Gaming… And That Other Thing Called Cosplay
I’ve never really been much of a fan of cosplay. For the longest time now, it remained an aspect of youth/geek/nerd culture that simply didn’t appeal to me. This might make me sound like some sort of a snob but I have often caught myself taking quite the irrationally biased stance against the geek-tasticly beloved activity, partly due to its close association with anime and manga. Truthfully, I can’t profess to being very fond of those either.
Now, I will recognize that there are a good number of cosplayers out there who do an amazing job with their rendition of their favorite anime or manga characters, some of which are mind-blowingly hot even. However, there is too a large population’s worth of cosplayers who are not only bad, but just downright ugly. No disrespect meant, of course.
As of late, I’ve (finally) taken notice of the rising popularity of cosplay within the realm of gaming. Not surprisingly, gaming too has its crop of blindingly bad cosplayers. Still, I will say that over the past couple of years, months even, I’ve been impressed on more than a handful of occasions by the gradually increasing quality of these gamers and their costumes.
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Seriously, there are tonnes of great examples of gaming cosplay. Just use your imagination, head over to Google and get searching.
Video wise, Youtube possesses a wide range of cosplay related content spanning costume and armor tutorials (some of which are HIGHLY complicated), showcase videos and even live action re-enactments of some of the most popular games out in the market today.
I will admit that in the past, I wasn’t able to, nor willing to, appreciate the ‘phenomena’ that is cosplay. Call me biased, but having witnessed it expertly plied to a medium that I can strongly relate to, let’s just say that my previously negative view of cosplay has undergone a fair bit of… consideration.
In some ways, I can empathize with the sheer amount of love and passion some of these cosplayers have for their favorite games and characters. For those extremely talented gamers out there who’ve gone as far as to realistically fabricate their own life-size and life-like pieces of armor and weapons, the least I can give even is my utmost respect and admiration. Now, for those of you ‘cosplayers’ who don cheaply made costumes as part of a promotional schtick as opposed to passion and interest, I say to you Sir and Madam, “Meh.”
Will I ever partake in cosplay? Not very likely me thinks, at least for the foreseeable future. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have say a set of N7 Armor or Alcatraz’s Crysis Nanosuit 2 conveniently hanging in my closet, not to mention Hawke’s Staff of Parlathan. Maybe a suit of Arthas’ Lich King Armor, or even a full blown Warhammer Sigmarite Witch Hunter costume, now that’d really hit the spot.
Themocracy