Dapper Oogie Boogie ; @gravelroadcosplay / photo : @jonathan_w_cabreraCosplay can mean many things f

Dapper Oogie Boogie ; @gravelroadcosplay / photo : @jonathan_w_cabrera

Cosplay can mean many things for many people.  For me, it is largely a creative outlet.  I grew up doing a lot creative writing and I fell away from that.  My job doesn’t allow for much creativity and I felt for a long time that I was missing the enjoyment of being creative and producing something from my imagination.  I found cosplay it was such a relief to have found something to let me be creative and generate an end product I could be proud of at the same time.

For 2022, one of my goals was to take more creative steps in cosplay, a more interpretive approach. Few of my cosplays are screen or comic accurate anyway, but that isn’t my approach to this hobby to begin with. I plan, and hope,   to develop more cosplays that are interpretations of characters (or concepts). I have a couple in mind,  and recently I was awake all night because I was excited for a cosplay concept and spent hours mentally planning it.

I debuted my dapper Oogie Boogie at GalaxyCon and it went pretty well! This cosplay had been on my list for two years and I had the fabric for almost that long. A fully lined burlap suit was pretty warm and by the end of the day I was sweltering! I used Simplicity pattern 8528 and it went pretty well.

Not many people got my idea but the ones that did loved it. Don’t be afraid to cosplay variants or your own version of design. This was more of a challenge I posed to myself as a bigger sewing project with an unconventional material and it helped me learn some skills to use in the future. 

Whatever your approach to cosplay,  or whatever you hope to get out of this hobby,  I hope you have success.  You are creative enough to make it happen and have what it takes to be your version of successful.