Oh so you're self-conscious about your body? The art of making cosplay flattering

I'm going to have three posts today! One blog post (now), one tutorial, and one surprise one! So get ready :D

Some of the skinniest people I've ever known have STILL been self-conscious about certain parts of their body. It's in our nature and is not something we should deny, I feel. 'Loving every part of ourselves' takes too much energy and I'd rather spend time progressing than learning to love every single fat roll on my body and get stuck there :D

The animated characters we love, though, seem to never have those insecurities :D (well, duh, it's because they're not real). I, personally, love characters that wear revealing costumes. A lot. And with Sylvanas, I made adjustments to the design this last time to better fit my body type and insecurities.

This side-by-side is the exact same costume, adjusted to be more flattering on me. Keep in mind I have lost a lot of weight in six months, but still. I added a strap in the back of the pants that connects to the bra so the belt stays up, since my lower stomach is probably my least favorite part of my body. I also tightened my straps on my bra so that more of my upper stomach/ribcage showed, one of my favorite parts of my body :D I also contoured the crap out of my face, to the point of putting dark curved lines under my cheekbones, to help create a gaunt look to my face. I think in person, without the wig to enhance shadow, it would've looked weird, but in pictures it looks perfect!

This post is NOT about giving a shit what other people think. I don't care if YOU think I looked good in the first photo. My own boyfriend told me that he thought I looked amazing, and it didn't change how I felt, which was absolutely terrible.

Cosplay can be about feeling great about your own body/skin, and it's okay to make adjustments in anyway to your costume to get there. And I feel that my own insecurities should never reflect on anyone else-- I hope I've made it clear that my body confidence issues stem from a long life of mental discouragement (if that makes sense) and never feel the same about other people. In other words, just because I feel the need to lose weight, doesn't mean I feel other people of similar size should lose weight :D Unless you want to, then go ahead and kick ass!

Other ways to make costumes make you feel awesome:

--SPANX-- for both men AND women. Heck, even especially men. Nick has a compression shirt he wears under almost every cosplay, and it just smoothes everything out and makes him feel more confident. Win win. I just started wearing spanx under my clothes and I'm definitely going to add it to my cosplays :D

--Create an original design for a character-- Oh, don't like that this character exposes her stomach? Make a steampunk version and add a corset! Or combine multiple designs to create your own (for example, I almost made Sylvanas' 'master' skin body suit under her original costume just because I thought it looked cool).

--Can you think of anything else?

I really think you should rethink your cosplay if you're NOT cosplaying a character because of how revealing their costume is or "you don't have the right body type". I think it would be awesome to see a fully covered Ryuko Matoi, or any other character. Heck, they just redesigned Jasmine at Disneyworld to be less revealing, and she still looks beautiful and highly recognizable. Just have fun!!