5 Essential Items for an Accurate Cosplay
Starting to cosplay roots from various motivations. One may start because of pure curiosity, interest, or inspiration from other cosplayers. Most especially, some may want to portray the characters they love and bring them to life!
An “accurate” cosplay isn’t really necessary. There are many types of cosplayers out there with different preferences. Some may alter it according to their liking, their own perspective on the character, or just stay trying to look exactly like them.
Achieving the exact look of a character isn’t easy due to the usually unrealistic body images and facial features of such characters. But our love for our favorites won’t easily be wavered by these difficulties either! There are many ways to achieve it through helpful tools.
Here are 5 essential items for an accurate cosplay
1. Face tape
Face tape works like magic! Have you ever seen one of those Chinese videos where a girl takes her makeup off and there’s this white transparent tape that she pulls off her face? That’s what face tape is. It helps in making your face slimmer and manipulating the shape of your eyes.
If your face is more on the round side, it may be hard to portray a character with slimmer features. Using face tape on the cheeks beside your ears and taping it around your head will help you achieve this. You can also put it in a lower placement to give your jaw a V-shape. To make your eyes more slanted, put face tape on its sides and around your head still. You can also put it upward on your forehead to give your eyes a more open, rounded shape.
Using only face tape already makes a huge difference. The difference in your face shape before and after using face tape will be shocking upon observation. Try taking a photo to see for yourself! When trying this tool, make sure to do it on a clean face, first thing before any makeup product.
2. Eyelid tape
This cosplay item works just like face tape, except it’s for the eyelids! Making your eyes more slanted or rounded might not be enough. In that case, manipulating the folds of your eyelid is an option too! You can make your eyes smaller or bigger with the correct placement. Placing it closer to where your eye opens makes it smaller, whereas placing it higher makes it bigger.
There are different types of eyelid tape according to shape, size, and material. Find one that best suits your eye shape. Just like face tape, make sure to put this before any eye makeup product.
3. Chest binder or push-up bra
Of course, trying to do an accurate cosplay requires more than perfecting the face. If the character you want to cosplay has a different chest size than you have, a chest binder or push-up bra should do the trick! A chest binder is good for making your chest appear flat whereas a push-up bra can give your chest a little bit more bulk.
If you’re thinking that a chest binder or a push-up bra doesn’t make your appearance look close enough to the character you want to portray, you might need something more intense. Male silicone chest suits and female silicone breast suits also exist for you to go all out! They are a tad more expensive but an absolutely great investment if you like to portray characters that tend to show their chest.
4. All-purpose glue stick
This one isn’t exactly necessary but might help if you want to completely change your eyebrows to match those of the character you are cosplaying. Yes, that is possible! Here are the steps for perfectly concealed brows:
- Cover all your eyebrow hair in glue in an upward motion to stick your eyebrows flat on your skin.
Note: You might need to do at least three layers of glue (make sure to dry it in between) depending on the thickness of your brows.
- Apply a color-correcting setting powder to tone down the darkness of your brow hairs. Use the color orange to correct the dark tones.
- Apply translucent powder and let it sit for about 5 minutes.
- Apply your foundation.
Now you have a perfectly smooth canvas to draw your brows on however you like. You can also do this only halfway to the tail if that is only what you’d like to change. Proceed to do your makeup and see how different you look!
5. Slimming tights
Slimming tights are your best friend when it comes to toned and slimmer legs! It won’t do a dramatic difference because after all, it’s just tights. But it can still get you looking closer to that character you want to cosplay. It usually has two color variations that you can choose from black and skin tone.
Achieving accurate cosplay takes more than just makeup. It needs the help of tools, an accurate costume, and most importantly, an accurate portrayal! The best tip I can give you is to study your character’s personality and learn how they move and talk. Accuracy in that area is going to outweigh any makeup you have on your face.
