Budget Cosplay

I love cosplaying. I mean, what could be more fun than dressing up as your favourite character to show the world your love and appreciation (not obsession... haha...) for a tv show, a movie, a game? 

But I'm a student. Who's goal in life is to become a writer/actress. Let's face it, I'm never going to have enough money to really splash out on extravagent costumes that make people do a double take, unless I just stop needing food or something...

So some people may say I 'half-arse' my cosplays, but, I feel that as long as I have the basic recognisable elements of the character, I can use a bit of artistic liscence. After all, cosplaying is about having fun pretending to be a character, which means if you don't look completely-totally-ridiculously identical to them - IT'S OKAY! 

My first proper cosplay was Link from the beautifiul game franchise of 'The Legend of Zelda', and I didn't even think twice about the obvious initital gender issues of playing the character. All-in-all, this cosplay only cost me about £20 to put together, since I had quite a few bits and bobs lying about the house anyway, but generally if I needed something I wasn't afriad to go to the cheapest places first.

I wore this one to Eurogamer in September 2013, and while there were some very high-quality Link cosplays there NOBODY commented on my cheapness.

And all you need for a fun and cheap Link cosplay is:

- The hat (you can order online for a reasonable price, or get your fabulous best friend to make one for you!)

- A green dress/over-sized shirt.

- White trousers or leggings.

- Brown boots (or similar, don't worry too much.)

- Brown gloves (optional, nobody will notice if they're not there!)

- A couple of brown belts linked together.

- A sword (again, optional, but mine was a plastic one that I decorated to look like the Master Sword.)

- And finally, the courage to yell 'HYAAAAAAAH' at zombies and strangers alike, just to really show you're in character. 

Recently, I worked on a cosplay of Ellie from 'The Last of Us' for MCM Comics Expo London in May, and this one was a lot more fun because it was the first time I got to work with a friend who decided to cosplay Joel. It was great because there was more opportunity to discuss ideas and tactics, we were able to look for our costumes together and (of course) had to go on a muddy walk just to make the clothes authentically-apocalypsey. 

A very basic Ellie cosplay is actually pretty simple, all you need is;

- Her iconic shirt (which you can order online at Red Bubble or Insert Coin, or I just used an iron-on transfer of the design on a red t-shirt.) 

- A black long sleeved shirt.

- Blue jeans.

- Her blue and green backpack (mine was only navy blue, and I found some badges that looked similar to hers to add to the effect.)

- A pair of black and white trainers.

- Various scars/cuts/injuries (these are optional, but they are kind of a given in an apocalypse situation.)

- The iconic right-eyebrow scar (again, not mandatory, I wanted to shave my eyebrow for this, but my best friend wouldn't let me... so a good layering of concealer still does the trick!) 

- THE bite (optional, mine was a mix of tissue and fake blood but proved annoying for a lot of the day.) 

- A good gun! (My Joel leant me one of his!)

And Joel's costume was reasonably easy too;

- A green check shirt (which we couldn't find anywhere, so we had to settle with camoflague.)

- A canvas rucksack.

- Workman's boots.

- Black jeans.

- Multiple guns/weapons/vicious looking objects.

- Again, cuts/scars/blood.

I have got to say, the best feeling of cosplaying this character was meeting SO MANY other cosplayers from the game! Most of us gathered at the end of the day for a tablet portrait together and were so excited by the experience that we traded contact details to pass the photos around, making this lovely lot my first set of expo-friends!

At the end of the day, cosplaying is about ENJOYMENT. So if you can't afford to make a perfect costume for whatever reason, guess what? IT DOESN'T FLIPPING MATTER! Obviously, you're never going to look exactly like a character no matter what you do or how much fake blood you apply, so you might as well go with a cosplay that you're going to have fun with rather than choosing one just because the person looks similar to you.

And always feel free to put an interesting twist on your cosplay idea, next MCM (October) one of my new expo friends and I are planning on doing an Apocalyptic-Pokemon duo, because if you're going to bother dressing up for a convention, you may as well make it an interesting experience for yourself! ;)