Looking a little bit into the similar ideas of animation we worked on with the Muybridge Human Body in Motion, I wanted to expand a little on creating movement while also focussing on ideas of composition behind cosplay, which is more or less an art in itself. Cosplay has been a growing trend lately - think of your favourite TV show or cartoon or anime or video game, then attend any sort of fantasy, sci-fi, anime expo or convention like the ever popular Wia-Con (an anime convention held here in Perth usually at the beginning of each year), and you'll see hundreds of people dressed up as Naruto (Naruto), Pikachu (Pokemon), Flynn (Adventure Time), Altair or Ezio from the Assassin's Creed video game series, among dozens upon dozens of others.
Really, cosplay is the amature version of costume creation and design; hundreds of hours go into planning, gathering and manipulating of materials (be it fabric, PV foam, timber, etc), and then the showcasing of these cosplays in photoshoots, at conventions, and, as is the case with the gif above, in fan-made films posted most commonly on youtube.
So here we've got an incoporation of film, cosplay and even a sport (one that is a prominent feature in the material the cosplay is based on) - Ronnie Shalvis, a parkour and free running athlete, was contacted by the creator of this film, Devin, who wanted to make a simple fan-made film, and they came up with an entire amv (if you're curious the youtube link is here -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAhPaiajwDY )
Anyway. In this small animation I've basically gone frame-by-frame through one specific sequence of the video, in which, as you can see, Ronnie performs a backflip off a high wall onto the ground, before doing a backwards parkour roll out of it to cushion his landing; we can see how he embraces the role of the character of Altair not simply in costume but also more or less in character/personality - one of the features of the Assassin's Creed game is performing what is called a Leap of Faith - taking a dive and flip from a high tower/place after scouting out a certain area of the game map to return to ground level. Admittedly the backflip is a different sort of stunt performed in game, but nonetheless shows an embodiment of the character's fearlessness.
Getting away from all the techincal analytical stuff, what I'm trying to show is my idea of how people, just every day people, can 'compose' cosplays and their ideas about the characters they want to show off. Most won't do cool stunts like Ronnie - most showcase other aspects of the character if they are supposedly "in character" or "role playing" as the character (whichever character that may be - I'm merely using the character of Altair being cosplayed by Ronnie as an example).
I'm interested in the idea of cosplay as an art, how it's not just acknowledged 'artists' or 'costume designers' that can pull off really amazing and cool cosplays. If I had more photos from some of the conventions I've been to in the last two years, I'd post them, since there are some seriously awesome ones to look at (for example, a Final Fantasy cosplayer with a 14 ft wingspan). Maybe in the next post.
~S
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