For my FMP I’ve chosen to do one of my favourite hobbies, so I’ve decided to do cosplay as my project
These are mind maps to originate ideas for my final project, I first made a mind map for all the ideas that I could do, then I choose my favourite ideas from the mind map and then did mind maps for the different ideas and choose which one I wanted to do my project on, I choose to do cosplay.
WHAT IS COSPLAY?
Cosplay is the act in which people dress up in costumes to look like different characters, it is also known as a performative art
HISTORY OF COSPLAY
The word cosplay was originated in Japan 1984. Costumes had grown from the first world science fiction convention where there had been a costuming convention in 1939.
In the 15th century masquerade balls were popular and extremely common. During the Renaissance in Italy public costume festivals were held. In 19th century Britain things like costume parties and fancy dress parties became popular. People creating their own costumes started becoming popular starting with the people creating futuristic costumes in 1939 to the science convention. The first documented case of a fan costuming in Japan was in the 1970s and became a fun activity people did. Anime cosplay began in Hakoneat. In New York at a comic book convention was the next costume contest to be held. These are just some of the examples of cosplay throughout history and what it has lead to it being today.
mood board of different characters and cosplays
To do this we used bamboo sticks and ink, using our bamboo sticks we had to create designs and drawings of anything we wanted, we were encouraged to use different things on our bamboo sticks, such as tying a paint brush at the end or using tissue paper at the end to create different textures. We had to try to cover as much as the paper as we could with our designs and then after we finished, we had to pick out three of the most interesting parts of it and then take a picture of it, print it out and then paint on top of it.
In the picture I chose to do I saw a face so I decided to use that to my advantage and paint over the face to create on of the characters that I might choose to cosplay. If I was to do this again I would use different objects to attach at the end of my bamboo stick to create different textures on the ink, I would also try to make my drawings and sketches more visible next time.
SKETCHES/ DIFFERENT METHODS
Sketch of Junko from Danganronpa
SKETCH OF HIMIKO TOGA- MHA
I chose to focus on this characters (Runa, Junko and Toga) as they are my favourtie characters to cosplay since they are all unique in some way. Runa is unique for her bunny jacket, Junko is unique for her hairstyle and bear clips, Toga is unique for her outfit and messy buns. Runa’s character is described to be a two-faced character who seems to be kind but gets enjoyment out of watching people fail. Junko’s character is described as the ‘Super High School Level Fashion Diva’ as her speciality then is discovered to be the ‘Super High School Level Despair’ her real character is described to be very unstable and will switch to several ‘personalities’. She wants to bring despair on everyone. Toga’s character is described to be very cheerful and enthusiastic most of the time, and is seen with a smile on her face, she is also known for enjoying and taking pleasure in taking blood in her battle. She is also described as very sadistic taking pleasure in wanting to be with someone who is already injured so she can injury them further. Her character is known for being a yandere, which is two Japanese words put together, with ‘yanderu’ meaning ‘to be sick’ and ‘deredere’ meaning ‘lovestruck’ so together yandere is described to be someone who is obsessed with another person and would resort to violence to keep that person for themselves.
CHARCOAL DESIGNS
When I was doing my charcoal sketches I wanted to look at artists that experiment with designs in a different way so I ended up getting inspiration from Noel Fielding’s art work.
I took inspiration from the sharp lines and swirls that he does in his work so I decided to do it in my sketch of different characters which I cosplay
I did sketches of Runa and Junko inspired by Noel fielding’s artwork. I did this as i find Noel Fielding’s art style very unique, it draws the viewers attention due to the colours, the odd shapes, the disheveled and disordered style of his art work is very interesting to me as the way it looks doesn’t seem right and doesn’t seem like it makes sense but it all looks cohesive as well and it fits his aesthetic. I used this characters, Runa and Junko, as they were some of my first cosplay characters and I’ve always enjoyed their character designs, as even though they are anime characters and a lot of anime characters tend to look a lot alike, these character designs have a unique look of them as they have distinctive designs of them, such as Runa’s bunny jacket that she always wears and Junko’s hair design with the pigtails and the two bear clips. The reason why Junko has these bear clips is that there is a character in the manga/ anime named ‘Monokuma’ who is a half black and half white bear, this name comes from ‘mono’ as in monochrome in reference to his black and white colours and the word ‘kuma’ coming from the Japanese word for bear, so Junko’s hair clips are a reference to ‘Monokuma’. I executed my work inspired by Noel Fielding’s style by using the swirls and the sharp lines, i managed to keep the characters visible in my work which is both a positive and negative thing, as in some of Fielding’s work the characters he is creating is visible but in a lot of other ones his character isn’t and the ones where the character isn’t as visible are the ones that I enjoy the most and find the most interesting to look at. If I was to do this style again I would make sure that I make the characters less visible, I would use more colours, and make sure to make the swirls easier to see and that the lines are sharper. I didn’t take this idea further as I didn’t feel like it would be a good fit for this specific project since the characters that i have chosen to do wouldn’t really suit this style as there is a lot of details in the characters designs and it wouldn’t pick up well with this style.
These were my ideas for the FMP, I decided to go with the second idea as that way I have more time to focus if I only have to think about one cosplay and what would look the best rather than many different cosplays and it all look disorganised and messy.
ARTIST RESEARCH
Someone who has inspired my work is a photographer who is known as ‘eventhorizon.cosplay’ on Instagram. He has inspired my work as he does quite a lot of anime cosplay photo shoots, which is what my project is based on. He manages to create lots of different backgrounds for his photo shoots and manages to make them fit the character, I’ve taken inspiration from this and will try to do it myself. The person on the left is cosplaying as Junko from Danganronpa.
Two of his photos of anime cosplayers
The other photographer that I got inspiration from is known as ‘satindress.cosplayphotography’ on instagram, he also does anime photos, but mostly he does superhero, villains and princesses cosplays, he’s anime cosplay photos I have taken inspiration from his camera angles and the depth of field that he uses in his work. The photo on the left is someone cosplaying as Toga from My Hero Academia.
A few of my cosplay photos:
Other Artists/Drag Artists
For the project I decided that instead of ‘normal’ cosplay makeup I would do creative makeup and I find that drag makeup is one of the most creative forms of makeup. I decided to look at 4 different drag artists, HoSo Terra Toma, Gottmick, Sigourney Beaver and Dahli. I first wanted to recreate their drag looks, so I tried with HoSo Terra Toma’s makeup but it didn’t look right so I decided that instead of recreating their looks I would take something that I find iconic to them and do a design of a makeup look inspired by their drag makeup.
HoSo Terra Toma:
HoSo Terra Toma is a drag artist from South Korea who appeared on the show ‘Dragula’ which focuses on the alternative side of drag. They are also known for doing horror looks, they also appeared on ‘Dragula Titans’ which brought back some of the best drag artists they had on the show, HoSo Terra Toma was a runner up on both seasons. I’ll do HoSo Terra Toma’s over lined lips.
My recreation:
After realising I couldn’t recreate the looks as I wanted to I decided that I would use the over lined lips that HoSo uses as I find that iconic in their drag.
Gottmick:
Gottmick is a drag artist who appeared on the 13th season of ‘Rupaul’s Drag Race’ and is known for doing a striking white face for the base of their make up. They are also known for being the first trans man to be on the show and made it to the finale and was a runner up. They are also a professional make up artist and did Paris Hilton’s make up. I decided that I would use the white face and grey contour that Gottmick uses since it’s their trademark and it’s iconic to her.
Sigourney Beaver:
Sigourney Beaver is a drag artist who appeared on the 4th season of ‘Dragula’ and is known for being an AFAB queen, which is a queen who is assigned female at birth who does drag. They are known for doing more glamour makeup through their style. I decided that I would use black lipstick since it is her trademark in drag makeup
Dahli:
Dahli is a drag artist who appeared on the 2nd and 4th season of ‘Dragula’ and also ‘Dragula Resurrection’. They came 7th place on season 2 and they won the 4th season and was crowned ‘The World’s Next Drag Supermonster’. They’re known for doing very creative and androgynous looks. They were part of a popular Scene band ‘Blood On The Dance Floor’. They got their drag name from Salvador Dali. For Dahli’s drag makeup I decided that I would do a subtle colour for my eye makeup since they tend to do subtle eyeshadow.
The design I made from taking inspiration from different drag artists.
This is what my makeup design looks like. If i was to do this look again i would make sure that the contour was properly blended out and that everything was equal on both sides like my eyeliner, my eyebrows and the over lined lips.
ACCU
Accu is a company that specialises in selling components like screws, nus, pins, caps, etc. The way accu differs from other companies is that they hand pick all the components so that there is the specific that the person asked for, as they also allow people to get what ever amount they want whether that be 3 screws or 17 screws, they make it so that you do not need to buy a pack and have extra you can have the amount that you need. The company has recently moved locations and want their new office space to feature art work, they wanted unique art work that you couldn’t just get in a store so they requested for us to create a piece for them, they said that there wasn’t anything specific that they wanted and we had full creative freedom. We went to look around the new building so we could get an idea of where the pieces could go and also get an idea of the sort of work that they do there. There was many open walls that could have placed art work there, so it’s about where would be perfect for that specific piece of work.
SPACES IN THE ACCU BUILDING FOR ARTWORK.
YORKSHIRE SCULPTURE PARK
We went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and walked around looking at all of the sculptures, getting an idea of how different pieces of work exhibited, we saw what materials different artists used to create their work, as an example one of the artists used entirely just clay to create their pieces and they made sure to create details all over the pieces.
MORE CREATIVE MAKEUP
A design of one of my creative makeup ideas
execution of the design
Another creative makeup design
execution of makeup design
FINAL PIECE
