|
Cosplay: Catgirls and Other Critters (Anime Costuming Handbook)
Anime Book Review
If you'd prefer to make your own cat-ears and have something unique, hand-made, just for you -- rather than buy something in a store, something that everyone else already has, then this is the book you need to get your hands on.
This volume features: transforming ordinary fabric and accessories into fabulous contest winners, creating genre-specific costumes from scratch; duplicating your favorite characters or inventing your very own; cosplaying both for competition and just for fun; accessories from shoes to makeup; finding hard-to-get and imported items; patterns, measurements, and sewing techniques; money-saving tips and how-tos for cosplay on a budget; pointers on the care and transportation of costumes; resource lists, websites, where to find character models; plus full-color photos, plans, and drawings.
This volume covers catgirls, from All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku-Nuku to Hyper Police.
In other words, this is a fantastic way to start making your own one-off, unique, just-for you cosplay materials.
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, April 2012
Cosplay in America
Anime Book Review
You NEED to buy this book. Seriously.
Photographer/author Ejen Chuang maxed out credit cards to travel to six anime conventions across America to prepare this book. Five months were spent photographing 1,651 cosplayers from coast to coast followed by another six months of editing.
 The result is a hard bound coffee table book of cosplayers captured at the conventions. Through these pages one can see the many faces of Americans - of different race, background, and age all united under the love of anime.
What's so excellent about this book in particular is that it really does focus on Cosplay in the United States, and it treats the subject as it should be treated - as art. Here's someone treating cosplay with the respect it deserves, show your support and grab a copy!
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, August 2011
Below: Photos from the book Cosplay in America.
OTACOOL 2
Anime Book Review
If you've ever been to a Sci-Fi or anime convention, you already know that cosplay is more than 50% of the entire show. But perhaps you don't know that cosplay events go beyond conventions. Cosplay is huge at this time, and we predict it will become even bigger as time goes on.
Danny Choo, everybody's favorite site on the web for all things weird for fanboys, has put together a few books covering things of interest to oktaku, and this one is the best of the bunch, covering international cosplayers in their finest gear. (Francesca Dani is pretty yummy in that maid outfit, can she come over and clean my place?)
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, May 2011
Cosplay Fever
Anime Book Review
While attending a recent Sci-Fi convention, I was struck dumb by the sheer magnitude that cosplay penetration has achieved. While once a niche part of any con, it's now the dominant portion of the convention and the dealer's room. Fully 75% of the con was people doing cosplay.
Cosplay (meaning "costume role-play") has been a significant subculture in Japan for decades, but it is now growing in popularity all over the world. Cosplayers dress up in the costumes of their favorite characters from manga, anime, movies, video games and other popular media, then step into the shoes of those characters as they adopt their attributes and personality traits.
 The book "Cosplay Fever" is a celebration of an extraordinary art-form, with over 300 photographs of inventive and talented cosplayers. There is incredible diversity on display in Cosplay Fever. Some of the costumes are bought or commissioned. Others are painstakingly constructed over months or even years. There are expertly-crafted works of art, made from materials such as metal, latex, and synthetic leather. And there are less permanent creations, made from old cardboard boxes and duct tape.
The costumes are elaborate and eye-catching, or simple yet ingenious, or beautiful and evocative, or horrifying, or delightful, or goofy and amusing. While every costume is wonderfully unique, each one reflects the creative spirit of the individual cosplayer. It is this creative spirit which has inspired the development of Cosplay Fever.
Cosplay Fever is more than a collection of photographs. Everyone featured in the book has been asked about the creation of their costumes, the challenges they faced, what they like about the character, and why they cosplay in the first place. Their responses are sometimes informative, other times poignant, often hilarious, but always revealing.
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, May 2010
|
|
|
 |
|
How To Cosplay
Anime Book Review
There are a number of books out there on making the costumes for cosplaying, but until now, there have been none that specialize in cosplay make-up. Taking full advantage of the know-how amassed through its publication of various how-to books, Graphic-sha has produced a detailed and thorough book on how to do cosplay make-up.
 Graphic-sha has obtained the necessary authorization to use the popular (and copyrighted) anime, manga, and game characters featured in the book, and can present the actual make-up techniques needed to reproduce them accurately! Using familiar materials and items, professional make-up artists present complete lectures on such topics as Basics/Cross-dressing/Using face paint/Special wound and make-up/Covering facial faults!
Also featured are exclusive reports on major cosplay events!
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, July 2010
Fandomania
Anime Book Review
In Fandomania, photographer Elena Dorfman examines the pop culture phenomenon of "cosplay," in which participants dress up in costumes (and live part of their lives) as characters from video games, animated films, and Japanese graphic novels.
This exploding subculture flourishes at convention centers, college dorms, private clubs, and in homes across the country. Dorfman puts herself quietly behind the scenes of these fan-based events to create a remarkable collective portrait.
 As she describes it, "The theater of cosplay has no boundaries, is unpredictable, open-ended. It includes both the fantastic and the mundane, the sexually aberrant and innocent, female characters who become samurai warriors and brainy scientists, and male characters who magically change their sex."
Explorations of identity through portraiture are at the forefront of Dorfman's work, with the blurred lines between fantasy and reality a continuing theme. She allows each individual a spotlight in which to enact their fantasy. The effect is pointedly evocative of this new world of role playing and narrative, one in which scenery is secondary and persona is everything.
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, February 2008
Cosplay Girls:
Japan's Live Animation Heroines
Anime Book Review
What is she wearing?!? All over Japan, hard-core fans of animation, video games, and manga comics are hitting the streets in their latest cosplay (short for costume play) outfits— especially women! Inside, you'll find street-fighting tough chicks, emerald-haired princesses, spunky school girls, and faux-fur kittens.
This book is full of cute Japanese girls dressed in every Anime and Manga character costume you can think of (and a lot you can't). Why do they do it? Well, it's all explained, plus bits and pieces about making costumes, doing your hair, posing, etc. There's also interviews with Cosplayers and the Cameko who follow them around with cameras. This is Japanese pop culture at its most fun. Cosplay Girls will have you smiling and scratching your head from the first colorful page to the last. A great gift for somebody or for yourself!
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, June 2003
|
|
|
