Milan Style

After four years in Anaheim, WonderCon, an annual comic book, science-fiction and motion picture convention, will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from Friday through Sunday. But the change of venue won’t stop O.C. cosplayers from attending.

Cosplay, short for costume play, refers to dressing up to represent a character, usually from anime, video games, films or television series.

Local cosplayer and high school student Abby Goldsmith, who goes by Charlotte Sinclair in costume, is president of the cosplay club at Orange County School of the Arts. She became interested in it after attending Comic-Con with her family for several years.

“One year I thought, ‘Hey, since everyone else dresses up, maybe I should too,’” Goldsmith said.

Using mostly thrift store finds, she dressed up as Link from the “Legend of Zelda” video game franchise, and her love for cosplay was born.

Ashley Howe, a model and fellow O.C.-based cosplayer, said, “I have always been into costuming and dress-up. I loved spirit days at school since it gave me an excuse, other than Halloween, to try my hand at putting together fun outfits. At 16, I attended my first renaissance fair, and that opened up my eyes to a whole new world of costuming.”

Cosplay is not the same as merely dressing up for Halloween or an ’80s night party.

“Cosplayers have a love-hate relationship with Halloween,” Goldsmith said. “I consider cosplay to be an art form, focused on perfectly replicating even the smallest details on a particular character, and is usually pretty delicate and needs to be handled with love.”

Howe adds, “I would say for most people – key word, ‘most’ – Halloween isn’t as labor-intensive as cosplaying. It can take months or even a year to make certain cosplays come to life.”

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GETTING STARTED

Get online. YouTube users offer tutorials on how to create characters. You can find a ready-made costume or even commission a custom one on Etsy. Tutorials are also available on deviantart.com and Tumblr.

Do your research. Make a list of supplies and determine what you can make from scratch and what you need to buy. Make sure the costume is safe – no fire hazards, sharp objects or features that can make you trip. Also, consider the rules of the cosplay event you are attending.

Try it on as you go. Make sure your costume fits along the way as many times as possible and figure out how to move in it.

Debut your costume. Make the short trek to WonderCon or another convention, or just do a photo shoot with friends.

Find fellow cosplayers

Check out Instagram, Facebook or Meetup. Or attend a convention such as WonderCon, Long Beach Comic-Con, Stan Lee’s Comikaze Expo, or San Diego Comic-Con.

A CAUTION

Just because it’s animated doesn’t mean it is kid-appropriate. Monitor what manga and anime your kids watch; some have adult themes. Cosplaying, likewise, can sometimes get saucier than a parent might imagine.

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