Cosplay Collage - 1999 to present

*********** Yaya on Facebook [link] ***********
*********** Yaya on Twitter [link] ***********

I was wondering what 12+ years of cosplaying looked like side by side....

So I made a collage of all the costumes I've made for myself.
The outfits are listed from newest at the top to oldest at the bottom. They span the gamut from Anime, Manga, Video Games, Sci-Fi movies, TV shows, Comic Books, Novels, Fantasy Illustrations to original creations my brain has cooked up.

In my years of making costumes for myself as well as friends and commission clients (I do not take commissions anymore sadly), I have made well over 200 full costumes. But this collage only shows what I have worn myself.
I have omitted about 15 or 20 personal costumes from ages ago because I do not have photos of them anymore, and because I didn't want to leave one row uneven with just a couple of entries. I estimate that I have made about 130 or so personal costumes, which evens out to about 10 per year. That's really not that much considering how long I've been cosplaying, and is a testament to how frigging busy I am with work constantly, and how long it takes to create a full costume. It is not only the sewing and crafting, but also time required to do research and the arduous task of finding the right materials, accessories like wigs and shoes, and learning new techniques, experimenting, etc.

Couple of additional notes:
I only modeled Nanaka and Deedlit for good friend and costume commissioner Sewing Goddess. But the photoshoots were so much fun, they became a cosplay experience in themselves. I also only modeled Slave Leia for Jamin, but I get asked a lot whether or not I've cosplayed from Star Wars, so there you have it!

Every other costume in this collage, I have created myself. If you follow me on this page or any other Social Media outlet, you know I am an advocate for Craftsmanship and enjoying Cosplay as an Artform and creative outlet. I truly believe that 50% of Cosplay is creating the costume, and 50% of Cosplay is wearing the finished costume and portraying the character. I have said time and time again that you truly are missing out on a huge part of Cosplay if you purchase a costume or have someone else make it for you.

Get your hands dirty! It is so much fun.

PS: Note the decline in photo quality as you move to the bottom... 10 years ago, good cosplay photography was unheard of, and only the lucky few who had photographer friends got to do nice photoshoots. I'm always amazed at the incredible advances in not only costume quality now, but also photography quality. What an incredibly journey this has been...