Xcoser Essay Competition
Why do I love cosplay? Everyone needs something that they can have fun with and give them the opportunity to relax and for me, cosplay is one of the best hobbies to have fun with. When I bought my first cosplay costume I didn’t know what it meant until I put it on, I bought it as just a clothing item to wear to a convention but wearing the costume and getting a great response from people at the convention made me feel good and the more I acted like the character and the more I interacted with people the more I fell in love with the costume I was wearing. It was because of the responses I got at that convention that I started cosplaying. I remember coming home that night and not even wanting to take the costume off; I was exhausted and hot from walking around all day but I still felt great in the costume. I didn’t feel like myself, I felt like by wearing that costume I was someone else, I was a more confident and sociable version of myself. Because of the response I got from other cosplayers at the convention and how it made me feel I decided to take some photos and post them to my Instagram page; the costume I was wearing was The Arrow from the CW TV series Arrow, made by Xcoser, as seen below.
Once the pictures were posted to my Instagram account I noticed that more people were interacting with my account by either liking the photos or following me, I could tell that it was because of the cosplay pictures so I decided to turn my Instagram account into an account dedicated to my cosplays. After that convention, I couldn’t wait to wear my Arrow costume again and was eager for my next local convention. I soon started to want to get some more costumes and my next was Reverse Flash using the Mask from Xcoser.
I bought the actual costume from a seller on eBay and although it was a great looking costume it was too big and I had to make alterations, however I learnt from that - it taught me to be more careful and pay attention when having costumes made in future but it also inspired my creativity as I had to work on the costume to improve it. I added my Reverse Flash cosplay photos to my Instagram account and through searching related Flash hashtags I came across another cosplayer; zoom_cw_cosplay and was amazed by his awesome Zoom cosplay that I decided to make an edit using my Reverse Flash and his Zoom as they were both from the same show:
I started to follow zoom_cw_cosplay as not only did his cosplay look amazing but I was inspired by him too, I soon saw that he was sponsored by Xcoser so I got in contact with him, and then Xcoser, to see if I could be sponsored by them too, they told me their requirements and that just motivated me more. I dived into cosplay and started trying to improve the quality of my photos as well as the quality of the costumes, I thought it would be a good idea to stick to the CW theme my cosplays had taken so far so I decided to get a Flash costume;
I knew if I wanted to gain more followers I had to add different characters to my account and by this point I had The Arrow, Reverse Flash, and The Flash and I was posting different pictures of each of them but they were all from the same show and I knew I had to start branching out, so I decided to put together a Batman costume. I had seen all the handmade costumes at conventions and was truly inspired and had to try it myself so I contacted different shops to buy different parts needed in order to complete my Batman costume. I had to cut corners and buy cheap alternatives in order to make this costume and to this day I am still working on it and replacing parts but I did have something I could post to my account;
Although it wasn’t the best I was still proud of it because of the time and money I had put into it. It was soon after this that I had fulfilled the requirements to be sponsored by Xcoser and they had agreed to send me a costume, in the meantime I decided to get another costume that had nothing to do with the cosplays I had already done, this was Captain Hook from Once Upon a Time;
I made the hook for this cosplay too simply because after making my Batman cosplay I wanted this one to be more personal too, this was a great costume and I wore it to a Halloween party where I got great compliments and even won the best costume. Soon after posting my Hook pictures my costume from Xcoser arrived; Kylo Ren from Star Wars. This costume was amazing, the quality and feel of it could not have been any better, I wore it to a convention and couldn’t take five steps without someone asking for a photo as it was simply that good, I knew I had found my hobby, something I could enjoy as well as give myself confidence and interact with others and without the costumes I wouldn’t have been able to do that. I was so impressed with the Kylo Ren costume that I decided to post more often to my Instagram account, as well as create a Facebook and Youtube account for my cosplays.
Between my first Arrow costume and my latest Kylo Ren costume I had fallen in love with the quality from Xcoser and have been buying from them ever since. Below are a selection of my best photos from all my cosplays, check out my Instagram @hunterscosplay to see more images of Xcoser’s costumes.
Article by Hunters Cosplay
