The journey of a cosplayer

Makeup? Check. Hair? Check. Outfit? Check. With everything ready, I was on my way to the event I had been preparing for all summer.

No, I didn’t dress up to go to a fancy party or a club. It wasn’t for a wedding or homecoming. This event was something much cooler, in my opinion: the 2016 Salt Lake Comic Con.

At this point, I’ve been to four, maybe five of these conventions and each one of them has  been a different experience. From the venders and the panelists to the costumes and the people, there is always something new to enjoy. This year for the first time, I entered the costume competition as a novice cosplayer.

I’m not sure exactly when I started on my journey to becoming a full-blown cosplayer. It could have been with the Batman shirt I got for Halloween a few years ago that came with a mask and a cape. Or with the rogue outfit I got to go along with my family’s adventuring group cosplay. The fact that I’m up to five costumes now might be a sign of how far I’ve gone.

Rey from “Star Wars: the Force Awakens” was the first costume I had ever made from scratch. From the outfit I had collected, cut and dyed, to the staff I made from a metal conduit, painter’s tape and air-dry clay, I had found a new way to express my creativity. I apologize to the roommates I’ve undoubtedly annoyed with my hours of working with Netflix playing in the background and the clay stains or fabric scraps I left behind as I went to bed late at night.

This summer left me with a lot of time to myself that I spent whole-heartedly polishing up my Rey staff and adding other finishing touches to the costume that was such a huge hit at FanX last spring. I also had the time and motivation to start on a new costume, which turned out to be even more challenging than the previous one.

What made this project so challenging was the fact that the costume was from a character whose movie hasn’t even come out yet: Jyn Erso, the protagonist from “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” which premieres in December.

Photo by Miranda Lorenc

I don’t know why I decided to cosplay as her, maybe it was the challenge or maybe it was the idea of doing something I knew very few others would be doing. When I started, I only had a vague idea of her costume from the promotional poster and teaser trailer and I had to work from blurry screenshots. As the summer progressed and more trailers came out, I was able to pull in and emulate the finer details.

I have to say, I am extremely proud of the final product. The hours I went through creating this costume, the new techniques I had to experiment with to sew the vest and make the belt, the dyeing my hair dark for the first time for better character accuracy: all that work went into creating something I felt confident enough to enter the cosplay contest with.

While I didn’t pass the prejudging portion of the entry process (I think it was because my character wasn’t very recognizable yet), I did have an amazing experience interacting with other cosplayers who admired my work as I admired theirs, with the “Star Wars” fans who singled me out in the crowd and chased me down to take a picture with me, and with the few cosplaying groups that tried to recruit me to their causes.

To top off the entire convention, I was complimented by Pablo Hidalgo, a man who works at Lucasfilm as a creative executive in story development and a member of the Lucasfilm Story Group which creates and maintains one cohesive canon in the “Star Wars” universe. At the end of one of the panels he hosted, in response to a question one woman had about Jyn Erso’s costume, Hidalgo asked me to stand up so that the crowd could see how close I was to the actual costume. I stood up to a packed room filled with hundreds of people all clapping and cheering for me.

I’m the type of person who thrives under such positive attention, and that was the highlight of my convention experience. The fact that such high praise had come from someone who worked on the set of the new movie just made it even better. Even though Jyn Erso was different to cosplay than Rey and less easily recognized, I was glad I spent the effort to create as accurate a costume as I could.

As with any hobby, I’ve found that cosplaying can be expensive and time consuming but to me it’s absolutely worth it. I love the feel of art taking form under my hands; I love the community of artists that gather to admire each other’s effort and work; I love getting recognized and taking pictures with other members of my fandoms. I don’t know what my next costume will be, but I’m sure I will continue my cosplaying experience in the conventions to come.

If you have any suggestions for my next cosplay project, let me know below or email me at Miranda.lorenc@gmail.com.