HDR photography may make everybody involved look like giant action figures, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t also take very pretty pictures.
I’m speaking about the BioShock Infinite picture here, which while making their faces look weird, really makes the fabric on those costumes pop, where we might otherwise have overlooked it!
As for the rest, well…those headline pics up top sure are dark. Sorry if you wanted to start your week with sunshine, you’ll find cheerier pics below!
To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as wallpaper), click on the “expand” button in the bottom-right corner.
Fancy Pants is Kotaku’s weekly round-up of the best in video game cosplay (costume play), where fans dress up as their favourite characters.
Street Fighter [Cosplayer [Photographer]
Final Fantasy [Cosplayer [Photographer]
Final Fantasy [Cosplayer, Cosplayer [Photographer]
Mass Effect [Cosplayer [Photographer]
Darkstalkers [Cosplayer]
BioShock Infinite [Cosplayer, Cosplayer]
Attack On Titan [Cosplayer, Cosplayer, Cosplayer]
Tomb Raider [Cosplayer]
Comments
13 responses to “It’s A Dark Day For Cosplay”
Mmmmmmmmmorrigan.
Nice graphics, what game? Wait, this is real.
Depends what you count as real, more and more cosplay photos popping up are heavily Photoshoped. It’s harder to tell where the real person is and what is simply added in the computer. Show room floor photos tend to give a better representation of the cosplayers skill and art. well that’s my opinion.
Yeah I agree. I can see why they do it, but at the same time think itd be better to try and replicate it just directly.. When you get to the point where only even parts of the actors are 100% real it becomes a bit like.. Why don’t you become a 3d artist instead and just render it all lol.
On another note, I don’t really see why nearly every one of these is a professional photo.. Takes some of the hobby out of it for me.. It’s no longer something social you might do with a friend, it’s some abstracted, pseudo-professional-but-with-no-real-industry monster that detracts from the actual accomplishment of the cosplayer.
That Levi looks terrifying.
But really fantastic though.
I am very glad that they are having fun with what they are doing, but as I’ve said before, I Just don’t understand the point of cosplay.
I can understand LARPing, because that involves scenarios, events, re-enactment (although is it re-enactment if the original event was fictional? Never mind), and play-fighting and has game-like elements. But with cosplay…. it’s just “dress as the character”…. and take photos. I don’t actually understand the point – I don’t understand what the cosplayer derives from the act.
I mean, if it’s a costume-themed convention, I suppose that can be fun, in some ways. But this isn’t a convention. They wear the costume and pose for a photo….. for what? I struggle to find a reason for doing this. I really do.
Then again, just because I don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. They must derive something from doing this – it’s not easy to craft the costumes and the props after all – it clearly takes a lot of effort, so they are doing it because they like doing it. Even if I don’t understand it, that doesn’t diminish the worth these people find in cosplaying. The world doesn’t revolve around what “I” can understand.
I still don’t get it though. And I wish someone would explain it to me.
It’s considered a hobby by some and just overall fun in group settings with other like-minded participants. I don’t think it needs much further thought than that. It’s not really any different from someone who collects stamps, goes birdwatching or constructs model airplanes.
It’s the same as any hobby, you do it because it’s something you enjoy and have an interest in.
A lot of people don’t get games and why you’d want to sit around for hours indulging in a fantasy when you could be out in the real world doing productive things. I certainly don’t understand why people willingly go onto a field and run around after balls until they’re sweaty and exhausted and covered in dirt and grass stains.
Professional cosplay (or at least, the kind you see here) is actually a lot like LARPing. You’re not just dressing up and running around a convention centre, you’re jumping into the persona of a character and re-creating scenes that reflect the games, movies, cartoons or books they came from. It’s also a way for people of different professions to interact. You have photographers, make-up artists, craftspeople and tailors all coming together to produce one shot. Even then, it’s not just “dress-up and take a photo”, it’s “dress up, pose, take a few photos, adjust the lighting, costume, layout and then pose again and take a few more photos from different angles, then get some more people into the picture, hold a pose for ten minutes while a dozen more pictures are taken, etc.” After hours of this, you might actually end up with a few usable shots.
Of course, that’s just the extreme, but cosplaying is actually a lot more complex than people think and personally, I’d love to have even half the creativity and imagination to do the things they do.
I dunno either! But if I had to guess… part performance, much like any painting. I mean, a really, really well-done hyper-realistic painting of something is basically still an inferior photograph. And photographs themselves are just things… from maybe a different perspective than what people normally see. Which might be the point of cosplay. Sort of the inverse of painting. Painting can be taking something real and virtualizing it, cosplay is the act of taking something imaginary and making it ‘real’.
Well, I’m not a cosplayer, but here’s my guess …
Games can be very involving. The interaction means people can form a connection with the characters in the game. As a sort of homage to those characters, cosplayers try to bring them to life. It’s an expression of the emotional investment that they have with that character.
You don’t understand doing something because you find it fun?
So much photoshop
They’re real, and they’re spectacular!