What Cosplay Means to Me
As a theatrically trained costume designer, it took me a long time to figure out the term "cosplay". The first time I heard the term I was in graduate school. I'd heard it in connection with Anime. One of the first year students (and his wife) ran an online business (practically unheard of then) designing custom-made costumes based on the client's favorite anime characters. They were from New England, but spoke fluent Japanese and were making money hand over fist. I had only recently heard the term "Japanimation" at Aggiecon in 1993, where one small room was dedicated to some nerdy guys sitting around watching cartoons in Japanese. At that point in time my only knowledge of anime was Vampire Hunter D, which was released in 1985, but wasn't discovered by me until a decade later. So I knew that Anime was a shortened, hipper version of that term, but I didn't really understand the concept of "cosplay". I thought it was strictly about dressing up as characters from Anime (and maybe that's what it meant originally) but once you were in costume, what then? As a theatre artist, where was the show? What was the point? Is it just Halloween in July?
Fast forward another decade. I'm teaching at McLennan, I'm newly married (for the second time) and I hear about a new event called Geekfest in Killeen. Peter Mayhew is going to be there signing autographs and posing for photos. I tell my husband we have to go! We make old school iron-on Star Wars T-shirts the night before to wear to meet Chewbacca. People are there in costume. It's really cool. My interest in the Con scene has been piqued. I find out later that Aggiecon is still going strong. In fact, it's so huge now that they had to move it off campus to the HIlton Hotel. George RR Martin is going to be there speaking and signing autographs. This time my husband tells me we have to go! We decide to dress up "steam punk", another thing I don't really understand at the time, I just know it's super popular right now, so I make my best effort for the last minute thing that it was. It's amazing and we have a great day! While there I find out that they're having a "cosplay contest". I don't understand what that is, but there are a ton of people lining up for it. The best couple was a Jon Snow/Daenyres Stormborn couple. This was in 2012 right after GOT Season One aired. Our phones had lousy cameras back then unfortunately and I didn't know what the protocol was for taking photos of people in costume. (FYI: always ask first, give them time to pose, then snap few. I've never had anyone tell me No, they don't want their picture taken.) So now I was intrigued. What is a cosplay contest and what does one have to do besides wear a costume? I had no idea. Fortunately, I knew someone I could ask who wouldn't make fun of me. One of my former students, Jason Sanchez, was now in tight with the Geekfest Board of Directors and was presenting a panel called Intro to Cosplay. Naturally I went. The next year he began judging Geekfest's costume contest, and eventually ended up running it. That's how I got involved in doing panels and judging the contests.
So to make a long story short (I know, too late) I have come to define "Cosplay" as something apart from both theatrical costume design and fancy dress. I love the English term "fancy dress". For those of you non-Anglophiles, fancy dress just means dressing up as part of a theme for a party. Costume Design is a term I reserve for costumes done for a theatrical production. There's a script, characters, and an over-arching concept to the costumes. Fancy dress (which includes Halloween) is any casual dressing up occasion where you just need to be "not you". No scripts, no characters, just be something you're not. Cosplay is an inbetween state of affairs. Cosplay presupposes that you are trying to recognizably recreate a character that someone else designed and played. That's the starting point. And that's certainly the goal for me as a theatrical costume designer. It is both more and less rigid in its requirements than designing costumes for a play. Many characters in most plays can wear just about anything within certain parameters. But once that decision is made by the costume designer, the cosplayer is now stuck with it. You can certainly lose your mind trying to slavishly copy someone else's costume design, an actor's hair and makeup, their dialect, their walk, their props. More power to you! In fact, here's a whole blog I wrote about just that idea. But cosplay can also be quite freeing. I've seen hundreds of character mashups over the last 10 years of con attendance. Each cosplayer brings something new to their chosen characters. It's also interesting to see a character broken down into its essential ingredients and still be recognizable. Recognition is the key, for me. I want everyone who sees me to immediately know who I'm supposed to be. I get frustrated when I don't recognize someone's costume, and mostly that happens with Anime and especially video games. I am not a huge fan of Anime, but both my teen boys love it, so I do see quite a bit of it at home and I can definitely recognize some main characters from Black Butler, Soul Eater, Sekirei, Dragonball Z, Pokemon, Rosario +Vampire, Attack on Titan, and others. But unless you're cosplaying as video games put out by Nintendo between 1990 and 2009, I will have no idea who you are. But my boys will, and they'll tell me, and then I'll applaud you and look it up when I get home.
Many of the following titles are linked to blog posts I wrote while I was designing and executing these cosplays. If you want to know exactly what went into each of them, feel free to follow the links and read all about it. I promise there will be many more photos.
Fast forward another decade. I'm teaching at McLennan, I'm newly married (for the second time) and I hear about a new event called Geekfest in Killeen. Peter Mayhew is going to be there signing autographs and posing for photos. I tell my husband we have to go! We make old school iron-on Star Wars T-shirts the night before to wear to meet Chewbacca. People are there in costume. It's really cool. My interest in the Con scene has been piqued. I find out later that Aggiecon is still going strong. In fact, it's so huge now that they had to move it off campus to the HIlton Hotel. George RR Martin is going to be there speaking and signing autographs. This time my husband tells me we have to go! We decide to dress up "steam punk", another thing I don't really understand at the time, I just know it's super popular right now, so I make my best effort for the last minute thing that it was. It's amazing and we have a great day! While there I find out that they're having a "cosplay contest". I don't understand what that is, but there are a ton of people lining up for it. The best couple was a Jon Snow/Daenyres Stormborn couple. This was in 2012 right after GOT Season One aired. Our phones had lousy cameras back then unfortunately and I didn't know what the protocol was for taking photos of people in costume. (FYI: always ask first, give them time to pose, then snap few. I've never had anyone tell me No, they don't want their picture taken.) So now I was intrigued. What is a cosplay contest and what does one have to do besides wear a costume? I had no idea. Fortunately, I knew someone I could ask who wouldn't make fun of me. One of my former students, Jason Sanchez, was now in tight with the Geekfest Board of Directors and was presenting a panel called Intro to Cosplay. Naturally I went. The next year he began judging Geekfest's costume contest, and eventually ended up running it. That's how I got involved in doing panels and judging the contests.
So to make a long story short (I know, too late) I have come to define "Cosplay" as something apart from both theatrical costume design and fancy dress. I love the English term "fancy dress". For those of you non-Anglophiles, fancy dress just means dressing up as part of a theme for a party. Costume Design is a term I reserve for costumes done for a theatrical production. There's a script, characters, and an over-arching concept to the costumes. Fancy dress (which includes Halloween) is any casual dressing up occasion where you just need to be "not you". No scripts, no characters, just be something you're not. Cosplay is an inbetween state of affairs. Cosplay presupposes that you are trying to recognizably recreate a character that someone else designed and played. That's the starting point. And that's certainly the goal for me as a theatrical costume designer. It is both more and less rigid in its requirements than designing costumes for a play. Many characters in most plays can wear just about anything within certain parameters. But once that decision is made by the costume designer, the cosplayer is now stuck with it. You can certainly lose your mind trying to slavishly copy someone else's costume design, an actor's hair and makeup, their dialect, their walk, their props. More power to you! In fact, here's a whole blog I wrote about just that idea. But cosplay can also be quite freeing. I've seen hundreds of character mashups over the last 10 years of con attendance. Each cosplayer brings something new to their chosen characters. It's also interesting to see a character broken down into its essential ingredients and still be recognizable. Recognition is the key, for me. I want everyone who sees me to immediately know who I'm supposed to be. I get frustrated when I don't recognize someone's costume, and mostly that happens with Anime and especially video games. I am not a huge fan of Anime, but both my teen boys love it, so I do see quite a bit of it at home and I can definitely recognize some main characters from Black Butler, Soul Eater, Sekirei, Dragonball Z, Pokemon, Rosario +Vampire, Attack on Titan, and others. But unless you're cosplaying as video games put out by Nintendo between 1990 and 2009, I will have no idea who you are. But my boys will, and they'll tell me, and then I'll applaud you and look it up when I get home.
Many of the following titles are linked to blog posts I wrote while I was designing and executing these cosplays. If you want to know exactly what went into each of them, feel free to follow the links and read all about it. I promise there will be many more photos.
Laundy Family Cosplays
Harry Potter
We did these cosplays at the end of 2020. Photography by Krista Kasper.
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Squirrel Girl and Doctor Doom
I finally finished these during the pandemic of 2020 for Halloween. We won the costume contest at Skellington.
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Katara and Korra
The sandals I bought Sarah hurt her feet, so she didn't wear them.
Justice League Dark
We premiered these costumes at Waxacon, 2018. We were going to enter the costume contest on the 2nd day with these, but we really wanted to get back home and the contest wasn't until 4 that afternoon, so we left. Plus we'd just won 1st and 2nd place the day before, so we didn't really feel it was fair.
Flash Gordon
No one else was doing Flash at the con. Best con photos ever by Briumbra Photography. These costumes won 1st and 2nd place at Waxacon, 2018.
Batman
Since we did this for Fan Expo, we added Sarah's friend Katryna into our Batfam. Katryna wore Sarah's Catwoman costume and Sarah switched over to Penguin (Sarah said, "Penguin is my spirit animal!") Best con photos ever by Briumbra Photography.
Here's what we look like when we don't have the kids with us.
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Edna Mode from the Incredibles
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As I said, I do a lot of presentations at Geekfest. Last year I talked about Supersuits, so naturally I had to do it dressed as Edna Mode. I threw this together the week before I left for Killeen from one shopping trip to the local mall.
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Buffy The Vampire Slayer
We took the photos in the Browning Library at Baylor. The photos were used to make posters in the style of Library posters encouraging kids to read. In fact the Buffy library poster was specifically the one that gave us this idea in the first place. From left to right:, Seth is Xander, Sylvan is Spike, Sarah is Buffy, Rob is Giles, and I am Willow. Besides Star Wars, this is the only family cosplay where the kids have actually seen the show. Rob's dream is to run a library (or better yet a bookstore like Black Books).
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Firefly
Firefly is the first family cosplay we ever did and the kids keep growing, so it keeps evolving. The first time we did it, Sarah and Seth were Simon and River Tam. Seth is a smarty pants and Sarah is a kick-ass dancer, so it suited their personalities. Later, Seth has grown into more of an "I'll be in my bunk" kind of guy, so he became Jayne Cobb. Also, he's the most likely to get thrown out of an airlock. Sarah then became Zoe, except she won't ever say her big line, "Big damn heroes,sir" because she still refuses to say Damn. The boys cuss all the time, but she won't do it, not even for a costume. Sylvan is still Wash because he still plays with dinosaurs and he loves wearing "jumpsuits". For now, I'm still Kayleigh, because I love her, but when Sarah gets to be as tall as me, I'll turn the Teddy Bear coveralls over to her and take my rightful place as Captain Tight Pants' second in command, Zoe, because I have no problem saying Damn.
Doctor Who
This is another of the first ones we did that has also evolved as the kids have gotten older. Our latest version is Sarah as Rose, Seth as Christopher Eccleston, Sylvan as David Tennant, Rob as Tom Baker, and me as Sarah Jane Smith. Sylvan HATED being in a suit, so we'll never do that again. He's autistic and has sensory issues, so I really should have known better. Fortunately, it fits me perfectly as do the white Converse that you can't see in the photo. WE got to meet David Tennant and Billie Piper at Alamocity con so that made it all worthwhile! We've since acquired a better, black leather jacket for #9 and another one for Rose. My Sarah Jane dress isn't one of the more famous costumes, so at some point, there'll be a redesign. Rob has already requested a maroon velvet coat instead of the tweed for his #4. Seth grew out of his love of Matt Smith after I bought him a Fez and #9 is now his favorite. They have the same haircut and ears anyway. In the earliest photo, Sylvan is wearing Seth's old Ace Frehley cosplay as the basis for his Tom Baker era Cyberman. Because he wouldn't wear the store-bought mask that I got at Hastings, everyone thought he was the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz. That's the problem with using your children in your cosplays. They don't always commit to the role.
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Star WArs
I have been a fan of Star Wars since the summer of 1977 when I spent all of my allowance on a ticket to see it every Saturday. I got $3.50 a week back then and I could get a movie ticket plus a coke and popcorn for my money. Our latest iteration of the franchise is The Force Awakens. Sylvan is Kylo Ren, the Stormtrooper was just a random guy at the con who wouldn't get out of our photo, Sarah is Rey, Rob is Old Luke, I am General Organa, and Seth is Finn.
Our previous iteration of Star Wars was our original Star Wars Han and Leia, like on our wedding cake. We won 2nd prize at Bankston's Halloween costume contest with these costumes, so not too shabby! Then I went and did Hoth Leia by myself, because I love that costume. Too bad it's never snowy in Waco.
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Here are those home-made iron-on T-shirts I was telling you about. We love you, Peter Mayhew.
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Penny Dreadful
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We love Rose Tyler, so we followed her over to Showtime for Penny Dreadful. Rory Kinnear as John Clare (the creature) and Billie Piper as Brona are incredible. We got to meet Billie at Alamocity Con in these costumes. She fawned over Rob!
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Legend of Zelda
The only video game I've ever played! Sylvan loves Zelda so naturally, I made him my own version of Link when he was little and then he requested a Zelda, so I threw that together in a week right before HOT Con. I'm so sad that he's grown out of it now. FYI, Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time are my favorite Zelda titles.
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Squirrel Girl and Doctor Doom
I'm still working on this one. The armour came to a stand still last summer, when I was spray painting it in too hot and too humid conditions and it was ruined.
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Robin Hood
We also do Ren Faires. This was our version of the Merry Men for Sherwood. Sylvan still fit into his Link costume at that point. I made new stuff for me, Sarah, and Rob. Seth wore pieces I cobbled together from other things. He was already too big to wear kid-sized stuff.
Outlander
First we watched the STARZ show, then we read the books. Rob has a Scottish ancestor in the Murray clan, so I tried to get somewhat similar fabrics to their family tartan. Sylvan and I are wearing something similar to his Cochran tartan.
Star Trek
Star Trek was Rob's and my first TV show love. We'd race home from school everyday to watch the reruns at 4:00. I always wanted to be Lt. Uhuru and then I got to meet her three times--SA, Waco, and Houston. Sylvan's favorite character is Scotty. FYI, I always thought Sulu was hotter than Chekov. And now I've met both of them too!
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Shiina from Sekirei
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I made this for Sylvan to go to Animefest with his dad. It's one of his favorite Anime shows. The wig wasn't right, but it didn't belong to me, so I couldn't give it a trim.
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Space Ace frehley
Seth LOVES KISS and Ace is his favorite. It was a lot of makeup and wig for a 10 year old boy, but he wore it like a champ. If he could still fit into it, he'd still be wearing it. It would look even better now that he plays bass guitar. Or he'd have to be Gene.
Star Fox
This was the first costume Sylvan ever requested. Sylvan loved the Star Fox video game, but he didn't want to be orange for whatever weird kid reason, he wanted to be red. We were at Scarborough Faire and found a maroon fox tail, so I just bought fabric to match. The tail lasted longer than the rest of the costume, He wore that thing everyday for almost a year. If I'd invested in fox tails, I could have made a million dollars selling them to parents of kids we met on playgrounds all over Texas, because everybody he met wanted one too.
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Fleetwood MAC'S Rumors
We were invited to a Halloween costume party thrown by adult musician types who were former band mates of my husband's, so naturally we had to cosplay a band. Rob picked Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks. We desperately tried to do the pose on the cover, but I couldn't balance long enough for my mom to take the photo before we left for the party.
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Upcoming cosplays
Game of Thrones
Rob as Robert Baratheon, me as Cerci, Seth as Jon Snow, Sylvan as Tyrion Lannister, and Sarah as Daenerys Stormborn.
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Harry Potter
Rob as Snape or Hagrid, me as McGonnegal or Madam Trelawny, but definitely parents as teachers because we are teachers. The kids are students, because they are. Seth as Harry, Sylvan as Ron, and Sarah as Hermione. I'd love to go back to the Browning library at Baylor and take photos of Rob smacking Seth and Sylvan's heads together like in Goblet of Fire.
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How To Cosplay Presentation for West HS, 2018
McLennan Alumni cosplayers
Me and my eleven almuni now have a cosplay group. We will be appearing at the Greater Austin Comic Con at the HEB Center in Cedar Park in June as well as Geekfest at Central Texas College in Killeen in August. We will be planning regular monthly meet-ups soon. Stay tuned for more details.
FAncy Dress and other silliness
Halloween is my favorite holiday, but I'll use any excuse to put my family in costumes. Fortunately, they love dressing up just as much as I do. We don fancy dress for almost any occasion whether it's a renfaire, comicon, birthday party, movie premiere, concert, or just to get free food. I don't always have to make their costumes from scratch, the kids are big fans of footie pajamas and adult onesies, thank goodness. I'm a big fan of Amazon Prime and Goodwill.