The time has finally arrived, after 5 years soon this DA account, once known for showcasing a whole assortment of handmade swords 3 years ago will reach 1,000,000 views. Almost every 100,000 pageviews announced were successfully captured, some have alluded me but this time the biggest landmark is quick over the horizon, 1,000,000 views. So this time I announce whoever successfully captures my 1,000,000 pageview landmark will win:

540 DA POINTS

Thats more than half way to get you a shirt from the DA Shop and enough to get you a 3 month premium membership! However since I am given away so much points I have to implement 2 strict rules for submissions as follows:

.You MUST take a screenshot of the ENTIRE webpage
.You MUST upload the screenshot as a deviation

On further explanation if you feel uncomfortable of saving a screenshot of your entire webpage, then by all means crop out your tabs, bookmarks etc. Also if you don't want to upload the screenshot as a deviation you can upload it into your SCRAP deviations. The reason these rules exist is to ensure some assurance by making the screenshot readily available for everyone to check authentication.

Check back often to capture the 1,000,000 pageviews!

Now forget about cosplays you see in person, what you see is all real (though girls can sometimes wear a deceptive amount of makeup) I am talking about how everyone mostly sees cosplays, in photos! And what do you get when you see a cosplay photo? well more than 99% of the time it will have some level of Photoshop in it.

Just go to the "most popular" section of the cosplay category on DeviantART, guaranteed most of them will be photo shopped and why? well because I assume it's just better then the original. Many cosplayers write thanks in their descriptions, I would laugh if someone actually thanked Adobe for making such powerful imaging software.

And yes Photoshop is POWERFUL It's magic, it makes any photo instantly better!. Now why would a cosplayer use photoshop? well theres a hundreds of reasons, most cosplayers like to say just a"touch up" Adjust the lighting a bit, remove a few blemishes, what cosplayer hasn't done that!

But is there a point when it goes TOO far?

What is the definition of too far? is it when the cosplayer looks absolutely nothing like the original? "Too far" is not to be confused with when people add special effects to their photos like fire, (which is ussually always done badly and should be avoided). Some of the most famous photos of cosplaying have all been photo shopped to a great deal.

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Now the above link shows probably the most famous photograph of a Rikku cosplayer from Final Fantasy X. This is my example of photo shopping going too far She just looks so fake... heck the smile in the original photo was more genuine! Society these past decades have been way too obsessed with being thin and beautifull why are a freighting number of cosplayers adopting this principle?

A good way to see if a cosplay photograph has been photo shopped too much is if you can see no pores in their skin. I mean jesus, some photos just screams BLUR EVERYTHING, this is usually accompanied with a conversation like:

"So yeah I clicked on the brightness"
"and you know what I did?"
"I set it to MAXIMUM!"

"OMG IM BLINDED BY HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS!!"

This is why I like seeing cosplay photos, taken at conventions from other photographers, because they don't have time to photoshop hundreds of photos, unless they have Adobe Lightroom. To end, this journal isn't about "inner beauty" or crap like that, its simply when people who spend so long on making their cosplays, they ruin it in the end with their photo shopping.

Do you use photoshop for cosplays? don't? say anyway!

Journal CSS by !JurgenDoe

The purpose for cosplaying a character or making a prop is that (besides fun) the aim is for accuracy of the original image. To achieve this aim we observe many images and utilise our skill set to try and create a close enough imitation as possible. Lets say we succeed and our cosplay or prop is incredibly realistic! as artists can we be considered creative? Websters dictionary defines creativity as:

1: marked by the ability or power to create : given to creating <the creative impulse>

2: having the quality of something created rather than imitated : imaginative <the creative arts>

Now I define good art as something "creative". Creativity is one of the strongest driving forces in art, and if an artist is not creative, then it is difficult to appreciate their art. So if cosplayers or prop makers aim to imitate "art" then doesn't that mean artists in these categories aren't creative? I am going to say now that I was the most uncreative person EVER when it came to sword making.

Cosplayers

So lets say you disagree with me, good! so lets talk about cosplaying first. So I typed "creative cosplay" into google and what I saw was people cosplaying characters from very obscure animes, films and video games and such. So what if you cosplayed "X" character from "X" series that no one has ever cosplayed before? I don't think that's creative because you still aimed to imitate that character which is the original idea of the artist that designed them.

Now if we look at steampunk cosplay, than I can honestly say that they are the most creative artists I have ever seen. Since everything was their own design their created an original idea and are creative. So what is creative cosplay then? that is when you imitate the original image to a certain level and then experiment with it. For example a steam punk ironman (which has been done, google it) is creative. The artist created their own interpretation of the original image.

However this is an extremely small fraction of cosplayers in the world, like 1% of all cosplayers. So yes, I am saying a good 99% of all cosplayers in the world have not gone that extra step and have really been creative! however there might be a different way to be creative in cosplaying. What if you had to use an conventional method of putting together the cosplay? Like using alternate materials or such? which brings me onto:

Prop makers

Now prop makers usually work alongside cosplayers and we barely get any attention, heck the most popular prop makers are also cosplayers! We work in the shadows and we can be even more uncreative then cosplayers. I mentioned that you can be creative if you use unconventional means to create a prop, however what really is unconventional? If you usually work with wood and you decide to use plastics for one prop does that make you creative?

Sometimes using an unconventional method does not make you creative, I recently saw a cosplay which the armor of the character was built almost entirely using a 3D Printer! We use different methods in propmaking when we reach an obstacle, we think outside the box This is why I believe prop makers are more akin to engineers, they solve problems and it requires alot of creativity.

I do not really know any examples of truly creative prop making, and thats a shame because I really would like to. Cosplayers and propmakers we are artists because create we give birth to something. However whether what we create is original or not defines us as creative.

Do you think cosplayers/prop makers are creative? explain why