Totoro Cosplay

Hey everyone! Today I thought I'd share my cosplay for this year's Comic Con with you all. I also wore it last year and I was a little disappointed at first that I couldn't afford to put together a new cosplay outfit this  time around, but after putting my Totoro cosplay on again, I remembered how much I adore this super cute cosplay! I dont have anyone to take outfit photos for me, however I've taken a few photos anyway! I hope you all enjoy reading; bring on tomorrow!

My Neighbour Totoro is one of my favourite Studio Ghibli movies and Totoro is such a lovely, adorable character. I'm very amateur where cosplay is concerned, but I still had a lot of fun putting together this one. It was super expensive to get a custom made totoro dress, and there's a massive gap in the market when it comes to kawaii plus size clothes. It's such a shame :(

To 'create' my Totoro cosplay, I bought a grey dress from Asos Curve (as far as I can remember) and I purchased a Totoro apron like this one from Amazon, which I stitched to the front of my dress. Then with the help of my sister's hot glue gun, me & my mom made my Totoro ears. We used a thick hairband/headband, some grey felt and some green felt for the leaf, some carboard cut-outs in the shape we wanted the ears to be, and some wire that my mom picked up probably at a sewing stall or something. The wire is what keeps the ear shape in place. This year I picked up some grey leg warmers to add to the outfit. I wear black leggings and a dark grey cardigan too. 

So without further ado, here are some photographs of my cosplay... 

Last year, when it came to make-up I wore my everyday combination of concealer, foundation, pencil and liquid black eyeliner, mascara and a nude/pink shade of lipstick. I then put on a little light grey eyeshadow, and drew on whiskers with pencil eyeliner. This time around, I'm putting more effort into my face, adding a nose, some white eyeliner to make my eyes look bigger (my crappy attempt to create an anime-style look) and drawing some of the Studio Ghibli soot sprites onto my cheek. Here's some photos I took when I was practicing the other day...

I am soooooooo excited for tomorrow, albeit nervous because of all the people! Plus I'm wearing my cosplay all the way from my hometown's train station and I'm expecting everyone to stare at me, probably get some annoying comments as well (ugh, such a lovely town it is). As soon as I get off the train at Manchester's Oxford Road, there's lots of other people in cosplay and it feels so much more relaxed. I love Manchester for that, it's a city of diversity and creativity. Fingers crossed that it doesn't rain tomorrow, although I'd rather have rain than it be boiling hot inside the convention centre. Nonetheless, I can't wait :) What do you think of my cosplay guys?

Thankyou for listening! 

♥

Have you ever cosplayed? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

If not, who would you dress up as?

I'll try to share as much as I can tomorrow on my social media:

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Why I love Cosplay

It's been over a week since I went to Manchester Comic Con and  still can't stop thinking about it. I wish I was going again this weekend! It's such an awesome experience. The atmosphere is incredibly fun, everyone is so cheerful and friendly and lovin' life in their cosplay. When you put on cosplay, it's easy to feel like someone else, to take on the persona of your favourite character. It's lovely to see people in full costume, acting the way that their character does, imitating their signature moves, and giving their best impression of their voice/sound. The intricacy of some of the cosplays you see at Comic Cons is truly amazing! You can see that so much time, energy and passion has gone into creating their fantastic cosplay. I walk around the convention in awe of everyone's hard work. Some people resemble their characters so much that it's hard not to stare at them, it's mermerising. Other people's cosplay is really comical and creative too: giant robots, full-body My Little Pony suits, Roman statuettes. Imaginations run wild at Comic Con! Today, I thought I'd share with you the reasons why I enjoy cosplay so much. I hope you enjoy reading :)

One of the reasons why I love cosplay is the passion and effort that goes into it. You can really tell how much people love their chosen characters by all of the work they've put into their costumes, and even if they are not as intricate or well-made as some of the cosplay pros, people are just so cheerful being dressed up as their favourite characters and it's awesome to see. They feel badass in their cosplay and that's all that matters. Everyone is so happy, and the overall atmosphere is fabulous! Another thing that I love so much about cosplay is that you can dress as any character you like! There's so much imagination that goes into people's cosplay. This year at Manchester Comic Con, a girl dressed as a unicorn and she looked so amazing. 

The main thing that I love about cosplay events like Comic Con is the community spirit, the friendliness... it's wonderful! I'm not sure if this is the case for everyone, but I get a real sense of belonging when I'm at Comic Con. I mean, there's always a few people in every community that are not the nicest, but in general everyone admires each others cosplay and shares the love. People want to take photographs of your cosplay or compliment you. When I first walked into the main hall of the event last Saturday, a girl who was also cosplaying as Totoro ran over to me excitedly, saying I was the first person she'd seen all day also dressed as Totoro :) She was super nice and asked if she could take a photo with me. It was really sweet and if I wasn't so socially awkward and anxious when meeting new people, I would have remembered to ask her name! But instead, I stood there giggling and chirping the odd word out >.< So on the chance that my Totoro buddy reads this, hey! 

I love how people will organise meet up's with their cosplay counterparts, and make facebook groups for them to join to chat about their love of the characters. One of my absolute favourite moments of the day was seeing a huge group of Disney cosplayers meeting up outside the front of the convention building and having photos taken together ^.^

Another highlight of Comic Con is when instead of saying hi to you, people will say a random phrase or make the sound of the character you are dressed as XD It's just brilliant to be around fellow nerds!! At my first Comic Con, I dressed as Pichu and a few people just made a Pichu sound at me! It was kind of surreal, I don't know how to explain it :D I've been considered the weird one (affectionately, of course) in my friendship groups in the past because I do things like this, haha! So to be surrounded by people who are just as dorky as me feels epic. Comic Con is one of the only places I know I won't get weird looks walking around making random squeaks, etc. It's like my home from home :) 

I wish I'd taken more photographs of people's cosplay but I'm still working on my ability to approach people and ask if I can take their picture. I'll hopefully be better next year but here are the couple of photos I took: 

How gorgeous is this Disney Princess cosplay!? Her dress was absolutely stunning and  so eye-catching! It must have cost so much to make/buy :O I asked to take her photograph to show my nieces and nephew that people dressed as Princesses at Comic Con; I know that they will be very impressed! There was a guy cosplaying as a Pokestop! It was AMAZING! I just had to capture this photo of him following Pikachu around. What a creative idea for a cosplay though! The final photograph I took this year was one of my favourites of the entire day. I absolutely adore Cats The Musical! It's one of my all time favourite musicals; I've even been to watch it live TWICE (and would never say no to going again & again). This girl's cosplay of Mr. Mistoffelees is so pretty and sparkly. I absolutely loved it!! *insert all the heart-eyed emojis here*. 

Here are some more photographs of amazing cosplay. I took these at last year's Comic Con, as one of my friends was an absolute star and asked everyone if we could take their photo so I didn't have to. Yay! :D

Finally, I wanted to show you all the cosplay outfits that my best friend & I have worn so far, firstly for Manchester Comic Con 2015 when we were Misty & Pichu, and this year when we were a Hufflepuff student and Totoro. I'm already planning who I'm gonna cosplay next year!

I just have an absolutely fabulous time at Comic Con, and I can't wait to go to more in the future. Cosplaying is so much fun and if you've never done it before, I can't recommnd it enough. You'll be able to release your inner child and play fancy dress but in a room full of hundreds of other people joining in too. How can you say no to that!? :)

Thankyou for reading!

 ♥ 

Have you ever been to Comic Con? Did you cosplay? Tell me all about it.

I'd also love to know who you'd dress as if you've never been to Comic Con before!

 Like this post? Check out my other Comic Con posts:

| Dealing with Anxiety at Comic Con | Manchester Comic Con Photo Diary |