I love me some cosplay.
Correction, I love me some good cosplay. Trust me - its out there - you just have to dig a little.
In the last few months I have been doing just that. Sifting through the internets daily on a hunt for the best and the brightest cosplayers has become a habit. Saying that I was impressed with what I found is an understatement.
It is true that the internet is saturated with the slightly frightening cosplay (see: overweight male + sailor moon costume) that most of us picture when we hear the world out loud. However, in this case it is not just about the costumes. Everything from the overall craftsmanship, armor, weapons, makeup, photography, location and attitude of these cosplayers is what makes their work so stunning. That alone is a good reason to share!
So that is exactly what I am going to do. Each Thursday I will bring you a new gallery asploding with cosplay goodness. Themes will guide my selections, each week featuring costumes from a specific game, anime, manga, comic or even a specific cosplayer. Feel free to suggest anything you would like to see in the future.
Picking an inaugural subject matter was easy. Where better to start than with the often attempted and rarely successful costumes from Final Fantasy VII? I for one had seen enough poorly executed Cloud attempts to last a lifetime, but how can you blame them for wanting to step into the shoes of such awesome characters? Even without the epic hairstyles, the gear from this title is unanimously hard to pull off. Difficult, but not impossible!
It turns out there is a large amount of great costumes hailing from the realm of Midgar…and not just from the characters you would predict. The following gallery features costumes from the original FFVII, Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus and even a few Kingdom Hearts costume spin-offs. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruit of someone else’s labor. From the looks of it, it took a lot.
*edit* If the gallery is on the fritz for you, you can see all 100+ photos on this FFVII flickr acount link: http://www.flickr.com/gp/7770072@N03/c02r75