This look at the colorful and complex history of cosplay and fandom fashion examines the relationship between franchises and the cosplayers they inspire and the technology that helps bring the details of costumes to life.

Don’t let your costumes fall flat! Give them the support they need Get the right fit every time! Elegant and professional cosplay foundations, fitted just for you. Create a capsule wardrobe of foundation garments, including corsets, bodysuits, hoops, crinolines, leggings, and more! Sew the perfect silhouette for any costume, from historical gowns to structured armor and anime builds with multi-award-winning cosplayer Casey Welsch. This visual guide includes more than 400 step-by-step photos, patterns, and all the inspiration you need to give your garments a professional look that lasts with well-made foundations. From armor to anime! Sew a whole closet of foundation garments for cosplay Get your best fit yet when you create fabulous corsets, hoops, petticoats, and more with award-winning cosplayer Casey Welsch Improve your skills with more than 400 how-to photos, a glossary, and resources Add longevity to your costumes with foundation garments that protect them from perspiration and wear and tear

"This guide offers background information about how contemporary cosplay has developed as well as nuts and bolts practical information for those wishing to start or continue participation in the hobby." — Booklist Have you ever wanted to escape into a comic book and become your favourite superhero? Or run away into the world of Disney princesses? Well, who says you can’t? Maybe it’s time you get your cosplay on! Cosplay is a hobby that is sweeping the globe, you can see it at comic cons, book launches, movie screenings and even on popular TV shows such as The Big Bang Theory and Community. A mix of exciting craft skills, heady escapism and passion for pop culture, it’s easy to see why cosplay has become so popular with people no matter who they are, because now they can be anyone they want, and so can you. But how, why and where could you have a go at starting out in the wonderful world of cosplay? With a little bit of help from this handy, dandy guide to cosplay, you can get stuck in. Learn about the history of the hobby (it’s been around longer than you’d think!), get your head around picking you’re first costume, find out how about all the amazing skills people are using to make these costumes, and perhaps even try a few yourself. Who knows, you might be rocking our as Captain Marvel or Flynn Rider at the next big comic con! (And don’t worry, there’s a guide to comic con in here too.)

An exploration of cosplay and its relationship with the realms of its global fandom, performance, and the modes of fictional existence Flourishing far beyond its Japanese roots, cosplay has become an international phenomenon with fervid fans who gather at enormous, worldwide conventions annually. Here, author Frenchy Lunning offers an intimate, sensational tour through cosplay’s past and present, as well as its global lure. Through a culmination of years of personal research on cosplay, and growing out of Lunning’s wealth of scholarship, conference presentations, and cosplayer interviews, Cosplay is a unique and necessary examination of identity, performance, play, and otaku fandom and culture in relation to contemporary theories. With discussions covering construction, masquerades, and community through performance, Lunning presents cosplay as a dynamic and ever-evolving global practice. She combines the fascinating viewpoints of cosplayers with observational, in-depth research on cosplay history and practice, and a deep dive into critical theory involving the modes of fictional existence, in order to understand its global expansion. Augmented with beautiful photographs, this is an engrossing, lively read that explores a complicated and often misunderstood history and meditates on how cosplay allows its participants to create and construct meaning and identity.

Cosplay, short for "costume play", has grown from its origins at fan conventions into a billion-dollar global dress phenomenon. Costuming Cosplay takes us from elaborately crafted DIY costumes to online fandoms, examining how the practice of portraying fictional characters from popular culture through dress and performance has become a creative means of expressing and playing with different identities. With an approach that ranges from admiration and role-play to gender performance, this is the first book to fully examine the subculture and costume of the Cosplay phenomenon. Drawing on extensive first-hand research at conventions across North America and Asia, Therèsa M. Winge invites us to explore how Cosplay functions as a meritocracy of creativity, escapism, and disguise, and offers a creative realm in which fantasy and new forms of socializing carry as much importance as costume. Illustrated with color photographs of both celebrity and amateur Cosplayers, Costuming Cosplay is essential reading for students and scholars of fashion and costume, popular culture, anthropology, gender, and media studies, as well as global players and fans of Cosplay.

In recent years, cosplay, which is the act of dressing up as one's favorite character from TV, movies, comic books, video games, or really just about any pop culture media, has grown significantly from a niche community to a massive society of costume enthusiasts creating a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. For some, cosplaying is a hobby, while for others, it's a lifestyle. In The Art of Cosplay, every day cosplayers are transformed into the subject of their own fan art, making them the main character in their own story. Along with being filled with unique character art, this book is filled with interviews, stories and insights from real cosplayers, providing a narrative as to what cosplay means to them. Lavishly illustrated in full color, The Art of Cosplay is a book that celebrates real cosplayers and their craft by featuring them in unique and character specific pieces of art. The images in this book are uniquely specific to the individual, giving life to the character they portray and to showcase the costume they spent so much time and effort creating. Featuring numerous cosplayers from all over the world, The Art of Cosplay is sure to give you a new and exciting look at real cosplayers, their fashion and their passion!

Leiji Matsumoto is one of Japan's most influential myth creators. Yet the huge scope of his work, spanning past, present and future in a constantly connecting multiverse, is largely unknown outside Japan. Matsumoto was the major creative force on Star Blazers, America's gateway drug for TV anime, and created Captain Harlock, a TV phenomenon in Europe. As well as space operas, he made manga on musicians from Bowie to Tchaikovsky, wrote the manga version of American cowboy show Laramie, and created dozens of girls' comics. He is a respected manga scholar, an expert on Japanese swords, a frustrated engineer and pilot who still wants to be a spaceman in his eighties. This collection of new essays--the first book on Matsumoto in English--covers his seven decades of comic creation, drawing on contemporary scholarship, artistic practice and fan studies to map Matsumoto's vast universe. The contributors--artists, creators, translators and scholars--mirror the range of his work and experience. From the bildungsroman to the importance of textual analysis for costume and performance, from early days in poverty to honors around the world, this volume offers previously unexplored biographical and bibliographic detail from a life story as thrilling as anything he created.

Entrepreneurial Cosplay takes a comprehensive and insightful look at the business of cosplay, exploring the ways that artists and fans engage in entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial practices to gain personal and professional success. Centered around the concept of entrepreneurship and the newly emerging concept of intrapreneurship – using entrepreneurial principles to enhance or further an existing concept, organization or product – the book showcases the ways in which cosplayers create new ideas, new ways of working and new ways of doing things, exploiting their knowledge to create new opportunities. By analyzing the numerous motivations driving cosplay behavior (self-expression, external recognition and financial gain), this volume provides a unique view of current cosplay practice and its relationship to economic activity. Offering important insight into this emerging area, this book will be of interest to scholars seeking to learn how entrepreneurial and economic models may be used to understand the emerging field of cosplay studies, as well as students and scholars working in the fields of Entrepreneurship, Business, Fan Studies, Visual Art Studies and Gender Studies.

Enter the wacky world of Cosplay, Japan's underground costume scene. All over Japan hard-core fans of anime, video games and manga dress up in their latest costumes. This is a world where ordinary girls reinvent themselves as street-fighting chicks, em

Featuring several images of cosplay, a fun and fascinating look at the power and meaning of this cultural phenomenon. Cosplay, born from the fusion of “costume” and “play,” transcends mere dress-up by transforming enthusiasts of TV shows, movies, books, or video games into living embodiments of their cherished characters. This book is a close exploration of the vibrant world of cosplay, showing what makes it so captivating for so many. Vivian Asimos frames cosplay as an enactment and embodiment of mythology, revealing its inherent complexity, and in so doing, provides valuable insight into cosplayers’ experiences. Exploring cosplay performances, the skills involved, and its community, she shows how cosplayers build a strong connection to the characters and stories they treasure, and ultimately how they are constructing their own identities.