What are some things you remember about "the old days" of cosplay?
For me, I remember how it seemed like Setsuna Kou was EVERYWHERE in the Sailor Moon cosplay scene in the early 00's. Even back then I thought her costumes looked like shit, but it seemed like she was still selling a lot of them.
>>9357394
I just remember how everything looked shitty so it wasn't bad if you were shitty yourself. Party City wigs, shiny-ass fabrics, bad make-up... You just made due with the limited resources you had, especially if you live in smaller countries. I remember looking at Limebarb stuff and being amazed someone could do that with what we had.
nowadays I have zero excuse to look shit but oh well, kek
I remember looking at Amphigory, imagining what it would be like to do a cosplay with a real wig.
Now I get wigs for $15.
How hard it was to find wigs.
It was pretty much amphigory and ebay only.
Also that Amano styled phase.
>>9357394
In general I just get sad/angry that I missed participating in cosplay groups during certain series' heyday. for example, you barely see GG cosplay
>>9357394
YES , setsuna kou was my idol at that time. i wanted to be like her when i grow up. now i'm 23, a professional dressmaker and just now realized how shitty her costumes were/are and how poorly made they were. and those materials jesus...
Good old days when cosplay wasn't mainstream and was no such thing as patreon/kickstarter and girls didn't ask for money to support them so they can do slutty cosplays
I remember letting my bangs grow for months so I could cosplay Nodoka from Negima. 2006.
Now I can just buy a wig for a couple bucks and it will look way better.
>>9358039
that actually doesn't look terribad. I see people like this at cons all the time. I always assume it's baby's 1st or 2nd cosplay and they just bit off a smidge more than they could chew.
>>9357930
Fuuuuck I miss it. It was really really nice when cons were nerd central. There was sexy too but it was to the side and done in ADDITION to other kinds of cosplay. You just didn't see girls and boys who only did skimpy or flavor of the month cosplay and then had the balls to ask for money for their hobby.
>>9358039
The hemline on that skirt is painful to look at
>>9358039
These are the worst things
>>9357528
>Limebarb
Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time...
I'm a fossil, and I remember an era where a significant portion of people insisted that natural hair was preferred over wigs. WHAT.
>>9357930
Before there was Patreon, Cosplay girls dated certain dudes for money or camera access. So it was still going on, it just wasn't a victim of globalization.
>>9358134
Remember the days of "I'll just spray my hair the right color the morning of the con"? That shit always looked so bad
>>9358039
the stiffness of the lace layers compared to the original takes this straight to sissy territory
>>9357585
Oh man the Amano Phase. The Sakizou of a bygone era.
Back in the 90s you had your choice of Sailor Moon *or* Cutey Honey (with a very occasional Battle of the Planets/G*Force character.) Pic unrelated.
never understood why people bought costumes from her since they weren't cheap
>>9358039
The costume looks good but damn I hate the choice of that shiny ass material
>>9358134
Yes!!I even tried to make a yarn wig. Not that I couldn't afford a wig, but I was 13 and my parents wouldn't let me to order anything from ebay
I remember when hugging someone cosplaying your favorite character would make you a new friend instead of getting you arrested for sexual assault.
>>9358654
i have a special place in my heart for yarn wigs. they just look so comically goofy i can't even be mad. i think they're a special case of "so bad, it's good".
>>9359415
same. people are sensitive little cunts these days so you have to watch your racist, sexist, misogynist mouth
>>9357394
L cosplays everywhere
last time we had this thread someone dumped a million classic photos, it was amazing
anyone save them?
You used to really have to get creative with altering existing patterns, since cosplay patterns didn't even exist until recently.
And fabric selection? Forget about it, unless you lived in LA or NY. Online fabric stores were shitty too.
>>9359772
>9772â–¶
2004 cosplays\
http://www.radions.com/photo/040328.html
hope this still counts
>>9359772
http://www.h7.dion.ne.jp/~k_club/contents01.htm
this is a classic website
1998
>>9357394
I remember when it was flooded by monthly meme cosplays and attentionwhores and it was actually cosplay.
>>9359993
wasn't*
2002
http://www.usagichan2.com/AnimeNorth2001/cosplay17.htm
>>9360011
>>9360020
I have a HUGE collection of old school images, 90s - 2004. cgl is the worst place to try and put them, where is somewhere I could make a gallery? imgur? dropbox? what would be best?
>>9360063
Imgur would be best, imo
>>9359994
Shit this is the Cosplay Closet elitist assholes.
>>9360063
yes please!anywhere!
>>9359724
Yeah. Cons used to be genuine safe spaces for socially awkward nerds, and now they've been turned into dangerous minefields by the very same people who use terms like "safe space".
imgur keeps giving me a 403 error when I try to register..
still no luck. Tried multiple emails. hmm
>>9359415
Yeah I remember when strangers would appear out of nowhere, hug me without even saying hi, and then get their feelings hurt when I didn't want to be their new bff. How tragic that those days are gone.
wait I got it! I'll be uploading pretty much everything I have in there. Mostly east coast, but I saved a LOT over the years from cosplay.com and cosplaylab.com
http://web.archive.org/web/20010408140330/http://tablet.cosplayers.ne.jp/photo/photo_root_menu.htm was the shit back in the day, but the internet archive didn't fully scrape it back then. Alas.
okay, some of these are horrible, some of them are great, I'm not done uploading yet, but there's like a thousand in there already.
http://olschool.imgur.com/all/
>>9360175
I blame tumblr
Saw this cosplay from Yaya Han at AX 2000. She got huge amounts of attention simply by being an asian cosplayer. Asians were literally the master race in anime cons in the 90s.
>>9360368
>0
omg this sailormoon cosplayer was my idol back in the day
>>9360374
Look how small her tits were...
>>9360374
This honestly kinda gives me hope. If 20 year old Yaya looked this terrible, then I've definitely got hope of getting famous too.
>>9360395
In all honesty... 20 years ago you would have? It's going to be harder to get noticed now that the scene is flooded and probably saturated with fame hungry cosplayers.
>sage for bringin' you down
>>9358039
What kills me is that this is NOT what her original version of the costume looked like. She had a version on her site that was actually half passable, and she replaced those with that.
>>9359981
that's a fantastic cosplay for the time that would hold up today.
>>9358140
what do you mean REMEMBER the days, it still happens
>>9360368
Thanks so much for uploading these, anon!
>>9359415
Can't stay 15 and harmless looking forever, anon.
>>9360368
Ugh, looking at some of these cosplays I'm thinking:
>those characters aren't that old
and they're from series/games that are 15 years old. Wew. Thanks for the dump, Anon.
It's funny, though, was everyone so rough looking back then? Was it just because the people back then were legit, and now cons have more normies? Or did cosplay as a whole really improve that much?
>>9359415
I do like how people stopped 'glomping' willy nilly because you could break peoples cosplays, but I didn't see one hug at katsu today that wasn't between close friends. Shit is kinda weird, I last cosplayed about 8 years ago as monkey d luffy and the stranger hugs wouldn't stop. (I would only get salty if they smelled bad)
What happened specifically to make cons so sterile in terms of stranger affection?
I asked a Mako today if I could give her a hug and she gave me a mean face and walked away. :[
>>9360785
another view of that legendary shiny Naruto duo
speaking of glomps
Someone's grandma clearly didn't want their grandbaby showing off that much leg.
Drawn on paint. That's one way to tackle that I guess.
Even asian cosplay looked meh
This dude would have made a good dude from Free! and probably several other bishonen or fighting type characters.
What is...what is happening here?
Wow, the awkwardness of youth summed up here.
The following is why I learned VERY fucking early to NEVER EVER EVER post a photo of yourself with the actual character.
>>9360852
Because if you don't have their features, hair, figure, proper sewing, good make up, decent lighting you are going to look extra shit next to them
>>9360854
and even when you do have those things... you have to pose right.
>>9360855
but just don't.
I never did it and seeing people do it convinced me I was right in doing so.
vintage EBK
Vintage AZ.
Nadine as Suzaku.
I often wondered what happened to her.
Looking at all of these give me intense nostalgia. I miss being able to run around and have fun without (as much) fear of having your photo plastered on the internet for the sake of ridicule.
Sure, the costumes weren't great but it was about showing your love for the show. Everyone had genuine fun!
>>9360866
I feel ya. I knew for a fact that if someone was dressed up from a show I liked we could talk each other's ear off for 10 minutes before we even traded names.
No one made it for them unless it was grandma, they weren't just riding the high of the latest flavor of the month anime, they weren't looking to be a model, and they paid for it themselves.
When you meet people now... none of that is guaranteed. You don't know if you are meeting a fan or just some dude who wanted to get their drink on and ordered a Hot Topic costume.
>>9360872
Legit, these costumes are far from great, but seeing how genuinely happy they are and just having a good time almost hits me in the heart a little. I miss it.
Of course, I have a good time when I cosplay with friends today! But something was just sort of special about back then.
It's kinda weird how 'Geek Culture' has now become the hip and trendy thing to be apart of. All the cartoons and tv shows used to make fun of the nerdy/geeky kids.
>>9360368
WOW THANK YOU
that was a ride.
>>9360835
ahahha classic
>>9360860
http://accuratecosplay.tumblr.com/
found this blog. A lot of them a really good
Protip:don't be fat
>>9360860
>>9360865
>Nadine as Suzaku.
More info about her?Damn,that's a really good cosplay
>>9360854
>>9360949
>>9360951
>>9360952
>>9360953
>>9360956
>>9360962
I was there that year. I think it was AZ2001
Man what a ride. It was my 2nd out of state con.
The writer of Ayashi No Ceres/Fushigi Yuugi was there so there was a LOT of AnC cosplay. The girls in >>9360962 came into her panel and she smiled and told everyone to be careful with their cosplays cause they were so revealing.
Yaya was JUST getting into the elaborate cosplay thing. Before she had been middling to decent.
>>9360953
is Lindze and Candy. Lindze still cosplays occasionally. Candy married some racist dude and just had a kid with him.
>>9360951
was a huge hit as she was one of the first people to make a decent Eternal senshi fuku who wasn't Moon.
Pic related. There was a hot asian dude who went by Ashita. He's the Touya in the pic. I wonder what became of him.
>>9360960
this chick looks like choke without shoop
>>9360996
kek those were revealing?
>>9360845
her crotch is going to haunt me for days
One of these people decided to be a pro cosplayer. The other decided to do something else.
Guess who made the right decision.
>>9360831
war flashbacks
>>9360815
If someone is polite about it, I'll usually say whatever but I had someone surprise/tackle hug me at a con once and someone pick me up and spin me around without asking so I've gotten a bit more mean about it. A lot of people at cons really don't seem to have a concept of boundaries and it's not cool.
I used to run around yelling at people for hugs and freaking out when I was still in middle school and didn't know any better.
>>9361017
Well yes. They only had draping around their boobs that wasn't attached to any skin.
Just like showing ankle back in the day was a big deal...flashing sideboob was a new thing.
>>9360939
Oh hey it's that body pillow that Linus $hill Tips has for who knows why.
>really want to do Full Moon cosplay
>tfw no qt girl and boy to accompany you as Meroko and Takuto
Goddamn, I love these threads. Watching OGs reminisce is so comfy to me.
>>9360815
I know for me personally I don't like people I'm not close with touching me, and in general not a big fan of being touched. So I don't do the hugging thing at cons. But it's probably not the main reason lots of other people don't do the affection thing.
>>9358650
They were literally the only place with a "nice" website (for the day) that had literally all types of Sailor Moon cosplay that also listed prices. I spent my youth lusting for these since I could never make cosplay on my own at the time.
>>9360939
Damn, dude. You just reminded me Gurren Lagann is almost 10 years old. Feels old, man.
>>9360940
>wearing normal outifit
>posted with pic of seed uniform
>>9361457
I'll take a shot: left was the one that went pro.
>>9360377
look at her non-whore makeup face !
Did we ever figure out who murdered her?
>>9360839
The velvet in the BG looks legit
>>9360368
What a wild ride this was
>>9361632
Babby Miyu bottom right
What I remember:
- Nobody knew wtf they were doing and we were all just sort of trying to figure this out together. You couldn't just buy perfect wigs or buy pre-made costumes. If you were lucky, you could buy accessories (often bootleg) on ebay.
- Cardboard and tinfoil/duct tape armor and weapons. Who knew you could spray plasti-dip and make amazing shit out of craft foam!? What sorcery is this!?
- During the FFX craze everyone trying to out-Yuna eachother. I remember sitting there trying to paint my damn skirt so the pattern went seamlessly between the pleats. Then 20 other girls hand embroidered it. I still have my obi somewhere.
- Katie Bair and her wig sorcery. I wanted to commission her for a wig so badly. These days I have no problem styling perfect wigs with the amount of colors, items and tutorials there are if I get stuck.
- Coloring your fucking halloween wig with sharpies and styling it with hair gel, Melting it with the hair dryer on low heat.
Shoutouts to better digital camera technology for helping everyone look a little better.
Also I saw Petting Zoo Wigs won a round of Arda's Iron Wig compettion. I used to check her website every single day. I went to a workshop she held at an Otakon and was so starstruck I couldn't make eye contact with her.
>>9361632
Was cheap costume satin as much of an epidemic as I remember, or did shitty flash photography just make it more obvious when people used it?
>>9364386
It was and it was and the flash made it worse.
Pair a shiny satin seifuku with shiny pantyhose and a shiny cheap wig in a dark panel room with a disposable camera flash for the ultimate retina burning effect.
>>9360846
Cosplaying Despair from Sandman, I'd assume.
>>9360815
I feel like selfies have replaced hugging lately and I'm 100% fine with that. I hate getting hugs because I'm a fussy bitch about touching people.
>>9361457
...Is that Matt Mercer?
>>9364590
Yes
>>9364378
>During the FFX craze everyone trying to out-Yuna eachother. I remember sitting there trying to paint my damn skirt so the pattern went seamlessly between the pleats. Then 20 other girls hand embroidered it. I still have my obi somewhere.
YES. Holy shit I remember this like it was last week. What a phenomenon. It's when I first realized we as a hobby were not only going the wrong direction but there was nothing we could do to stop it.
- look I made that intricate design in paint!
- look I got it in the pleats!
- look I made it line up even with the pleats showing and not showing
- look I did that but I embroidered it all
- look I used traditional Japanese embroidery techniques only!
I'm all for improving on design but people got smug about it. Smug and not even trying to hide the smug.
>>9364358
>Babby Miyu bottom right
Also baby yaya on left bottom and Baby Alisa in the middle bottom in black.
>>9364386
>>9361632 poster here
>>9364393 is right. There wasn't much selection yet. You could have stiff and thin country quilting cotton in any color -or- shiny as fuck cheap ass satin in any color.
Appropriate bottom weight twill was going to come in probably 10 colors. We also didn't have any money and most of us sure as fuck didn't have the crass balls to ask fans to pay for it. There were a couple of hangers on of course(they have existed since the beginning of time.) The ones who swore they would pay you for the room and then disappear or sleep with other fans to get free stuff. I digress...
Also our cameras were shit. No one's parents would let them take the expensive family camera for the weekend. Plus the lighting in hotels was just crap. So terrible flash shots were the only way you could see anything. Made the satin look way worse than it did in real life.
>>9365240
And then LOOK I traditionally hand embroidered my obi in the Japanse technique AND it's the full length of an obi and I have to tie the whole thing!
I just stuck snaps on mine and called it a day. I didn't have time for that. Like anyone in my room sewing their costumes Saturday morning before judging had time to help tie my obi.
I got shit about this once probably about 10 or 11 years ago the last time I wore that costume by some 17 year old girls that weren't in any costumes. Because I took the bow off to sit down and not crush it. It was kind of depressing since making it detachable seemed smart and pretty logical to me?
>>9365240
>>9367628
Why is it we all have stories about some holier than thou nerd trying to point out how they are better?
I mean the worst thought I have ever had about someone else's costume was, "Hmmm should have picked a better fabric or top stitched what you have."
We're all nerds. Trying to proclaim yourself somehow higher than that other nerds at the nerd convention is just...why?
>>9364196
I heard that she got hit by a car
>>9368551
I never understood it. People have good ideas and it's nice to share them and build upon them. It's sort of how this hobby became what it was from all of us building upon eachother's knowledge, trial and errors.
For a lot of us in the early days, cons and cosplay were the escape from the holier than thou types we dealt with in school or in our regular lives. Now it seems like most are trying to out-nerd eachother for fame and popularity.
On the plus side, it's easier to talk about this stuff now in the open. I'm a store manager and all of my employees (I have like 12 it's a small store) are into some facet of nerd-dom and we'll talk about video games, costumes, conventions, etc pretty casually.
>>9360373
Shit had already gone downhill long before tumblr. I blame anime going more "mainstream", cons desperately trying to bring in normies to make more money, and the shift in the average age. Conventions have always had immature obnoxious teenagers around, but in those days, most attendees were older and kept them in check. Now, kids are the majority and the majority rules. By 2007, I just knew that anime cons had changed for the worse and could only get worse, but no one listened.
>>9368551
Because nowadays a lot of people look at it as something they can test their skills in and they get satisfaction out of being 'THE BEST'.
>>9369362
Best of the worst.
>>9368820
But no one listened...?
What are you on the board of directors?
>>9369437
Looks like a small con. Having judged and run cosplays at small conventions before sometimes you've got real slim pickings. Best in show might not actually be "the best" but they may have done the best skit and construction/presentation out of everyone who entered.
>2008
>Wasn't that long ago, really. Why is this even included?
>Oh it's 2017, that was 9 years ago.
>>9368820
Mainstreamness has a lot to do with it, really. Most people in their 20's have had exposure to anime and grew up on some form of anime. Cosplay is commonly understood. Social media really played a gigantic part in making cosplay, conventions and anime more mainstream.
Back in the day, you went to conventions to find people who were more like-minded. These days, social media easily helps you find others like you and lets you know that you're not alone in your obsessive fandoms and weird hobbies. More people want to try it out. More people are able to share their techniques and the bar is set way higher. Everyone wants their time in the spotlight. Likes/shares/reblogs/followers whatever give you the same rush and feeling of "oh love your costume! let's talk about this series and trade AIM usernames" Lots of kids, and parents more open to bringing them. Whereas 10-15 years ago parents had no freaking clue unless they were into it themselves. Kids are being born into and raised and can instantly stream the stuff we had to torrent and our predecessors had to trade 15th generation VHS tapes via snail mail for.
>>9372451
Pretty much this. The public perception is vastly different; twenty years ago, if you told people you were going to a scifi/anime convention, you'd get the side-eye and people would scoot away from you. That people can be openly enthusiastic about cosplay and find copious resources is fucking great.
I will always miss how everyone watched the same few anime series back in the day because access was so limited. You rarely saw cosplay that you didn't know what it was and if you did, you immediately went home and tried to find that show/manga. It made a very large genre feel like a small fandom because everyone knew the characters.
And kids these days will never, NEVER understand the wig struggle.
To my recollection Setsuna Kou's suits were widely known as "budget cosplays" because everyone knew they were hot glued together and had poor construction and materials, but they were so cheap people bought them anyway.
>>9360021
This picture made me realize how old I actually am.
>wait a minute, Yoko was the basic bitch cosplay only 2... 3... holy shit it was 10 years ago
But it was fucking EVERYWHERE at some point. Every girl who wasn't fat made that goddamn cosplay even though Yoko was the worst character of them all but she was popular and her costume could be slapped together in one evening. I hated the trend so much, almost none of the girls even watched the show.
>>9364590
Yes. He was known as Lord Masamune back then and made really elaborate cosplays but after starting his voice acting career he deleted fucking everything.
>>9358134
Ah yes. I remember that. But in their defense it was when wigs were way too expensive (and looked bad too, like Party City was the only option) for anyone to buy so people just went with their own hair instead. I didn't want to pay $60 for a shiny ass wig either so I just dyed my hair. Now anyone can get a long, beautiful wig for just a handful of dollars.