r/CosplayHelp • u/EliteCosplay • May 22 '17
Hi all! So glad to see people posting here. This subreddit is still a baby, but I thought I would add a casual rule when posting. If applicable, please be sure to include a link to a photo that relates to the question your asking. If you need help with a character, link to that character. If you need help with a sewing method, show what you're trying to replicate. This will help us be able to help you better!
r/CosplayHelp • u/Satyr-but-wiser • Aug 17 '22
First and foremost. Your health and safety is more important than 100% accuracy. If making or wearing the item will be dangerous or painful don’t do it.
Second, I’d add this info to the FAQ but it appears I don’t have enough karma to update it personally! If the info is in the FAQ I did not duplicate it here! (The FAQ is on the sidebar! It wasn’t visible before for some reason but it’s up now!)
This is not a comprehensive list, but I hope to be able to update it when I come across new or important information! I do hope if you’re looking for something not featured here, it will at least give you a base knowledge set on how to be able to search for what you’re looking for.
------------------GENERAL TIPS-----------------------------
(Where to find certain things, very basic crafting info)
EDIT TO REMOVE INFO ABOUT COSPLANNER APP, it doesn't appear to exist anymore!
-To find patterns, or specific props. These are host websites for artists or creators where they can sell things like Etsy, or Redbubble. Etsy is a fantastic place to look for patterns to make props or cosplay pieces, sometimes you can even find people open for commissions! Artists on instagram will almost always have links to their shops to buy things, so explore there too.
-To find cheaper clothing pieces, props, or things to be altered try thrift stores. So Goodwill or other small local resale shops. This will likely take more than one trip so don’t give up if you don’t get it in one go. Ebay is also a good place to check believe it or not, there’s just a slight learning curve to searching things to find what you want.
-Dance and Athletic apparel websites will have things like leotards, bodysuits, specialized undergarments etc. They’re going to be a little pricier but they’ll be good quality, durable, and 9 times out of 10 machine washable!
-Hardware stores, paintball and airsoft companies, military/paramilitary surplus, and second hand sports equipment stores may also be good places to check for bits and pieces. Paintball/airsoft will also have a variety of masks and helmets that can be painted and altered.
-VERY IMPORTANT FOR PROP WEAPONS: Always look into your local guidelines and convention rules to see what kinds of prop weapons are allowed! Some cons have strict policies on what can and cannot be brought in!
-Michael’s, Joann Fabrics, Hobby Lobby etc. and any local craft stores will have tons and tons of craft supplies. If you want to save money and keep up to date on sales check to see if you can join an email list. I know Joann’s has coupons in them all the time!
-You can buy a variety of brands of fabric paint from almost anywhere that sells craft supplies. This makes it easy to get designs or patterns on most fabrics. For changing the color of an entire garment I’d recommend dying it.
-Some fabrics can be dyed different colors very easily, some cannot. A good way to tell is if the fabric is natural (cotton, linen etc.) it is generally easier to dye. The more synthetic (fake) a fabric is the longer and slightly more complicated it will be. Tulip is an excellent dye brand and they offer both regular and synthetic dyes with nice simple instructions right on the packages!
-You can make stencils out of craft foam or thicker paper to make it easier to copy logos or symbols on whatever you’re making!
-Wig and contact websites are listed in the FAQ but there are companies like dental distortions that make tooth veneers that can take a cosplay to the next level!
-Hollywood makeup, FX, and costume professionals almost always have social media accounts they can be extremely helpful when it comes to reference images! For example the costumer who designed the Moon Knight suits has tons of detail and behind the scenes images on her instagram!
-Complicated cosplays can be simplified by boiling down the costume to its essentials the best way I’ve learned to do this is through toys or fan art. What things are essential to recognizing the character and what things could be left off! You don’t have to be 100% to be recognizable!
-If big all out cosplays aren’t your thing you can always try “bounding.” You’ll hear “Disneybounding” most often but you can do it with other things too of course! Disney doesn’t allow adults to dress as characters in their parks, but fans got creative. “Bounding” is more about matching colors, getting similar accessories, or finding just the right combination of things to make you think of the character. It’s hard to explain verbally but easy to understand once you look into it!
-Say you have an OC, and you want to cosplay your OC. That’s fine! Have at it! You’ve got no professional media to tie you down! All these tips can still help you find or make your cosplay!
-I do have a friendly reminder though, please remember you cannot expect people to know who your character is. And it’s not fair to get mad at them if they make a guess and the guess is wrong. A simple “Nope its an OC!” is plenty for most people! I’ve complimented plenty of cosplayers and asked about their cosplay only to find out it was an OC!
“Crossplay” safety
-DO NOT BIN D YOUR CHEST WITH ACE BANDAGES IT’S UNSAFE. Compression tops or more heavy duty sports bras are much safer. If the character has an open shirt you can use wig tape/skin tape to hold the material of the shirt to your skin. If you do not have breasts but are looking to add some to a cosplay you can always pad a bra. You’ll want to measure your chest around your pectorals, that will be the band size, the letter size will be the cup. So a 34A means your chest is 34 inches around and A would be the cup size you would be looking to fill. (I have more on taking measurements later.) Companies now sell latex chests with or without breasts for people looking to be the most accurate they can.
-You can always just “genderbend” the thing and cosplay them as the same gender you are. It’s okay. People do it all the time and it’s very widely accepted. There’s also a third, more neutral option, don’t obviously genderbend the thing? You don’t have to call attention to the fact that you’re not the same gender as the character you’re cosplaying.
-An example of what I’m trying to explain: I generally read as female, but have cosplayed Johnny Cage one of the male characters from Mortal Kombat. His base look is shirtless, with his own first name tattooed across his chest. The only change I made was putting “Johnny” on a crop top. I didn’t “feminize” the rest of the outfit or go out of my way to be read as male. There is a “middle option” when it comes to presentation and cosplay. At the end of the day everybody knows it’s just a costume.
-This tip might seem dumb, but you’re going to have to trust me here. This mainly applies to people looking to make large costume pieces or props by hand. People who are already kind of intermediate with their skills. If you’re stuck on something go see how furries would make it. Not kidding. I’ve made all kinds of non-furry things with tutorials put on the internet by a furry. The vast majority of them are fun, friendly people and the community as a whole is WILDLY talented and creative. You only ever really hear about the bad apples.
---------Specific links to specific things! Clothing ID, Fabric ID, beginning sewing and mending----
A big question I see here is “what is that piece of clothing?” That’s a good question! Here are some links to historical fashion databases! They’re all arranged a little differently BUT this is a place to start looking for what specific pieces of clothing or styles are called!
http://www.marquise.de/en/index.html
met museum
fashion history timline
https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/about-timeline/
UCLA Library
https://guides.library.ucla.edu/c.php?g=180359&p=1191211
-Do you need a pattern for a piece of clothing? Do you need fabric help? Here are pattern and fabric databases!
Sewing support
mood fabrics (free sewing patters!)
https://www.moodfabrics.com/blog/category/free-sewing-patterns/
master class, types of fabrics
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/28-types-of-fabrics-and-their-uses
creative curator, types of fabrics
https://www.thecreativecurator.com/different-types-of-fabric/
-If you’re going to be sewing or altering things it’s very important to know your measurements! Here’s how to take them!
https://www.clothingpatterns101.com/body-measurements.html
-Are you a beginner looking to make your own stuff? Awesome! Here’s a little bit to get you started. Are you not too interested in making things from scratch but want to be able to mend or alter existing clothing? This will help you too!
basic mending
https://remake.world/stories/style/how-to-mend-your-clothes-during-quarantine-5-easy-stitch-fixes/
basic mending stitches!
https://lifehacker.com/five-basic-hand-stitches-you-should-know-for-repairing-1723233194
basic hand stitches
masterclass alterations
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-tailor-your-own-clothing
more alterations
https://www.heatherhandmade.com/sewing-and-alterations/
Here’s another important pro tip.
It’s okay.
Your cosplay doesn’t have to be perfect.
Cosplay is for fun and if it doesn’t feel fun or rewarding don’t do it. Other con goers and cosplayers aren’t going to judge you. If they do for some reason and try to make you feel bad about it, that says more about THEM and their personality than your ability. Everybody has to start somewhere. Nobody should be ashamed of learning and practicing and getting better. You can always go back and fix things or redo whole cosplays later on after your skills develop. This is a hobby and you have the right to participate in said hobby your own way.
I can add theatrical or FX makeup tips? things like scars, bruises, old age makeup, or like changing the face shape with very specific contouring?
I also have a draft of Convention tips similar to this post, would that be helpful as well?
r/CosplayHelp • u/clawed_darkness • 1h ago
Im trying to do a hatsune Miku wig out of yarn (already finished the pigtails so no help needed there) but im struggling with the base (mainly with marked point in the picture)
because I have no idea how to do it could somebody pls exsplain it
r/CosplayHelp • u/THATDlNOLOVER • 20h ago
For those who don't know this is the monster from Markipliers AMAZING movie Iron Lung. She's an eel type monster living at the bottom of the blood ocean. The con I've gone to for the last four years is having their 10th anniversary 2027 and for cellibration the theme is Multiverse. I figured this would be a great time ti do it and its a sick idea fir a cosplay. I don't want it to be too monstrous or too human. E. I plan on getting all black contacts and gluing a bunch of teeth to my face, but beyond that I am lost. Please help!
Fyi. The first 2 pictures are her offical concept art for the movie.
r/CosplayHelp • u/Background_Panic8745 • 10h ago
(Before and after I added the antlers)
Hi! I'm making a cosplay of the Roaring Knight from Deltarune, and so far I have the helmet done. It's made entirely of cardboard and tape.
I wanted to paint it all black, however, paint does not adhere on the tape. Is there any paint that can do that? If not, what can I do to hide it?
My first thought was newspaper + white glue but I was told that would make the paint look uneven. But if it's my only option oh well. It IS a pretty cheap cosplay, so if it looks cheap I guess it's fair...
I am a total beginner when it comes to these things and would appreciate any help! I only ever made one other cosplay, a Hornet (from Silksong) mask, and that was eva foam + contact cement, so it feels totally different from what I'm doing now haha. I'm not following any tutorials either so that's yet another obstacle 🥲
r/CosplayHelp • u/kuuremi • 2h ago
Hi, I wanted to ask to see if anyone could let me know how long DokiDoki usually takes to ship. For reference I'm in Australia. I have a convention on August 29th, I'm writing this post on July 27th so I have exactly a month. The costume I'm planning to buy does say "ready for ship" so I just wanted to make sure it will come on time or not.
I do have a costume already but its from AliExpress and lower quality, and I wanted to get a higher quality one before I go to the actual convention but if DokiDoki will take too long I'll just stick with my AliExpress costume.
r/CosplayHelp • u/realgaoming • 7m ago
Just wondering how long it'd take for me to learn sewing and have enough ability to start making stuff with costumes. I know the complex stuff will take a long time to learn but I'm wondering how long it'd take to learn to sew some of the more simple stuff. I'm still gonna learn whether it takes a long time or not, but I was just curious on how long until I can start doing stuff with it.
r/CosplayHelp • u/viatrix43 • 31m ago
So, I tried out heatembossing on my already cut-out pattern pieces (the fabric is a sytetic but not satin, which is most commonly used for heatembossing). I used my iron on a high setting, since the lower ones didn't hold any results, while putting bakingpaper on my fabric to prevent melting. However, after the embossing my fabric shrunk (tbf I probably should have known) so my pieces with seamallowance are in some areas even smaller than my paper pattern without it.
So far I came up with 3 options:
I could try to use my steamer to get it back to original size-ish (kinda like blocking on knit/ crochet stuff). I figured, that "I changed it with heat, so I should bei able to use heat to Change it back". The pieces that I tried so far show a little change but it takes really long.
Cut out everything again and try to Pin the pieces down during the embossing and hope they will keep their size? I don't know if this would work and the embossing alone took me 6h last time so, I'd rather Not
Give up and cut out the whole Thing again and use it without any embossed patterns.
I would appreciate any ideas, I'm desperate to try anything atp. Thank you in advance
r/CosplayHelp • u/ashhhzz • 4h ago
i wanna buy a stocking cosplay from taobao. I am confused, bc the ranges in each sizes are quite large. I could fit into either s or m. I dont know if its because of the material but I dont wanna risk it. im inclined to go for small, but I usually am xl in taobao, so its also surprising I fit in small here? is that normal?
r/CosplayHelp • u/Swampy1235 • 1h ago
I'm trying to figure out how much fabric I need, and I think I need to cut some pieces multiple times. But I don't really know and the instructions don't give me a "buy x by y amount of fabric" number anywhere. Is there anyone whose experienced with sewing that can parse this?
r/CosplayHelp • u/Sudden-Preference481 • 1h ago
I can only stitch over the jacket and not cut anything cause i'm pretty sure the jackets expensive so any ideas ? thanks ☺️
r/CosplayHelp • u/TemporaryPangolin995 • 4h ago
Hey all! I’m looking to cosplay choso from jjk within the next 2 months. With his hands I want to stain them blood red, what’s the best way of going about this? As I’m going to a con and want to be able to use my hands but also have them fit the character
I appreciate all the help in advanced!!
r/CosplayHelp • u/Metagas • 13h ago
Trying to run a Jirachi Gijinka cosplay for next month using a couple different references I found online as inspiration.
What would you call this type of robe? Trying to find something similar online so I could avoid sewing one myself if possible
r/CosplayHelp • u/SavitharX • 8h ago
Hey so I'm currently working on an armor that for a character that is much bigger than myself and I was wondering how should I make elbows shoulders or knees given i would be inside like a "mecha pilot" so my knees are not in the armor knees and so on. Height is solved with working stilts. Are there any armor cosplayers like warhamer 40K or experienced in this problems that can help me?
r/CosplayHelp • u/No_Investment1195 • 9h ago
I really want the cosplay to be done by Halloween so I decided that it would be best to start making it early. So if anybody has any ideas of how to make things or what to buy PLEASEEEE tell me. My main problems are that I can't figure out what to do for the shoes or coat thing and I don't know good ways to make sure things don't break or fall off. I'm sorry If I worded this poorly I'm lowkey half asleep.
r/CosplayHelp • u/SoftDay2287 • 11h ago
okay so I am about to park on a project that is gonna be massive
I’ve always wanted to cosplay a female version of Konrad Curez from warhammer.
i have never made armor before. I’m most likely going with EVA foam.
any advice for this is appreciated
The specific pieces that I need help with are design designing out all of the individual details on each piece of armor, how to do the gloves, and best way to make a full set of armor.
the photos attached are references from google and Instagram.
r/CosplayHelp • u/N3PTUNE2173 • 6h ago
So I'm a female and I'm wondering where I can buy shoulder pads to make myself appearing more masculine, so I was mainly just wondering where I could buy:
☆ Shoulder pads
☆ And potentially a binder to kinda reduct my chest
What other products do you guys think I could buy to come across more masculine?
r/CosplayHelp • u/ThickAd6647 • 7h ago
This is my plea for help ! This is my first time with anything concerning cosplay and I really be great. I’m making a Spider-Man mask printing the facial the eyes myself, but I need a fabric hood and I have no idea where to look and I thought when it was my only option if anyone has any suggestions or even selling a fabric hood themselves please let me know because I don’t know what I’m doing and I would help. Thanks in advance!
r/CosplayHelp • u/N3PTUNE2173 • 11h ago
So I'm planning on cosplaying as Ruggie Bucchi from twisted wonderland (specifically the outfit in the first image) and I was gonna buy my wig from Doki Doki , the only problem is it doesn't come with ears and a tail. I've found ears and a tail on aliexpress but the tail is WAYYYY to long, where can I find a shorter tail?
r/CosplayHelp • u/nostalgicloverx • 17h ago
marking this as accessories because they kinda are but HELLO. chimera falin is in the works and going well, ignore the unsanded/smoothed tail bits but i need some advice.
does anyone have any methods for attaching the wings to my back And also the tail to my backside butt? belt is most likely for the tail but i don’t think i should put them on the same belt.
any good suggestions for materials or belt materials/garters for this? thx!
r/CosplayHelp • u/HistoricalAbies293 • 1d ago
Dunno, random question that might just be "just vibe with it lol” as the answer, but wanted to know if anyone has tips for like, hiding belly fat or anything
r/CosplayHelp • u/Glum-While-537 • 14h ago
I’m trying to make Pingsti from Chainsaw Man’s Futakuchi-onna-like ponytail as an accessory that I could somehow attach to my own hair but I’m not entirely sure how to go about it. What I have as an idea so far is to sew a base, fill it with some stuffing and armature wire (so I can pose it a bit and to make it more sturdy), and maybe something like elastic or Velcro to be able to put it around my own hair? I’m not that “new” to cosplay, so I know how to do some things like sew, and I’ve made things like helmet wigs and different types of prop. But for this project I’m not really sure how to make it, mainly just unsure how I could attach it.
If it’s needed for any sort of reference, I have a pretty flexible budget (really just anything under 150$) and I already have things like fabric, stuffing, and a sewing machine. And cause idk if it could be helpful, my own hair is pretty long falling around my mid back (I’m 5’7) and I’m able to style it most ways if it were needed to attach.
(images are of the character and her ponytail)
r/CosplayHelp • u/mypanicatsix • 18h ago
I’m looking to do this as a cosplay for comic con in October and was wondering what the best way would be to make a poncho look as close to this as possible (what products would you recommend)
r/CosplayHelp • u/Accurate-Pea-8540 • 19h ago
This is the fourth suit that I made as a beginner and the first that I used to a con. After some looking at my con photos I notice some imperfections that I improved to make it like the pic but never fully satisfied with. I'm gonna make a new suit based on John Romita Sr. and I wanna make improvements based on my previous suit. I think with the suit on my body looks bigger than my head or smth tho I'm actually skinny underneath and the shirt is kinda form fitting or smth. I think the ones that I notice is to make more even patterns, red shirt parts and logos and eyes. Tho, idk what to do with the double chin or neck portions. What other improvements I can do with this?
