For fans, cosplay much more than ‘dressing up like it’s Halloween’ (VIDEO)

When Meliss Hamilton was 9, her grandmother taught her how to sew.

A few years later, she went to her first anime convention – based on Japanese animation – and saw people dressed in costumes.

“I thought, ‘Wow, I know how to sew. I could do that,’ ” she said.

Cosplay – short for “costume play” – is a growing culture with roots in science fiction, comic books and animation, and it’s a lot more hard core than just wearing a costume.

For some, cosplay is a way to leave the real world behind, and for others, like Hamilton, it’s a way to showcase technical skill.

One of Hamilton’s costumes took more than 350 hours to make.

“Most of it is imagined to never be created, so I think ‘how the heck am I going to do that?’ The other big challenge is acting like the character ... to embody that character and another to sound like it,” said Hamilton, a 24-year-old accountant with Cargill.

“I’ve always been really shy. Whenever I do the costumes, it’s my way of coming out of my shell,” she said. “For me, it’s the accomplishment and challenge of it looking at this costume and thinking, ‘Yeah, I’m going to do this, get on stage in front of several hundred or thousand people for the thrill of competing. I finished it and it didn’t fall apart.’ ”

Growing interest

Cosplay has become more widespread over the past several years, said John Horn with Wolfmoon Productions. Horn is the event organizer for several conventions and festivals in Wichita, including the Emerald City Steampunk Expo, which hosted more than 1,000 registrants last weekend at the Drury Plaza Hotel Broadview.

Cosplay can encompass all genres, any area that a person is interested in, Horn said.

“Cosplay has worked its way into every convention around,” Horn said. “Zombie fests have cosplay; steampunk, anime, comic book festivals – they all have cosplay, which is really a fancy way to say costume contest.

“But it’s not just that. It’s the idea of people trying to make their own things, to re-create a character and even perform as the character. This is embracing the character that either you’ve created or someone else has created and you’re celebrating it.”

Steampunk, which Horn describes as Victorian-era science fiction, is just one subgenre of cosplay. It’s often based on novels like those written by H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and is the prominent style of the Will Smith movie “Wild Wild West.”

Cosplay has made its way into mainstream culture, Horn said, with TV shows dedicated to it and some being able to make full-time careers out of it.

Charity events

Rob Carlo ordered a Stormtrooper costume online in 2000. Since then, he’s been a part of a number of charity events, especially for kids.

“It’s a fun way to raise a lot of money. Basically everyone recognizes a Stormtrooper,” says Carlo, a software developer whose 8-year-old daughter frequently dresses as a furry Ewok from the “Star Wars” world of Endor and whose teenage son has accompanied him as a hooded Jawa with glowing eyes.

“They could be doing a lot worse things,” he says of getting his kids involved. “It’s pretty nerdy. My daughter is the picture junkie. She steals the show.”

Carlo is part of the 501st Legion, a Lucasfilm-blessed group made up of hard-core “Star Wars” fans with high-end Imperial costumes.

It’s not a cheap hobby. Stormtrooper uniforms can easily cost $1,000, and there are some people who spend upwards of $34,000 to look like Darth Vader, Carlo said.

Character creation

For Erin Warry, a creative writing major at Wichita State University, cosplay is an outlet to create her own characters.

“This is just an art we love,” she said. “It is an art, not just us dressing up like it’s Halloween. A lot of time and talent goes into these costumes.”

Warry’s three most recent cosplays include characters created in honor of famous scientists, with names like Diana Tesla and Kathy Curie, and another named Nancy Watson Sherlock, a “new twist on an old-fashioned detective.”

For Warry, the cosplay community and its events are safe places.

“I have autism, and that’s where I socially budded, in the nerd community, especially in the steampunk clique,” she said. “It’s a way to express a side of myself I wouldn’t normally express.”

While there is an element of competition with the costumes, it’s more about getting ideas from each other and helping each other improve, Warry says. She remembers a recent cosplay contest in which a button on one woman’s costume popped off.

“To my amazement, someone said, ‘I have a sewing kit’ and helped her fix her costume. We’re all rooting for each other,” Warry said.

“That’s why the cosplay community is so sacred. We all support each other.”

This story was originally published November 28, 2014 at 7:46 PM with the headline "For fans, cosplay much more than ‘dressing up like it’s Halloween’ (VIDEO)."