Think Batman, Incredible Hulk, Doctor Who, Wonder Woman, Superman and far more obscure pop culture characters like those from Guardians Of The Galaxy<\/em>, No Face from Spirited Away<\/em>, Goku from Dragonball Z<\/em>, Lara Croft from Tomb Raider<\/em> and various characters from\u00a0World of Warcraft<\/em>. Yes, playing dress ups as an adult\u00a0requires the same\u00a0vivid imagination and gutsy demeanour as a child, but Cosplay takes it to a whole new level – it’s exceptionally well\u00a0done, sometimes bordering on faultless.<\/p>\n Cosplay also involves performance so, unlike adult fancy dress parties where we all need a bit of dutch courage before even leaving the house and then end up removing half the costume as soon as we arrive at the party, Cosplayers take dress ups\u00a0very seriously and often interact with each other and carry out role play.<\/p>\n There I said it. Role play. Again, a thoroughly enjoyable activity for kids who love to play super heroes and an equally \u2013 although very serious \u2013 activity for adults who enjoy dressing up as a hobby, attending public and private Cosplay events as well as large conventions.<\/p>\n A mainstream example of an event is Armageddon which is an entertainment expo (fan convention?) that tours New Zealand and Australia. Hamilton is enjoying Armageddon this month and it will take place in Wellington in July. There is also much excitement about NZ ComicCon 2015 also taking place in Wellington in July. ComicCon is big in the US and the count down has begun for its Wellington counterpart.<\/p>\n Cosplay (short for Costume Play) heavily features photography. Cosplay Models do their thing with every expectation of a) being the centre of attention, b) outdoing one another, c) interacting with other characters as a group and d) getting photographed.<\/p>\n But dressing up is not the sole domain of comic, computer game and pop culture nerds. Every self respecting single man, single woman or dating couple has, at some point, gone to the next level of fancy dress.<\/p>\n At grown up parties, fancy dress gets adults talking with each other. It\u2019s a great ice breaker. In my single years, I happily attended and hosted many a fancy dress party \u2013 going that extra mile so someone\u00a0might\u00a0notice me and talk to me!<\/p>\n At children\u2019s parties, kids barely even comment on each other\u2019s costumes \u2013 they simply go about the business of playing on the swings with Spiderman or Elsa. In fact, for way too long there was barely a day that would go by where my niece didn’t wear her Elsa costume. Cosplayer Model in the making?<\/p>\n Cosplay conventions, fancy dress parties and kids costume obsessions are every hobby photographer\u2019s best friend. There\u2019s no need to file those photos away in a dark place behind the fitness selfies. Hop online<\/a> and use our photo collage maker to show off that art on a wall at home for all to see. That grand effort, that sense of fun and that youthful spark deserves pride of place. It makes for a great gift for yourself, for a family member or for that special nerdy friend in your life.<\/p>\n Do we ever grow out of fancy dress? Boy, I hope not. What a dull world that would be. And a big thank you to colourful Cosplayers all the world over for doing what many of us wouldn’t have the guts to do. I absolutely love looking at the photos.<\/p>\n Happy Convention!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a Batman costume sitting in the back of our bedroom cupboard. I did recently get in trouble for suggesting we move it out of the closet and place it elsewhere, so I\u2019ve learnt my lesson and am keeping quiet now. You\u2019re never too old for fancy dress. Any Cosplayer can attest to that! Look, … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":800,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photography-ideas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canvasfactory.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canvasfactory.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canvasfactory.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canvasfactory.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canvasfactory.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.canvasfactory.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1395,"href":"https:\/\/www.canvasfactory.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions\/1395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canvasfactory.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canvasfactory.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canvasfactory.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canvasfactory.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Collage](\"https:\/\/www.canvasfactory.co.nz\/blog\/app\/uploads\/Collage-Maker-Fancy-Dress-Guardians_of_the_Galaxy-By-greyloch-from-Washington-DC-area-USA-via-Wikimedia-Commons-Low.jpg\")
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