Kiyakotari (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kiyakotari) wrote2010-02-02 03:08 pm
kiyakotari) wrote2010-02-02 03:08 pm
Saya!!
The saya I ordered for my Katsushiro costume arrived today. It's a bit scuffed in a few places, but I'm not bothered by that - I already decided that my costume is going to be more realistic and rugged than the shiny!new!anime!pretty costume style that most people at cons like to make. I prefer a more distressed look.
I think I've rambled about my approach to and views on cosplay on here before, but there's always time for the soapbox. ^__^
Basically, I see most people who do costumes going out of their way to make themselves seem as much like the target anime character as possible. If the character has bright hair with psycho spikes, so do they. If the costume always - no matter what trouble the character seems to get into - looks pristine and lovely, so does theirs. (Heck, even with characters that don't always look pristine, few people seem to try to anything other than fresh-from-the-dry-cleaner.) Bold colors and lines and borders remain such. I take...a different angle.
When I cosplay, I try to recreate the character as I imagine they would exist if they had to live in a world constrained (for the most part) by our own laws of physics. I select fabrics based on what would be most practical for a person in that character's position to wear. I design my costumes to be functional as well as to be visible replicas of the characters' outfits. If the character's features are at all unclear - for example, Katsushiro is often portrayed as having blue or green hair, in varying shades, but he has no official stats that I can find anywhere, and his hair color in the show runs the gamut from gray to greenish-brown to a dark teal to black - I will go for the options that make the character seem less fantastical and more real.
In this case, I'll be doing black hair, because I believe that Katsushiro's wildly varying hair color is a result of the artists wanting his hair to be visible against different backgrounds, and that his design actually called for black or VERY dark blackish-green hair. I'll be using very heavy and fairly stiff fabric for his jacket, because it seems most fitting since it's based on a classic military design, but the burnt-orange sleeves will be lighter, probably a knit that has better drape to it so that I can get the flow that they seem to have when he's moving about in the series. I'm going to try my damndest to find fabric that's as close as possible to hakama fabric for his pants, because even though they're obviously not hakama (they're more like clown pants, actually...), I think that they're meant to be a more modernized take one something that would fulfill some of the same basic functions - helping hide leg movements due to being so wide-legged, and giving plenty of room to move - and because it makes sense for them to be made of something durable. Katsushiro is a ronin. He has no home, he wanders from place to place trying to prove himself as a samurai in a world that is rejecting the path he has chosen to follow. He would have to carry everything he owns with him, so it makes sense that the things he owns would need to last him as long as is possible. I'm debating adding a canteen to the costume, on his right side, because it just seems...fitting...even though it's not in the original design at any point.
I always over think these things. <3
I think I've rambled about my approach to and views on cosplay on here before, but there's always time for the soapbox. ^__^
Basically, I see most people who do costumes going out of their way to make themselves seem as much like the target anime character as possible. If the character has bright hair with psycho spikes, so do they. If the costume always - no matter what trouble the character seems to get into - looks pristine and lovely, so does theirs. (Heck, even with characters that don't always look pristine, few people seem to try to anything other than fresh-from-the-dry-cleaner.) Bold colors and lines and borders remain such. I take...a different angle.
When I cosplay, I try to recreate the character as I imagine they would exist if they had to live in a world constrained (for the most part) by our own laws of physics. I select fabrics based on what would be most practical for a person in that character's position to wear. I design my costumes to be functional as well as to be visible replicas of the characters' outfits. If the character's features are at all unclear - for example, Katsushiro is often portrayed as having blue or green hair, in varying shades, but he has no official stats that I can find anywhere, and his hair color in the show runs the gamut from gray to greenish-brown to a dark teal to black - I will go for the options that make the character seem less fantastical and more real.
In this case, I'll be doing black hair, because I believe that Katsushiro's wildly varying hair color is a result of the artists wanting his hair to be visible against different backgrounds, and that his design actually called for black or VERY dark blackish-green hair. I'll be using very heavy and fairly stiff fabric for his jacket, because it seems most fitting since it's based on a classic military design, but the burnt-orange sleeves will be lighter, probably a knit that has better drape to it so that I can get the flow that they seem to have when he's moving about in the series. I'm going to try my damndest to find fabric that's as close as possible to hakama fabric for his pants, because even though they're obviously not hakama (they're more like clown pants, actually...), I think that they're meant to be a more modernized take one something that would fulfill some of the same basic functions - helping hide leg movements due to being so wide-legged, and giving plenty of room to move - and because it makes sense for them to be made of something durable. Katsushiro is a ronin. He has no home, he wanders from place to place trying to prove himself as a samurai in a world that is rejecting the path he has chosen to follow. He would have to carry everything he owns with him, so it makes sense that the things he owns would need to last him as long as is possible. I'm debating adding a canteen to the costume, on his right side, because it just seems...fitting...even though it's not in the original design at any point.
I always over think these things. <3