Halloween 2022: Top Picks for the Most Popular Cosplay Costumes
Halloween is the perfect time to showcase your creative side. You can create costumes and accessories that transport you into the realm of fantasy during the duration of the night. You’re spoiled for choice, whether you create them by yourself or purchase pre-made.
Some of the most loved choices this year are witches dinosaurs, and fairies but video games and movie cosplays like Pikachu, Fortnite characters, Harley Quinn, and Spider-Man are also popular. Star Wars, Top Gun, as well as Barbie, were also on the list of top 50 this year.
The cosplay industry has been through difficult times in the year 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic when events stopped and sales went down. Its market is recovering and will reach $23,008.3 million by 2030.
What are the cosplay costumes?
Cosplay is an art where costumed characters dress in costumes and accessories to depict their favorite characters from manga, anime television series, films, or other video games.
Nobuyuki Takahashi is a Japanese filmmaker, who coined the term cosplay (a portmanteau word meaning “costume play”) after attending the 1984 World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles. The art of dressing up in costumes to attend celebrations and masquerade balls has been in existence since the 15th century.
They are among the most adored cosplays in 2022
There are various kinds of cosplays, and the principal ones feature characters that are from video games, movies, and television. Currently, the most popular cosplays include those who impersonate movie characters, with 43.1 percent of all market sales, because of the increasing popularity of fictional and mythological characters in the field, according to Allied Market Research.
The majority of people buy their cosplays pre-made from specialty shops, which accounts for 63.2 percent of sales. However, sales from online stores are expected to rise until 2030.
The most well-known cosplay from a movie this year is Spider-Man, which is second in popularity as the most sought-after costume for Halloween according to Billboard magazine. Stranger Things characters and Harley Quinn made it into the top 10 list of the magazine’s top 10. Video game fans will be thrilled to learn that The Quarry characters are at the top of this year’s Ranker list, then MultiVersus as well as Super Mario Strikes.
How to create the perfect cosplay costumes from scratch
Lisa Lou Who, a famous cosplayer from Minnesota shared her top three tips for creating the best cosplays starting from scratch with Newsweek. The tips included going to Google thrift shops and using hot glue.
1. Google
Lisa states that Google is an essential instrument, especially for those who are new to the field since you can get guidance and tutorials for everything you need.
There are a lot of tutorials covering various techniques. Let’s suppose you want to make a pair of horns to perform a task. You’ll see YouTube videos as well as people who write blog entries about it.” she explained.
2. Thrift stores
Thrift stores sell high-quality items at a low cost. That’s the reason Lisa recommends sourcing your fabric and materials there. You can buy old clothes made with materials that are in line with the concept of the cosplay you have in your mind. Then, tear them up and you’ll have an inexpensive material that you can use.
3. Hot glue
Making your costumes involves much sewing, but don’t fret when you don’t know how to sew. Hot glue can be a magic tool as well.
Lisa said, “If you don’t know how to sew, you can hot glue fabric”, particularly for those who are new to sewing.
Lisa typically creates her cosplays within a few days. This is because she learned to sew before finding a love for it. However, if you’re not a skilled sewer, it may take longer.
How to bring your costume to life Makeup and wigs
When it comes to bringing cosplay to life, the wig, as well as the makeup, are everything according to Lisa.
“When people glance at your face, the first thing they notice is the eyes. Therefore, from the beginning, I was wearing circle lenses, which are huge contacts that make your eyes appear bigger. After that, I put on a lot of eyelashes.”
Lisa has said that makeup isn’t just for female characters.
‘You don’t need to look exactly like the character! ‘
Lisa says that cosplay doesn’t involve dressing up as the character, but rather about being the persona of the character you’re trying to portray. To make an effective cosplay, you have to imitate some of the characteristics that characterize your character that everyone recognizes.
It is crucial to decide what distinguishable characteristics you want in the Pokemon if you choose to develop it. Let’s consider the Pokemon Pikachu. Naturally, colors are extremely important, especially yellow, and then I think the most distinguishing feature of the Pikachu is that electric lightning bolt tail.
“And so long as you’ve got an orange cheek, a tail, and a yellow tail, everyone will know you’re Pikachu. You can wear either a ballgown or a tutu. It doesn’t matter what!”
There are unisex, male, and female costumes, but you can also switch the costumes around.
“I know of girls who wore sexy versions of [Super MarioSuper Mario Mario. They truly got it. The main elements were the hat and the huge bubbles on the blue overalls. One of our friends liked a pin-up 1950s version and she was wearing suspenders shorts, but it was still a good idea and you could tell the character was Mario.”