sneesbee

what does cosplay mean to you?

for me, cosplay is about more than just the craftsman ship that goes into sewing something or making certain props, it’s the embodiment of my deepest passions and some things i’ve spent many years of my life pouring my heart and soul into. I always making sure that everything i make, every single cosplay, always has my own unique touch and i know that i will look like nobody else when i step out onto the stage. it’s also about building a really good community, i’ve made so many friends through cosplay and it really has changed my life.

how do cosplay competitions work and what is your experience with them?

so, every competition circuit is completely unique depending on the circuit you’re running in and the company that’s running it. the major two in the UK are MCM obviously and the INSOMNIA circuit. there are also competitions at more minor cons that tend to be like ‘come-by’ competitions so every single con will have different judges, different prizes, different quotas. but for major cons like MCM theres very specific quotas, you have to have made an entire costume bible for your costume, you have to have prepared a speech about what you’ve made, how you made it, and what it means to you. and you also have a short performance prepared. i’ve been doing this for such a long time at this point that it’s just second nature to take all the pictures as you’re going, but it can really be quite nerve-wracking. so, the way that MCM works is that you compete in MCM birmingham, or MCM manchester or edinburgh now, and if you win one of those you progress forward to compete in the crown championships which can be held at birmingham or london twice a year. and those are very, very intense. you have to prepare cosplays about a year in advance/plus if you even want to place. and then if you win those you can then go onto the european leagues so that’s an entirely different story. and for INSOMNIA, the way it works is that you have to have one an MCM competition to be invited to compete in the crown championships, and then if you win those you can then be a judge at the later competitions, so it’s a way of working up the ranks. but for me, competitions are more just about being able to show off what i’ve made on a much, much bigger stage than what i’d be able to on smaller scale competitions. you can also do a fun performance, and you get to design your own lighting which is sick.

how many cosplays have you done? and how many in the past year?

that is a number i quite literally cannot count, i’d honestly say its definitely bigger than fifty. if i had to eyeball it i’d say about seventy-something, this is including small cosplays and different versions of characters.

well things are about to slow down, given that costume design which is basically cosplay is also my degree. but in the past year i completed princess peach, currently in the process of making my next competition piece which is about a year in the making as well, finished lady dimitrescu, finished also bayonetta two, and helen bierce from dark deception. so that would be 4 and a half if we count ones in the middle of being made.

what are your go-to cosplay materials?

so i’m going to split my materials into three categories: sewing, prop-making and wig styling.

so for sewing, my go-to material, my basis for everything, is poplin. it’s so good, super versatile, comes in a lot of colours, cheap, and lightweight. i use it to line everything; if a cosplay needs to be lightweight, like my princess peach dress because of the sheer amount of material, i’ll make it almost entirely out of poplin. i also am very impartial to a lovely silk dupion, it’s gorgeous but very expensive, those are much more for more decorative ones. Interfacing, you want to interface absolutely everything. And also a nice jacquard satin, you can never go wrong with that that looks absolutely gorgeous on everything you put it on.

and then for prop-making, the basis for absolutely everything is eva foam, you always use that as a base. sometimes you can use insulation foam, but then you’d have to add a lot more layers. so there’s eva foam, and then thermoplastics like worbla are absolutely excellent. veraform is also quite good if you’re making masks, its a mesh-like material you put in boiling water to meld. polymorph is also brilliant if you’re making gems. so yeah those four would be the main for prop-making.

and then for wig-styling, you always get your wigs from coscraft.com or anywhere you find that does high quality wigs. but then any cosplayer will tell you that if you’re wig-styling wigs you have to have got2b hairspray, its got to be got2b. you can’t use anything else, nothing is nearly as good for synthetic wigs.

do you usually finish your cosplays in time or are you doing it the night before?

well it depends, i’ve actually grown out of the habit of con-crunching as a costumer who’s now sort of in the professional world i absolutely hate seeing rushed cosplays. it’s a pet peeve of mine. but i’ve much grown out of the habit, although sometimes i have to strictly schedule my last two weeks before the con. but normally i’ll plan out things weeks in advance, especially since i’m quite deep in the competition circuit. judges can really tell if you’ve con-crunched something. so it’s normally best to have everything scheduled out well in advance.

can you tell me a bit more about the con-crunch experience?

there’s very much a point of pride at being at a con, in that your cosplay has to be the best you can make it. and a lot of the time, everyone that cosplays has ADHD, not everyone but you know, everyones got the attention span of goldfishes. so the experience of con-crunching is about three days before the con, you’ll realise you’re missing a vital element of your cosplay, you’ve left it too long. you’ve either not styled the wig, your dress isn’t lined, your prop isn’t made, or you’ve just decided last minute you want to add a last bit to your cosplay. therefore the last three days before your con, all schedules completely go out the window and you’ll spend about twenty-four hours doubled-over on the floor desperately scrawling patterns onto eva foam. the problem with con-crunching is that your props tend to be a lot visibly, not messier, but they are of visibly lower quality from con-crunching. especially with props, it’s just not enough time to allow the heat glue to cure properly so props are more likely to break if they’ve been con-crunched. But there is a certain community around con-crunching in that everyone’s experienced it and we all understand you know; if you’ve con-crunched, all the power to you.

is cosplay something you could see yourself still doing in ten years time?

i mean, pretty much absolutely. a good thing about the cosplay community is that it’s always evolving in different ways, so people always find different ways to create a prop that makes it suddenly newly accessible to a wider audience. for example, the domestication of 3D printing has really changed cosplay for a lot of people. personally, i don’t use it, but it’s definitely something i can see myself getting into in the future. it probably helps that my current career is quite literally in costume, so i highly doubt it will change with career paths. but even if it wasn’t, cosplay as a hobby really focuses the three main things you can do with your life. you can make money, if you’re lucky like me and win competitions; it’s fun; and it really develops your creative skills, i can’t tell you how much better i’ve gotten at painting, at sewing. exponentially in the past few years, not even because of competitions but just because i wanted to get better. there’s a certain fire within you when you’re trying to make one of your favourite characters, that you want to make it as screen-accurate as possible so you decide to learn new techniques, so you’ve always evolved your skills as highly as you can.

do you have a current favourite cosplay?

absolutely! i bounce between two as my favourites. in terms of craftsmanship and what it meant to me making it, my princess peach cosplay. it’s probably my biggest build and arguably my favourite in terms of how i made it, just because it challenged me in so many new ways. it got me placed in my first major competition and it won me second at INSOMNIA which was a huge deal, and it paid for itself. but yeah i loved the process of making it, it’s from one of my favourite game series, and it spanned a year and a bit of my life so it really means a lot to me.

but in terms of character, i’ve gotta say my lady dimitrescu cosplay is my favourite and also tends to be a lot of other people’s favourite. it’s mostly my favourite just because i made it during my alevels when resident evil village came out. and ever since then i’ve been constantly evolving that cosplay. i must have remade the entire dress, i remade all the accessories, restyled the wig. and it’s the first cosplay i got to meet a famous person in! i got to meet lady dimitrescu’s voice actor, maggie robertson, in it and so it holds that special memory for me.

do you think princess peach was your most expensive cosplay to make?

absolutely, thought currently she’s looking to get overtaken by moira. because moira is going to require a lot of electronics. but as it stands right now, princess peach is my most expensive. i think i spent about £50 on the lining of the skirt alone, not even the skirt, just the lining of the skirt. if i’m to an average price breakdown: i had to buy roughly i think it was 15 meters of poplin for the dress; i had to buy new boning, i had to buy about 5 metres of steel boning for the corset and the cage skirt; i spent about £60 completely remodelling a pair of shoes, with leather paste and things like that; i spent about £30 on different dyes. so altogether i’d estimate it came to about £200, and then i won £500 so made a profit!

what is your current cosplay you are working on?

so my current one is moira o’deorain from hit game overwatch, except it’s a variant of her regular skin. it’s an archive skin, blackwatch moira, and it’s basically moira as she was about thirty years ago. so that one is going to have a fully electronic LED coded backpack that will be glowing purple and yellow in time with the music for my performance. and i will also have two small smoke machines in my palms, to replicate moira’s powers in game. it’s going to be my competition piece for INSOMNIA august this year, so hopefully i can take the crown this time.

if you could cosplay anywhere in the world where would it be?

so i think my dream is to go to the C2E2 stage in america, as much as i hate america as a country, it is absolutely famous for just the sheer scale of its cons. and C2E2 is pretty much the pinnacle of cosplay in the western world, it’s where the final crown championships are held before they go onto the world cup in japan. it has the infamous, absolutely massive photo studio. and also it’s where some of the top cosplayers in the world gather, so honestly if i were to go anywhere i’d wanna go there.

if you could cosplay anyone in the world who would it be?

i’ve been fighting between two ideas for a very long time. so my number one dream cosplay would probably be jubileus from bayonetta, it’s an absolutely huge cosplay and it would take years and years and years of work. i would have liked to do a full animated LED bodysuit with ideally animated wings and a headpiece. i can’t even tell you how physically impossible that would be, nevermind financially, but it’s in my faraway fantasy dreams. and for my other dream cosplay, the one that’s actually within my reach, i would like to do mother miranda from resident evil eight. with four pairs of animated wings.

what is your least favourite part of cosplay?

definitely i think that there’s quite a bit of negativity. so community is simultaneously both my favourite and least favourite thing about cosplay. because while it’s great you can meet new friends in the community, it’s also very possible that as the community develops there are more and more nasty habits in cosplay. so cosplay elitism is a big problem. and definitely newer people in the community who haven’t quite grasped the etiquette yet, who are perhaps very eager to cosplay but also have a complete lack of respect for people around them.

do you prefer cosplaying for events and competitions or cosplaying at home?

there are merits to both. i definitely enjoy cosplaying at home, but if i’m honest it’s much more of a way of showcasing my cosplay to the wider world through social media. i think i get a lot more enjoyment from cosplaying at events because i get to interact with other people in real life, i get to meet other people who are fans of the same thing i am, and i get to perform on stage which is possibly one of the coolest things about cosplay.

me and Marie as Eda and Lilith Clawthorne from The Owl House (2020)

people often also cosplay at home on their own or with friends, not just for conventions. there are thousands of people who make cosplay videos and do photoshoots to post online, with large communities forming on social media like Tiktok, Instagram and Twitter of people who cosplay and their fans. Marie made both these cosplays and mainly uses them to create online content, her videos occasionally surpassing millions of views, with even the voice actors of these characters commenting on her posts. we just got into these cosplays for fun when i was at her house, and took a couple videos and photos, and because it was just a casual event we didn’t put the contact lenses in because they can be a bit of a nightmare.