Instant Cosplays

Sometimes one may not have the time or money to go all out on making a cosplay (or buying a cosplay), but will still want to cosplay at an upcoming event. In this case, doing what some call ‘instant cosplay’ might be an option. This is when you create your costume from things you already own and don’t need to alter. Usually having a wig and clothing in the right colours helps a lot, as well as knowing a little about makeup and styling.

Often with these cosplays I change the costume a lot, usually doing a female interpretation of the character (gender bender cosplay). Luckily, I have a lot of accessories, makeup and wigs to work with. Not everyone has just what they need lying around, but one can always improvise (for example, I used a scarf instead of an Alice band in the ‘Calie’ photo, and Hello Kitty playing cards in the ‘Joker’ one because I didn’t have ordinary playing cards).

Here are a few examples of instant cosplays that I have done:

Yuna Gunner Cosplay

Last year I cosplayed as Yuna from Final Fantasy in her Gunner costume from FFX-2. 

This cosplay was made for Upcon 2011.

Photo by Quisto Elliott

Putting the costume together:

I bought a cheap wig (not worn in these pictures) from a flea market party store. I bought some wooden beads in two shapes – round and cylindrical. I painted the cylindrical beads (the round ones were the right colours already) so that they were similar to Yuna’s, then strung them together to make the earring. I added some blue embroidery thread on the end to complete it.

Since my ears are not pierced, I did not make an actual earring. I simply strung it all onto some transparent plastic wire and tied it into the wig near the ear area.

For the hood, I used a scarf that I already had. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.

To make the yellow arm bands, I sewed two rectangular pieces of fabric and then sewed brown cotton though to lace them up. The black armband is a belt that I just wrapped around my wrist.

The shirt was slightly more complicated and I experienced a few difficulties when making it. I bought a cheap white strappy top. The first thing I did was unpick the straps from the back, so that from the front, they could tie into a halter neck. Then, while the shirt was still on me, I cut down the centre of it until the gap was the right length. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t hold this way, and just fell open and sat wrong. So I sewed three lace straps into it so that it held everything in place. I cut the bottom of the top into a jagged pattern. The actual costume has lace on it, but I had no lace so, as I tend to do, I improvised. After that, I cut the bottom off of an old pink shirt and sewed it into the bottom of the white top. I cut the symbol/logo out of a sheet of thin plastic and sewed it into place. I sewed loops into the sides of the shirt, through which I laced the gold-ish cord which I think came from an old curtain. I sewed Velcro onto the ends of the cord and the shirt was finally done!

The rest was quite simple. For the over-skirt I used parts from old jeans. The denim was quite light, and I just sewed pieces together.

The shorts belonged to my sister, and again I asked her to use them.

The boots I already owned, I just used white laces in them.

The belt was not the right style but while searching for a suitable belt in the right colour, I found that one extremely cheap so bought it! I added a pouch to it (that I already owned, just added some strips I cut from the belt to it).

The ‘tail’ was made from braided fabric that I had lying around. I sewed a piece of an old wig onto the end then sewed a strip of fabric over that. To attach it, I tied it onto the shirt when I put the cosplay on.

Once again, this cosplay did not take long to put together and didn’t cost much money. It was comfortable (besides the fact it was late autumn when I wore it – a little chilly) and I really enjoyed wearing it!