I cosplay, and I've done so both at larger conventions and smaller, more focused ones. My first cosplay was as a pokemon trainer, but it wasn't very good since I put it together very quickly. My second was Hawkeye from The Avengers, but it was his comic book outfit and not his movie outfit-- the comic book outfit is a lot simpler and easier to make look great. My most recent was a cosplay of an anime character called Mew Ichigo, who is a 'neko' character, meaning she has cat ears and a tail, which were a lot of fun to make and wear at a convention.

My next cosplay will probably be a 'Magma Grunt', a type of character from Pokemon's Hoenn region. Team Magma is one of the villain groups from Hoenn, their goal being to drain the oceans so that there is more land than water on Earth. The magma grunts are their lowest level members, but their uniform is pretty cool. Aaron mentioned "Feel The Force Day", and I'm going to wear it to one of those events after I've made it.

What I'm mostly interested in is what people make their costumes out of and how similar it is to the original costumes actors wear. Especially for the really good costumes like stormtrooper armor. I know there are professionally made costumes that can get quite expensive. One that comes to mind is the premium Darth Vader costume that actually has injection mold plastic pieces. Also, anyone ever seen a quality borg costume and know how those are made?

@Draq: I've only ever made costumes out of fabric, but some people use foam or a heat-sensitive material called Worbla to make armour and weaponry. I haven't been able to mess around with that kind of material yet, but I'd like to. So... I'm not a beginner, but I'm not super experienced either. I don't know everything.

@Aaron: I'll try to describe it. In Ruby and Sapphire, the original games, they wear red hoodies with large, rounded hoods, jaggedly cut off sleeves, and torsos that only extend to about belly button height. The hoods have a small black oval in the front center. Attached to the hoods are two small horns, sort of like devil horns-- they look more plush than hard, though. Their hoodies have a large black letter 'M' that is stylized to appear like a mountain. It's kind of spiky. Beneath the hoodie they wear a tightly fitting black shirt.

All magma grunts wear boots which are very... puffy? And round. They're segmented sort of like a parka. It sort of looks like snow pants that lead into a boot, except that the snow pants only reach slightly below your knees. They wear gloves of a similar style, which puff out in a circle around the wrist but lead into a glove.

Female magma grunts wear a short skirt and male magma grunts wear very baggy black pants. They both wear belts with square-shaped buckles in the middle.

As for the pokemon they have, Magma Grunts tend to have Poochyenas, which look like a small dog, and Numels, which look like a very short, fat camel with one hump.

New Magma Grunts from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are almost the same, but they looks like they're wearing a red wooly onesie under all their clother (except for the female magma grunt's legs, which are bare). The male magma grunt's pants become red, their belt buckles become wider and appear to be directly attached to the pants, and their boots also incorporate the textured woolly fabric. The female grunt also starts wearing shorts that stylistically still appear like a skirt (the ends are flared outward) instead of a skirt.

I plan to cosplay the original design. I'm probably going to make the entire thing out of fleece, and I'm going to use the male outfit because honestly it looks more comfortable than the female one and I don't really want to wear a skirt in October. There isn't too much of a difference, though.

Hope I did a decent enough job describing.

The closest thing, right now, I do to cosplay is write roleplay. But once I get a chance to go to a convention, I'd like to RP as Drizzt Do'Urden. For that I'd need to body paint myself black, get a long white wig, find a forest green robe and light armor and get a set of twin scimitars which I can find on Amazon easier enough. I'd need a lot of things which would cost lots of money. A very good friend of mine RPed as Dagger from Marvel Comics and she put lots of work into it.

I've been looking for a figurine of Guenhwyvar as well.

@AlexN94: wow that's cool! I don't know why you guys in the furry fandom get so much hate. It's a fandom like any other, I don't see anything wrong with it. I've not seen any furry stuff myself but people keep on getting annoyed at it and that, in turn, annoys me as someone who really likes cosplay and stuff.

Heh, yeah...I guess the...18+ material that people might come across kinda gives them the wrong ideas. On the other hand, you'll find such stuff in any kind of fandom, so it's barely a surprise.
I haven't personally experienced any hate, but I don't really Express it in any way, so people wouldn't know it either, unless I told them.
I can recommend the documentary "Furries - An Inside Look" which can be found on YouTube though. At least it gives a bit more insight along with some explanations from some of the more famous people in the famdon. Fun little thing...
And sorry for derailing the topic, lol! Although I suppose this is still about fandoms, sooo... XD