Costumes

 Today I wanted to show some images and video of Sailor Jupiter cosplay costumes. Some of these are the best, and some have been included to show you what won’t work.

This video is just a short walk-on of a decent Sailor Jupiter costume at Anime North in 2004. I wanted to include this one so that you can see what happens when you don’t pay close attention to the sleeves on a Sailor Senshi uniform. The sleeves need to have a puff to them, or they will end up looking like wrinkly holes.

This cosplay of Sailor Jupiter by yuzuru shows the seam that cuts across the chest on your typical senshi uniform. This seam is critical to making the costume look like a senshi uniform, and not a dance leotard. Be sure to find a nice emerald color, avoiding forest greens and lime greens.

I can’t figure out why, but it’s hard to find a high-quality video of PGSM on You Tube. Here is a good one, which shows Jupiter’s transformation sequence.

I wanted to throw something up with photos of various Hitachi Kaoru cosplay. Hitachiin Kaoru is one of a pair of twins that appear in the Ouran High School Host Club manga and anime series. While both of the twins are mischevious, Kaoru is more sensitive than his brother, the tricky Hikaru. This is an interesting character to play, because it calls for being tricky and sweet.

The coolest Kaoru Hitachiin cosplay I found is from ‘Crazy Miki ‘ at Cosplay.com. I love the wigs, and the photos render that sense of duality.

These are some runner-ups for my top Hitachiin Kaoru cosplay costumes:

This Kaoru Hitachiin is from ‘Lelis-Chan‘ at Cosplay.com

…and a Wonderland version from ‘Lelis-Chan ‘, too.

A Cheshire Kaoru Hitachiin by ‘deathsythchell ‘ at CosplayLab.com

Another Cheshire B by ‘sailorkagura07 ‘ at Cosplay.com

And finally, a Kaoru Hitachiin by ‘Lina-Chan ‘. I like the wig here.

 If you have a Kaoru Hitachiin costume that you would like to show off, drop me a comment.

When I flip on Mario Party and sit down to secure my status as Party Star, I always choose Daisy as the character to help me soundly thwump my loved ones. Daisy has always appealed to me as the slight underdog, going about her business in the shadow the girl who has been longer pixelated and who’s name is full of innuendo, Peach. Here are some of my favorite Princess Daisy cosplay costumes from around the net.

Princess Daisy and Luigi at JACON 2007

Otafest 2006

A funny sight…two princesses competing at DDR.

 Princess Daisy Mario tennis cosplay by Cat-Chan at Cosplay.com

Check the wig!  Princess Daisy by PikaBelleChu at Cosplay.com

If you have a favorite Princess Daisy costume that you’ve found, let me know with a comment below! I’ll post your pic and link to your site.

Some will argue that the following video doesn’t contains cosplay as much as it contains excuses for skimpy outfits. Others will tell you that Arisa Mizuhara is a wonderful cosplay talent who has turned her hobby into a lucrative career. What do you think?

Check out this feature on Nanao’s Cosplay Research featuring Arisa’s Rozen Maiden cosplay. I like the way Nanao puts it, Arisa looks much like a real-life doll. If I could pull off cute outfits like that one, I’d be in the business of having my picture taken, too.

So what do you think? Is this just a hot girl making money off of cosplaying, or is she a legitimate fan?

At Flickr, you can find all sorts of treasures that people have posted to link up to other web sites, or as stand-alone galleries. Such is U-E ’s gallery, which details the making of a Kingdom Hearts costume, as designed and made by ‘Saeru’.

Not only are the costumes stunning, but the photography in U-E’s gallery is just fun to look at. These striking images help to bring to life what the hours spent on these costumes was intended to do. Here are the characters from the Kingdom Hearts game, as real as you or I. This is a fantastic example of what meticulous costuming and expert photography can achieve.

For more photos, visit U-E’s Photostream at Flickr .

At TRsRocking.com , you can see the  rockin’ cosplay of ‘TR’, a girl who not only puts together outstanding cosplay costumes, but she also shows you how it’s done. For this cute Princess Peach outfit, TR has put together a guide that you can follow to make your own Princess Peach costume. TR describes which sewing patterns she has used, what her accessories are made from and even where she got the parasol to match. There are photos of each item taken before the costume was complete.

Visit TR’s site for more photos of her Princess Peach costume and instructions on how to make a variety of characters.

Tune in everyday this week for a new video that displays what convention attendees consider to be some of the best cosplay out there.

Our latest video comes from YouTube member rathy6. In this video, we see lots of fantastic Final Fantasy costumes, none of which are candid convention shots. It appears that most or all of the players are Japanese, and they lend a professional air to the cosplay scene with their dramatic poses and spot-on costuming. The song playing in the background is Track of Angels by Colourz. Let me know what you think of this video.

Have you seen better cosplay? How do these performers rank in your opinion of cosplay at it’s best?

 Chris Troy isn’t afraid to put together challenging, bulky costumes. I had a chance to interview him about his interesting history with cosplay.

Tell me about your MTV feature, I thought that sounded pretty exciting!

Long story short, MTV did a special in 2004 about video games. For the segment on Final Fantasy, they filmed some Final Fantasy cosplayers at animeNEXT that year, and my girlfriend and I were two of the cosplayers featured.

How long have you been cosplaying?
Long enough to realize that I’ve made some poor life choices. Or 7 years, whatever sounds better on paper.

Photo Courtesy of Christopher Troy

What is your favorite costume that you’ve worn?
Picking a favorite costume is like picking a favorite child, only you sound really creepy when you say that. I’m partial to my Final Fantasy costumes (Squall Leonhart from Final Fantasy 8 and Zack from Final Ffantasy 7), but in terms of comfort, my GundamSEED/OO stuff is up there as well.

Photo Courtesy of Christopher Troy

What is your favorite costume that you’ve seen on someone else?
I’m a pretty big Soul Calibur fan, so when I’ve seen that done properly, it makes me happy.

Photo Courtesy of Christopher Troy

What is the most difficult costume you’ve made?
http://www.cosplay.com/photo/380750/ That Sonabitch. You ever have to use a hollowed-out Computer Monitor as helmet? Reall fun stumbling around that, especially being 6′4″ and dealing with low doorways.

Photo Courtest of Christopher Troy

Have you ever had any funny malfunctions while in costume?
Nothing comes to mind, as most of my misadventures comes from after I’m out of costume and horribly drunk.

Photo Courtesy of Christopher Troy

What is your favorite convention(s) to attend?
Otakon without a doubt, as I’ve been there several times since 2002, and I’m also a fan of anime/manga NEXT out in NJ. Aso have to give some love to New York Comic Con/Anime Fest, as their the home town conventions, and tons of fun.

Photo Courtesy of Christopher Troy

For more from Christopher Troy, visit his site at Cosplay.com

The past week, we have been featuring individual cosplayers, showing off their talent in mini-galleries. Today I wanted to post some links to cosplay websites so that you can get a better idea of what cosplay is all about. Here are a few of my favorite cosplayers that I check in with every now and then. They never fail to suprise and amaze me.

• Konechi Cosplay - Lots of photos from conventions here, even a bit of video. This site is available in a variety of languages.
• Lilly Cosplay - A bilingual site that features Lilly in a variety of gaming costumes such as Aeris, Lara Croft and Yunis.
• Arcaira Cosplay Gallery - Includes movie and TV cosplay costumes like Xena and Elizabeth Swann.
• Cye-chan’s Cosplay Gallery
• Various Japanese Cosplay Photo Galleries

If you would like to be featured here, simply comment below so that I can get in contact with you.

 Gorgeous Blonde

Photo Courtesy Megan N. Robinette

Where are you from?

I currently live in Pittsburgh PA

Photo Courtesy Megan N. Robinette

How long have you been cosplaying?
On and off for about 5 years now.

Photo Courtesy Megan N. Robinette

What is your favorite costume you have worn?
My first choice would have to be my Harley Quinn! I have had a lot of
fun times in that one. A close second would be the Cammy White costume.

Photo Courtesy Megan N. Robinette

What is your favorite costume you’ve seen that someone else has made?
I see a lot of great costumes out there. I love costumes that pay
attention to great detail and the person actually makes an effort to
get the costumes right. People who just throw something together drive
me insane! I guess my favorite costume I have seen someone else do
would be my friend Matt Cassidy’s M.Bison costume (he is the big guy
with me in the cammy photos) or his super saiyan 4 Goku costume from
DBZ. The both rocked pretty hard.

Photo Courtesy Megan N. Robinette

What’s the most difficult costume you’ve made?

Harley quinn. That
entire costume was handmade from scratch and we didn’t even have a
complete pattern to go by. (my mother helped me with that one!)

To see mroe great costumes from Megan N. Robinette, visit her cosplay.com website .