I once did a cosplay photoshoot where I had to pose partially submerged in water in the middle of July. I thought that was dedication. I was wrong — this Russian cosplayer has diced with the giant, furry jaws of death itself to get the perfect photo, shooting her Lara Croft cosplay with an actual, real life bear. A BEAR!
The cosplayer is Captain Irachka, who worked with photographer Irina Pirogova to get these perfectly fear-inducing shots. Irina is well-known for her shots of beautiful women posing with various dangerous carnivores such as bears, wolves and foxes, so this shoot is well within her ballpark.
The bear himself is a bit of a celebrity — his name is Stepan, and he pops up occasionally in the news for being fully domesticated and living with his two adoptive human parents — and occasionally officiating at weddings.
In fact, Stepan is so used to modelling with lovely women that the caption above suggests he was confused when his co-star was trying to crawl away from him, rather than asking for kisses. Of course, not all bears are like Stepan and we don’t recommend trying this one at home — even if you do happen to have a grizzly in your backyard.
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10 responses to “The Lengths Cosplayers Go To Be The Perfect Lara Croft”
I am currently hiding behind my computer as I yelled out “so fluffy” the second I watched that video. My work mates are looking at me really confused.
for i in {1..1000}; do echo “Nope!”; echo “So much nope!”; done
The bear looks like it’s had its teeth and claws filed down.
Exactly right. Russian, bears and humans close by? You can assume the bears have been mistreated.
Stepan was adopted as a cub from a circus that had gone bankrupt and couldn’t afford to feed its animals any more. He was the runt and whenever food was provided the other cubs wouldn’t let him eat, so he ended up malnourished and biting things he shouldn’t have, ruining his teeth. When he was adopted the family brought him back to health but unfortunately his teeth were permanently damaged.
Russia certainly has a reputation for mistreating circus animals, but by all accounts this circus tried hard to re-home their animals, and the people that adopted him worked their arses off to look after him and bring him back to health, even getting official certification as animal handlers so it would be legal to keep the bear.
You could argue the bear shouldn’t have been in the circus in the first place (and I wouldn’t disagree) but it seems for the most part everyone tried to do their best along the way.
Good to know! Thanks!
That’s a really good Lara Croft cosplay, but I actually think the bear ruins it. She’s hover handing a bit which makes the bear look even friendlier.
Fully domesticated my arse.
Augh where are the volume controls on those damn vids :/
Of course, this comes on the same day that the news broke that a Japanese woman was killed by a bear.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/29/woman-killed-bear-japanese-mountains-amid-concern-increase-attacks/