out is that this is not a matter of pride. It’s more about being showing gratitude to the event organizers and sponsors who gave you the privilege to be a judge at their event. You want to be considerate and reassure them that they had chosen the right person, and hope that their event attendees would respect and be happy about their decision to choose you.

There are times though that I choose not to cosplay while judging. Usually it’s for stuff like cosplay contests held within a school fair, when the cosplay portion only lasts for an hour and it would be too conspicuous to walk around the rest of the fair in costume when everyone else is in their normal clothes or school uniforms. Or if I happen to have someplace important to go to after and I can’t show up with remnants of cosplay makeup and hair that’s been messed up under a wig. Or, truth be told, sometimes if I’m just not feeling too well. (Only in very dire situations will I ashamedly request to back out of attending.)

Aww, it always makes me grin to hear that my friends and I have encouraged others to try cosplaying too! We wouldn’t be having so much fun and growing closer together if we had not gotten over our initial shyness about cosplay. More people should really give it a chance (and be positive about it)!

We have indeed cosplayed a lot of Japanese series. That doesn’t mean though that we haven’t been dreaming about doing Western cosplays for ages. :) Thing is, the series that we have been wanting to do require a lot of skill and detail. Most of the stuff we’ve done so far are actually relatively simple. We’ve just been bracing ourselves and practicing so that we have more experience when we tackle our more elaborate cosplay plans.

Source: behindinfinity