Make a Nerdy Living

by Alex Langley

  WORDS FROM WORKING NERDS

  OhMy!Sophii, professional cosplayer, creator, and social media marketer

  I started cosplaying for fun in 2009 when my best friend Cissa took me to A-Kon in Dallas. In 2014 I was fortunate enough to begin working with Ichico Comics. At conventions, it was my job to promote their work while in cosplay. This really helped me break into new and bigger opportunities.

  On average, how long does it take for you to complete a project, start to finish?

  It really depends on the project. Some cosplay projects take a day or two while others can take weeks. It also depends on what my convention schedule looks like. I typically guest at one or two conventions a month, and I like to have at least one new cosplay for each whenever possible. If I know I have a convention coming up, I’ll work on a costume for twelve to fifteen hours each day to get it done. However, if I have no events upcoming for the rest of the month, I’m able to take my time and spread the project out over a week or two.

  How important is it for professional content creators to utilize social media?

  INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT. I am a huge advocate for social media. At conventions and at home, I dedicate time to teaching people from varying industries how to use social media to their advantage without spending money. This is something I’m very passionate about.

  How important do you feel fan conventions are for your line of work?

  Top priority. Building the cosplays is, of course, a huge priority; but being able to meet and connect with fellow creators, building community, and networking are the backbone of cosplay. There would be no creators without the fans who adore them.

  What tool or material do you enjoy working with the least?

  I’m not a big fan of thermal plastics when making armor. It’s expensive, and foam can do about everything thermal plastics can, with some exceptions.

  What’s something you think more people should know or understand about professional cosplay?

  I think there’s a huge misconception about what “professional cosplay” is, and while I do think it can be defined several ways—guesting, modeling, etc.—I think that regardless of what your professional cosplay venture is, it’s not easy. It’s hard work, it’s a job. If you love what you’re doing, if you love your art, then never expect it to come easy. It’s worth every minute!

  What has surprised you the most about your line of work?

  The impact it makes. I started cosplaying for me, because it was fun! Gradually it evolved into a full-time job, and one day I’m at a convention, run into a member of the online community I run—CosLadies Community—and she thanks me for my positivity and explains what an impact I’ve made on her. That was so powerful. That changed everything about what I do. I realized I’m not cosplaying just for me anymore, I’m cosplaying for my community, and how I carry myself and my work really matters.

  What tips might you recommend to newcomers looking to get into the business?

  Love what you do, don’t get bogged down by anyone else’s opinion, and keep doing what you love!

  THE NEXT STEP: THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW WHETHER YOU’RE COSWORKING OR COSPLAYING

  No matter your reason for cosplaying, whether it be to promote your other work, to increase your online influence, or as an end unto itself, here are some tips with which cosplayers of all levels of skill and professionalism should become acquainted.

  COSPLAY OF A DIFFERENT COLOR (OR GENDER, OR ABILITY, OR . . .)

  Don’t let anything hold you back from cosplaying who you want. The cosplay community is very welcoming, and fans are usually excited to see clever and heartfelt depictions of beloved characters; so no matter what your circumstance, be who you want to be in cosplay and in life.

  COSPLAY ISN’T CONSENT

  Just because you’re dressed in a skintight suit doesn’t mean strangers have the right to run their hands all over you, and, similarly, just because someone is dressed in a way you find sexy doesn’t mean you can touch them as you please. If you’re not sure how to behave, follow Anne Victoria Clark’s quick behavioral guideline: The Rock Test.21 When interacting with cosplayers, especially female cosplayers, behave toward them with the same mix of admiration, fear, and respect as you would Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Would you make lascivious comments toward The Rock about his choice of clothing, or roam your hands over his body when posing for a picture? No, you would not, as he would end your universe for such uncouth behavior. When in doubt, be respectful and help make sure everyone has a good time, dang!

  GET READY TO GET HOT AND TIRED

  Costumes are usually hotter and more exhausting than you’d expect. On days you plan to cosplay, prepare accordingly by having your friends or servant droids carry extra water for you and by taking breaks when necessary.

  BRING A HANDLER FOR BIG COSTUMES

  If you’re cosplaying as an oversize character, you’re probably not going to be able to see or maneuver as well as you’re used to. In these situations, it’s downright crucial to have a buddy with you to help watch where you’re going so you don’t bump into people, break things, or take a tumble that destroys your costume.

  BRING COSTUME REPAIR KITS

  Conventions are exciting places, and sometimes excitement leads to damaged costumes. Plan ahead with a basic repair kit so you can fix minor tears and scrapes. Recommended items include: small scissors with round tips so you don’t inadvertently jab a hole in your costume or get accosted by security, hot glue guns and glue sticks, clear nail polish, fabric tape, electrical tape, Velcro, safety pins, bobby pins, hairspray, cotton swabs, super glue, stain removers (bleach pens and the like), needle and thread, bandages for the inevitable blisters, and, if all else fails, the almighty duct tape.

  BRING BODY REPAIR KITS

  Your makeup might smear, your eyes may dry out, and all that Halo armor might start to get a bit funky after a while. Keep a supply of extra makeup, eyedrops, deodorant, bandages, and food/water on hand. Both body and costume repair kits can often be incorporated into your costume with the use of pouches, bags, and deep pockets.

  COSPLAY OFTEN

  Professional cosplayers cosplay twice a month or more. This will be something you’ll have to work up to, as that’s not going to be feasible when you’re new to the scene—you’d burn through a dragon’s hoard of gold trying to pay for all the travel, accommodations, and convention passes. Speaking of which . . .

  FIND WAYS OF GETTING TO CONVENTIONS CHEAPLY (OR FOR FREE!)

  If you want to cosplay often enough to be a pro, you’ll have to cosplay smart, finding ways to get to conventions at little cost. For travel, well, driving is much cheaper than most other forms of transportation, so get used to going by car when possible.

  Sometimes you’ll want to go to nearby conventions even when they’re dinky. Other times, the larger conventions are such good opportunities that it’s worth the extra cost. The return on your investment of money and effort will vary from con to con (and year to year), so knowing where to go will take a bit of experience and word-of-mouth from your growing network of convention-going friends.

  As far as convention passes go, there are several ways to net those bad boys gratis. Firstly, you can volunteer at conventions, as big shows are always looking for friendly people to boss around convention-goers going down the wrong hallway or sitting in the no-sitting areas.

  You can also register as a member of the press or as a professional. Press credentials can be earned through avenues such as blogging, vlogging, or working for some kind of actual primitive paper publication. Professional badges can be acquired through a number of different ways, not the least of which is submitting panels and having them accepted. Panels generally require you to have your crap together and to know enough people who have their crap together and to be creative about the topics you’re presenting to an audience of convention-goers who are electing to spend their valuable time with you. Go to panels you find interesting, take notes on how they were organized, and, above all,
talk to people. Being social is an important part of being a professional nerd, no matter your particular specialty. Talk to your fellow conventurers while waiting in line, talk to panelists after their panels, talk to the people working booths—talk to everyone!*

  There are plenty of real-life benefits to meeting new people, such as making flesh-and-blood friends and getting flesh-and-blood dates.† On the business side of things, networking is a huge part of professional nerdiness. Find other like-minded professionals and make plans to work with them. Maybe connect with someone who has a YouTube series you can guest-appear on as whatever character/costume you’re trying to promote, or find a relatively new photographer who needs practice doing shoots. Cooperation isn’t just the nice thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do.

  WORDS FROM WORKING NERDS

  Ginny Di, content creator, Internet personality, and professional cosplayer

  On average, how long does it take for you to complete a project, start to finish?

  It totally depends on the project. I have costumes I’ve made in a matter of hours, and there’s even a music video I made in under a week from concept to release. I also have costumes I’ve worked on for six months and music videos that took months to plan, prepare for, film, edit, and release. Most of my costumes are completed in under a month, but sometimes that’s twenty hours of work and sometimes that’s 100 hours of work. Sometimes a photoshoot is one hour of shooting and two hours of editing for the whole set, other times (like my Harry Potter pinup photo sets) it’s days of shooting and two hours of editing per photo. I like to intersperse quick, light projects with big, complex projects when possible.

  Monetization is the key issue for many creative types; how do you find the funds to pursue your passion?

  I think the biggest key to making money as a cosplayer (or any creative) is to recognize that sometimes the most lucrative things you can start doing are things no one can tell you to do. By the time you’re hearing about Patreon, everyone is doing Patreon and it’s getting harder to make money off it. By the time you learn about people selling Polaroids or cosplay construction walkthrough PDFs, there are already people selling to that market. The best thing you can do is come up with the next Patreon, or Polaroids, or PDFs. What can you do that’s unique? What can you offer that no one else is offering yet? Some trends are useful to follow, but you have to be ready to think up the next trend if you want to stop playing catch-up and actually start getting ahead.

  In addition to professional cosplay, you’re also a blogger and YouTuber, among other things. What do you feel are the advantages of pursuing your passions from more than one angle, as opposed to putting all your efforts into a single avenue?

  There’s been some talk lately about the “cosplay bubble” and about how it may burst soon. That is to say, cosplay might be a profession now, but it’s extremely new, and that industry that sprang up practically overnight could collapse overnight, too. We’re reaching a point of saturation where it’s easier than it’s ever been before to be an amazing cosplayer—you can buy commercial patterns for practically anything, cosplay fabrics are sold in your local JoAnn’s, you can shoot beautiful cosplay photos on your iPhone, you can buy thermoplastics and 3-D printers with pocket money. While that accessibility is great for hobbyists, it’s dangerous for professionals, because what makes us unique and valuable is becoming less and less unique and valuable. By the same token, any field can disappear without warning—YouTube’s changes to advertising features had some YouTubers losing as much as 90 percent of their revenue, for example. For me, involving myself in more than one “field” leaves me flexible, so if YouTube disappears, or cosplay stops being popular, I don’t have to restructure my entire business. It also gives me room to reshuffle if my interests change.

  What’s something you think more people should know or understand about professional cosplay?

  It’s so much more than just putting on a costume and looking pretty. A professional cosplayer is a small business owner—we don’t just do the actual cosplay, we negotiate appearances, manage merchandise production and sales, and do our own accounting, branding, and marketing. If it was just about looking nice in a costume, there would be a lot more professional cosplayers than there actually are.

  What are your favorite and least favorite tools and materials to work with?

  For actual cosplay construction, I couldn’t do it without my seam ripper, which sounds counter-intuitive—a seam ripper is for taking out seams, not putting them in. With every single costume, I make mistakes, and being prepared to backtrack and try again is absolutely imperative, not just to ending up with a great final product but to learning and growing as a craftsperson.

  I hate dyeing fabric, although I do it a lot. I hate that there are no take-backs, so if you mess up, you’ve wasted a ton of money and time and you need to buy all new fabric and start again. Dyeing is more art than science, so even though I’ve done it a half-dozen times now for costumes, I still get nervous each time, and each attempt feels equally unpredictable.

  What tips might you recommend to newcomers looking to get into the business?

  Treat it as a serious hobby before you even think about treating it like a business. Managing a small business is hard, existing in the public eye and getting hate and harassment is hard, motivating yourself to work when you could lie in bed and watch Netflix and no one would stop you is hard. It’s only worth it if you really, truly love what you’re doing. Keep your day job, and spend a year or two taking your cosplay/YouTube/creative hobby very seriously first. See how it goes, see how hard it is to make money and to grow, see what you love about it and what you hate, and only then should you start to think about it as a potential career.

  I used to think this kind of work was all about raw talent, but I’ve learned firsthand that it’s actually mostly about how many hours, how much sweat, you’re willing to put into it.

  HOW TO EARN SWEET LOOT WHILE DRESSED AS AMBUSH BUG: MAKING MONEY COSPLAYING

  Now that you know some more about how to cosplay, you’re probably wondering how to make money cosplaying. Well, it should be pretty obvious, you have to . . . well, you sell . . . hmm . . .

  As it turns out, being a pro cosplayer is hard, much harder than many of the other career paths in this book. If you want to do it, you’ve got to have dedication and a willingness to try different things.

  PRINT SALES

  As you might expect, this is where you print out nice, glossy pictures of your costumes to sign and sell at cons. While this is a type of revenue previously restricted to celebrities and their ilk, that’s no longer so today. Highly skilled photographers and costumers alike have helped legitimize and popularize print sales, and they are now a mainstay of any pro cosplayer. Print sales’ biggest weakness is that you’re unlikely to get many repeat sales, since people will generally only buy a single picture at a time, and they’re certainly not going to buy more than one of the same picture. As you continue working and expanding your photo arsenal, it will become easier to sell more than one print per customer, but there’s still a soft limit to how many pics the average person is willing to buy.

  ENTER CONTESTS AT CONVENTIONS

  Costume contests are, for some pro cosplayers, the chance to really strut their stuff. Some contests have big cash prizes that will go well beyond the cost of building your entry. Others might offer a plastic trophy. Regardless of what the prize is, doing well in a costume contest will raise your brand and give you something to list as a credential. Costume contests have become relatively common at larger conventions and generally have a specific set of rules judges will base their decisions on regarding whose cosplay rocks it the most.22

  Accuracy: how accurate your portrayal is to the character you’re portraying. It can be little things like picking the right shade of blue for Nightcrawler’s fur, or making sure you have the right number of glowing wing-tentacles for your Diablo II Tyrael armor.

  Construction: how well you’ve made your
costume. Can you move in it? Does it stay together as you move around? Did you use a variety of materials and techniques to give your costume more dimension than simple foam and spray paint?

  Presentation: This is where your ability to ham it up comes into play. If you can fully commit to a character by talking like them, walking like them, and spitting out catchphrases like them, you’re going to wow judges and the audience alike while also probably having a pretty rad time. Group contest entries, such as those who perform skits or dances, will often score big here.

  Audience impact: how much do the people like you? Your costume may not be the most technically accomplished or your impression the most accurate, but if you’ve got the spark that lights the crowd ablaze with excitement, you might be able to pull out a win (or, at the very least, an honorable mention).