2. Research

Every costume creation should start with research. If you don’t research, you’re doing something wrong. Then again, the intensity and time invested into this step depends on your intentions: is the costume for a local party? Do you want to take part in a cosplay competition? Would you like to have a nice memory in form of presentable photos? The thumb rule is - the more complicated costume it is and the better done you want it, the more you should research before starting the actual work.

In the previous article I dealt with image sources for getting an idea. As for the practical method, where to start research, google image search is the first obvious choice – just put in some, or a combination, of previously mentioned keywords. But there are also other platforms with great number of desired pictures: one of them is tumblr, the other is pinterest (and of course many others). Both of them don’t require registration if you just want only to browse their content.

It is also useful to go deeper: when you come upon a particularly intriguing picture, you also want to check the home page/blog of the uploader. There’s a chance s/he has more images of the sort, or maybe even a blog dedicated to a particular fashion style, or cosplay.

Let's say you find this image:

Norn Warrior, Kamui Cosplay

 Wow, great costume, right? Of course you save the image to your hard drive...but wait? Are there more photos of this cosplay? Google shows gives you the choice visit the source page (and if you are lucky, you'll also find source links with photos on tumblr or pinterest, or you can make a quick google image search to find out where it originally came from). Anyway, you visit the home page and voila! You'll find Kamui Cosplay. After navigating a bit you notice that this cosplayer also provides tutorials and links to her costume portfolio, blog and other features. Congratulation, you just found a treasure! In this way you can ferret out way more information on a desired costume than a single pictorial representation.

• if you found a great picture but don't have the source, try the reverse image search. It works on google (and some other less known engines). You can upload, or link the picture and you'll get pages where the given image, or similar images were found

google image reverse search

 After you got inspired, the next step is research of the chosen subject. Here are some handy guidelines

• look up different images of the chosen style (i.e. red steampunk , showing the outfit from different angles, in combination with other clothes. It doesn't have to be the same outfit. You still want to know how a particular dress style works on the backside, if it looks better combined with a jacket or not, or how will it work with a skirt? Worn under a coat?) 

• beside the image, try to find also some verbal description of the desired style (materials, difficulty, sewing hints etc.)

• if it’s a historical or history inspired style, absolutely look up the original historical costume, i.e. if you’d like to do something baroque inspired, you want to take a look at „real“ baroque clothing, not only on other people’s version of it, or at the movie version of the latest movie remake of The Three Musketeers. Trust me, if you don’t, the results will look awkward. Always follow to the roots! This doesn’t mean, however, that you shouldn’t alter it for your purpose – after you’ve done the research

-in this case you can extend your research also to books and journals (there are many contemporary art and fashion journals and fashion plates ranging from 18th century until present being digitalized at the time, with wonderful illustrations and descriptions). Also visit your local, or university library for relevant books

• look up how other people dealt with the realization of the costume

-this is especially true if you’re doing cosplay. You don’t have to discover America yourself - again. It is very convenient to get tried methods and tips on how to deal with particular problems, especially when it’s, say, a translation from other media (cartoon, anime or computer game character often have unreal body proportions and therefore the clothes will look different on you as on the original character). Look up people with similar body proportions like you to get an idea how it will look on you.

Different "Xenas"

• there are also lot of video and photo tutorials on youtube, deviantart and aforementioned platforms

•  it is surprisingly helpful to look at badly chosen or carelessly executed costume and cosplay as well. In this way you learn what mistakes to avoid without having made them yourself

 

Bad choice. Less is not always better

Poor execution. No excuse

      

•  also check material availability and costs before you start doing the costume (I’m going to deal with the materials in detail in the next article)

• last, but not least: be patient. The more complicated the outfit, the more research you need. The time you invest into research will absolutely pay off during the realization phase 

To find tutorials and other practical pages, check out my sideboard with relevant links. I’m going to update them regularly.