Cosplay is the shortened term for Costume Play. In the Asian Culture, people dress up as their favorite characters of Video Games, Anime, or Manga from Japan. The tradition became popular in America. Whenever people go to Anime Conventions, you can always find a cosplayer.
Anime is the shortened term for Japanese Animation. It means any cartoon that was made in Japan. It is very easy to pick them out compared to other cartoons. You can usually identify them by their very large detailed eyes, a wide talking mouth, and usual odd colored/shaped hair.
Simple. Manga is a Japanese comic book. Just think of an Anime show made into a comic book, much like Spiderman or Batman.
Boy you said a mouthful! The first thing you have to do is have an open mind. The goal of every cosplayer is to make his/her costume as accurate as possible, while being cost efficient. Let's go through the steps of a rather simple costume. Goku from Dragon Ball/ Dragon Ball Z. His top is just a blue sleeveless shirt with an orange vest on top with a blue belt. The bottom is a pair of orange sweatpants and black boots. Don't forget the blue wristbands! The hair would be the hardest part. I would suggest getting foam and making a hat of sort and just spray painting it black(or gold for all you Super Sayjins out there). So find a picture of your favorite character of Japanese culture, mimic his costume, and your done!
Oh course! That's what this site is all about! In The Cosplay Guild, we showcase picture of cosplayers in the U.S. who do cosplays to have fun. If you do a cosplay and want to have it on this site, just send your pictures to our email address and we will post them. Most cons[conventions] don't allow any underwear to be exposed, but on this site all we ask is that there be no nudes or suggestive photographs. Another way of cosplaying is called CG Cosplay. This is when you take a cosplayers picture and put him/her into a computer made background or design. Example: You take a picture of a cosplayer who did Shiva from Final Fantasy and put them in a background of a glacier. Congrats! That's a CG Cosplay! You can have fun with these. You can also do fan art. Try to do an original picture of a cosplayer in their costume. If anyone wants to try this, just send them to us.
In a way. The most famous cosplayer of them all is Alisa Chan. She has done cosplaying at Cons for a very long time. She sells costumes on her website [www.alisachan.com] so that would make her professional in a sense.
