I've been thinking about cosplay a lot lately, even if it isn't something I actively participate in. It's a multidimensional form of expression that can be used to express one's love for certain characters or just for the joy of dressing up and pretending to be somebody else. Cosplayers bring their favorite fictional people to life, and in doing so give us a glimpse into how much fun it must have been to live inside that character's head.
Cosplay is something that knows no boundaries of age, race, or gender. A person needs nothing more than perhaps some sewing or prop-building skills and the confidence to walk up to their favorite fictional characters on the street. It's hard not to smile when you see somebody walking around in a costume. Cosplay lets us all tap into our sense of child-like wonder and allows some great escapism, too.
It has also given rise to some truly amazing talent, with fans becoming more than just temporary dressers of other people's clothes. Cosplayers are now creating costumes that rival those worn by professional movie special effect studios, with materials ranging from thermoplastics to leather-crafting machinery, all being used to help finish off their characters.
This is truly an art form in the same way as painting or sculpting, only instead of using clay or paints, these artists are using their bodies. Here is our list of the top 3 cosplay artists, with links to some of their work so you can be inspired by their art.
Shappi
First up we have a man named Shappi who creates detailed costumes for female characters from video games and anime, or female versions of male characters. His professional background is in prop making and drawing, and he creates his costumes by hand using a mixture of different crafting techniques. These include worbla, EVA foam, resin casting, 3D modeling, and regular sewing. He's made some amazing outfits such as the one below of Princess Zelda from The Legend of Zelda Series.
SnowDragon
Next, we have a German Male cosplayer who goes by the name SnowDragon (real name Max). He has been a relatively active cosplayer on social media channels since he discovered the hobby about two years ago. He went to his first convention, Link Cosplay and Gamescom 2019. Since then Max has surely accumulated over 20 different professional costumes!
Riddle
The third cosplayer we're featuring today is a cosplayer called Riddle who creates costumes based on characters from anime and video games, as well as original characters of her own. She has been creating costumes since 2010 and spends almost a year working on each one before wearing it to a convention, having started out making them for fun and then deciding to wear them at conventions.
Riddle's costumes are all hand-made by her, the only exception being one of them that was made by a friend of hers. Her website features tutorials on how to do different stitches along with descriptions of their uses so you can learn how to make your cosplay costumes or even just stitch your favorite characters' outfits together yourself at home. Her most recent costumes have been from the video game League of Legends.
