Starting off the summer Cosplays, buying vs. making confession.

Now I'll admit, the school year leaves no time to make a lot of cosplays. Or at least making very intricate ones. I've only made a few during the school year like Lambo from KHR(i found most of it in my closet) and Castor(had most of it and made the coat). But they both had a reoccurring theme, I wish i'd had more time to make them. BUT! Now it is summer!!! And around here at Stupidity Reigns Productions we use summer to make a majority of our cosplays. We have the time to do things right and prepare a lot of stuff for the upcoming convention season. Also added inspiration below from a fellow blog.

So lets get down to a centuries(not really) old debate among cosplayers. Do you buy it or make it?
Sigh..... This one is hard. So my opinion will be presented first.
I personally like making them better because even if they are not the best they could be, I am so proud of them. I am so attached to them and feel so much more confident and worthy of people loving my cosplays because I can say "ya I made this myself". I know the sweat blood and tears that go into making every single one of them and it makes me grow and improves my skills.
Asides from the emotional aspect there are other less sappy points. The biggest seller is having a stronger control over the price. You can shop sales and buy patterns second hand and do other stuff to bring the price down to where you need. (Although speaking from my own experience, I try my best not to look at the ending price.) There are many ways to make it look very good without spending a lot on fabrics. Making it yourself also lets you tailor it to yourself. When I ordered my C.C. cosplay I ordered a size that should have fit but it didn't. My hips had no room and my boobs had a freaking tent to play around in... safe to say it did not make me happy. You can also control the length of certain things when you make it. Make skirts longer or shorter or hem dresses and make the cuts of shirts different.
Though making it is good it does have its down falls. For starters sometimes it may end up taking more time then you originally planned. You may not have the skills to do something. It can get expensive if you mess up.  And sometimes you run out of time and can't make it. Though I do not see 'it is not quite within my skill level to make' as an excuse. You learn from failure, if you accept the mind set of not being able to do something you will never reach that skill level to do it. Though of course thinking 'its not quite within my skill level yet but I want to make it one day' is a really good way of thinking of things that are very difficult to make and would take a lot of time, planning, and money.
Ok my rant is over, now onto buying. For people who can't sew/have no time to make something, this is a God send. Shopping around and reading reviews and looking at portfolios on the internet can help you make the best purchase. Looking around and reading reviews can help you avoid scams. Trust me, scams are annoying as hell and there is not much to be done about them(except leave bad reviews). There is also the pro of not having to worry about the outcome, you generally know how it will turn out. Now I will admit I have less insight on this so go and read more about buying/commissioning from Cosplay Tutorials- buying vs making post. They cover more things about pricing that you may not know or think about when you buy or commission.
 I hope this helped, I know this was long and had a lot of opinion but oh well. Sometimes you need a little push when you are a cosplayer. Alright duckies, don't forget, you learn from failure! ..... Ya I was watching Meet the Robinsons recently.... good movie, go watch it!
~Lulu

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