15 Cosplayers The Internet Is Obsessed With
As comic book movies have exploded in to the pop culture mainstream and comic books have become more successful, worlds of nerdom that previously only attracted the geekiest of geeks have been opened up to the masses. One of these nerd spaces that has become part of mainstream pop culture is the convention.
Comic conventions and anime conventions, known as cons for short, are the mecca of geek culture. Comic book artists and writers, television and movie icons, actors, and creators gather in one place for the weekend where they are relatively accessible to their fans. For most fans, this is the closest they will ever get to the people involved with the media they adore.
Conventions attract the most hard core fans than fandoms have to offer. Way back in the day, before nerdy things were popular, only the nerdiest of nerds attended conventions. Some of these nerds decided to dress as their favorite characters to prove that they were the most hardcore fans, and cosplay was born.
Cosplay is a culture unto itself, encompasses innumerable fandoms. For every comic book, television show, movie, cartoon, or book, there is a fan who loves it enough to create a cosplay. The goal of cosplaying is to pay tribute to your favorite character by creating a costume from scratch and morhping in to that character completely.
Cosplay often includes detailed costumes, intricate makeup, and elaborate props all of which are hand crafted. Some cosplayers seek to replicate their character's costume as accurately as possible. Some cosplayers channel their creativity in to adaptations of their character's costumes that are homages. Professional cosplayers compete against each other for cash prizes and photo shoot deals.
Since conventions have become more mainstream, the Internet has become obsessed with professional cosplayers to the point where some of them have become famous. Here's a few of the professional cosplayers that the Internet can't get enough of:
15 Yaya Han
Yaya Han is one of the most famous professional cosplayers, mostly because of the TV attention her cosplays have received. She was featured on TBS's "King of the Nerds" as a guest judge and she was featured in a documentary about cosplay.
Yaya Han fell in love with the art and idea of cosplay when she attended an anime convention in 1999, but she had no sewing or crafting experience. Yaya taught herself to sew on a $40 sewing machine from a book she bought at a thrift store. Determination kept her trying through repeated failures.
Today, her intricate, handcrafted costumes are some of the most awarded creations in the cosplay community and outside of it as well. She is a costume designer and a model on top of being a professional cosplayer. Her cosplay costumes and accessories can be purchased online and she's created a successful business out of her cosplay career.
14 Carlos Blanchard
The professional cosplay world is dominated by women, but there are a few standout men and Carlos Blanchard is one of them. His most iconic costume is the Batman suit in the photo above. Blanchard recreated the batsuit in painstaking detail and has worn it to multiple conventions. Carlos also re-imagined the batsuit as a suit of Medieval armor and created a full suit of armor in Batman's motif.
Blanchard creates all of his costumes and his props himself, from a wide range of materials. Carlos' creations are elaborate and detailed, no matter what materials he's working with. His talents extend far beyond the typical costume creation of other cosplayers.
He is also the head of Rage Custom Creations, a business which crafts custom costumes and props to order for other cosplayers and enthusiasts. Carlos has been creating costumes and props since he was a child and has built a successful career out of crafting amazing creations.
13 Alodia Gosiengfiao
Alodia Gosiengfiao is a professional cosplayer from the Philippines. Like many cosplayers, professional and non-professional, her interest stemmed from her love of anime, Japanese animated series. She was part of an online group that discussed anime and cosplay and the members of this group eventually convinced her to enter her first cosplay contest at a convention. Since then she has regularly competed in cosplay contests and has been featured in multiple magazines, in and out of costume.
Some cosplayers are known for portraying a specific character or a type of character, maybe just anime characters or comic book characters, but Alodia's cosplays are wide ranging. She is a fan of donning elaborate robot costumes known as 'mechs,' but she's just as happy to throw on some elf ears and a pretty dress. She also loves cosplaying as characters from her favorite video games as she is an avid gamer.
12 Lindsay Elyse
Lindsay Elyse is both a professional cosplayer and a professional gamer, and she excels in both fields. Lindsay has been cosplaying for more than ten years. She creates all her own costumes and has made quite a career out of competing in cosplay competitions and being photographed in her costumes.
More recently, Lindsay moved in to the world of professional gaming. Lindsay runs a Twitch channel for her gaming. Twitch is a site where fans can log on and watch people play video games. People like Lindsay who are exceedingly good at playing video games gain massive followings on Twitch. The platform also allows users to interact with the gamers playing, so charismatic personalities like Lindsay gain loyal fans by interacting with them on a regular basis.
While gaming is Lindsay's current passion, she still cosplays on a regular basis.
11 Tom DePetrillo
Tom DePetrillo is another masculine force in the realm of professional cosplayers. His costumes may be the most elaborate creations in the cosplay world. Tom is best known for creating massive robot costumes, typically known as 'mechs,' but his creations are wide ranging, including a ten foot tall Donkey Kong.
Tom has been creating what he has dubbed 'extreme costumes' for more than eighteen years and his passion is the challenge of pushing the boundaries of costume making. Tom's costumes have gained him widespread media attention, including being featured on multiple television shows. He has also won multiple awards, including the prestigious 'Best in Show' from New York Comic Con.
His business, Extreme Costumes, creates custom costumes for a variety of purposes, audiences, and customers. Tom regularly performs in his costumes in front of massive crowds and has a large following on YouTube.
10 Riki LeCotey
Riki LeCotey is another well known name in popular media, not just the cosplay community, because of her appearances on the television show 'Heroes of Cosplay.' She was featured in both seasons of the show and won the most awards of any of the competitors. She has also been featured in documentaries about cosplay and cosplay culture.
Originally from Canada, Riki relocated to the United States many years ago in order to further her costuming skills and pursue cosplay professionally. She has competed in and won multiple cosplay competitions both locally and abroad. She is regularly invited to conventions both to cosplay herself and to judge competitions. She has a successful business selling prints of her most popular professional photos.
Riki also created a cosplay calendar as a fundraiser for tsunami relief in Japan. 100% of the proceeds from the sale of the calendar go to help rebuild from natural disasters in Japan.
9 Olivia Munn
Olivia Munn is by far the most recognizable name on this list. She is the queen of geek pop culture. She starred on the popular television series 'Attack of the Show,' which was a breakdown show focusing on viral videos, tech trends, and gaming. She was also on the popular Aaron Sorkin drama, 'The Newsroom.'
Though Munn is most well known for her acting, she is also an avid cosplayer and gamer. Olivia is not shy about admitting that she has always been a geek. She's proud of it. Munn insists that being a nerd just means being passionate about something.
She is a regular attendee at conventions, and not just as a panelist. She often attends in her cosplay costumes, which range from Wonder Woman to slave Leia to various anime characters.
No one can call this actress a pretender or a fake geek girl! Olivia Munn is the real deal.
8 Putri Nony Lovyta
Putri Nony Lovyta, an Indonesian cosplayer, is more often known by her stage name, Yukitora Keiji. She started out as a model and an actress. She competed in some modeling competitions and eventually landed some magazine photo shoots and a few acting gigs, mostly in commercials.
Her first character costume was Jasmine, which she tried for the first time in the Forever Disney Princess Pageant. Shortly after that, Yukitora discovered the world of cosplay and fell in love. She had no experience with costuming, so at first, she asked a tailor to create her costumes and she added the details herself. Eventually she enrolled in a well known fashion school in Indonesia and learned to make her own costumes.
Her costumes have won multiple awards and earned her international renown in the cosplay community. She is regularly invited to cosplay at conventions and to serve as a judge in competitions. Her work has been featured in multiple magazines and books and has appeared on Indonesian television many times.
7 Sara Moni
Sara Moni is rethinking the cosplay game. While she loves paying tribute to the characters she adores, what she really wants to do is create costumes that no one has created before. She puts her unique twist on each costume she creates.
Though she dabbles in all sorts of costumes, superheroes are really Sara's jam. She's particularly fond of Marvel superheroes, like Spider-Girl, the costume featured in this photo. She'd like to start branching out in to DC and Image comic characters as well.
Sara still loves to enjoy herseld at cons rather than working them as a judge for the competitions or a panelist. She truly enjoys meeting new people, admiring well crafted costumes, and showing off her unique creations.
She has also launched an online store to sell her more popular professional photos. Check out her Amazon wish list to see how you can support this amazing cosplayer.
6 Danquish
Danquish is another male creator of armored cosplay masterpieces. Unlike the other guys on this list, Danquish doesn't focus so much on making robots or 'mechs.' Instead, Danquish's costumes often feature intricately detailed cloth and armor hybrid costume topped of with elaborate masks. Danquish's cosplays are also well known for their props. He creates complex weapons: mostly guns and swords, to accompany his costumes. Many of his costumes are ninja themed.
Danquish is a native Canadian. He began creating costumes and props when he was very young. He currently resides in the Pacific Northwest where he devotes the majority of his time to crafting his creations.
Danquish's work has been featured on multiple YouTube channels in compilation videos of conventions he has attended. He has also been featured in multiple gaming magazines and on cosplay websites. He chronicles his own work on his Facebook page. Check it out to see what he's up to.
5 Folkenstal
Folkenstal, a Swiss artist and cosplayer, is truly unique within the cosplaying community. Instead of hand sewing dresses worn by favorite anime or movie characters, Folkenstal creates complex suits of armor and weapons, much like many of the male cosplayers on this list. She crafts all her own armor and weapons from various materials, using a wide range of methods, then she dons the armor and hoists the weapons for elaborate photo shoots.
She likes attending conventions to show off her work and to meet other artists, but her primary passion is in the creation, not the donning of her costumes and props. In this way, she is different from many traditional cosplayers.
Folkenstal was originally inspired by video games. She would play games like Skyrim and wish that the weapons and armor existed in real life. Eventually, she wanted them to exist so badly that she just created them herself!
4 Kat Gunn
Kat Gunn, sometimes better know by her handle Mystik, is a professional gamer and professional cosplayer, though gaming is her primary profession. She has competed on the World Cyber Games Ultimate Gamer show and eventually became the first female to win this televised competition. Kat also holds the Guinness Book World Record for being the highest paid female gamer. She regularly competes in gaming competitions.
Kat has cosplayed a wide variety of characters from both video games, anime, and movies. Some of her popular costumes include Harley Quinn, Luigi, Selene from the Underworld series, and one of the pandas from World of Warcraft.
Because her gaming career takes up so much of her time, cosplay is more of a hobby than a profession for Kat, though she attends as many conventions as she can in costume and often travels to pursue opportunities to cosplay.
3 Jessica Nigri
Jessica Nigri is most well known for portraying the protagonist from the video game 'Lollipop Chainsaw.' As a model she won a contest put on by IGN to find the face of 'Lollipop Chainsaw.' She became a spokesmodel for the game. This began an extremely successful career as a spokesperson and spokesmodel for multiple comic books and video games, including the wildly popular 'Assassins Creed.'
Her cosplay career was just as immediately successful. In 2009 she attended San Diego Comic Con as 'Sexy Pikachu' and her costume went viral. She has been cosplaying regularly ever since. Kat regularly cosplays the characters for which she is a spokesmodel at conventions and for promotional materials. She also creates her own costumes for other characters and frequently attends conventions in these costumes as well.
Kat is a member of a professional cosplaying group, 'XX Girls,' and she has her own professional cosplaying group called 'Less than 3.'
2 Meg Turney
Meg Turney is a popular Internet personality as well as a model and professional cosplayer. She got her start as a host on the YouTube news show SourceFeed. Meg has a large following on her personal YouTube channel, where she regularly posts vlogs, or video blogs about her life, pop culture, and all things geek.
Meg has been attending conventions since 2002, at first as an attendee, then a cosplayer. She was featured on the show 'Heroes of Cosplay' and her costumes have received much recognition, particularly for being extremely well crafted. She is most well known for portraying Princess Leia, though she is regarded as having a unique knack for saucy lingerie costumes of multiple varieties. She has worked with multiple famous photographers in her cosplay career and is an accomplished model outside of her cosplaying career as well.
She frequently attends conventions both for her work as a cosplayer and an Internet personality.
1 Panterona
The world of cosplay is typically pretty white. It's rare to see a powerful woman of color on the Cosplay scene, which is part of what makes Panterona so refreshing. One of the amazing things about cosplay is that anyone can become the characters they love by lovingly crafting and donning their costumes. This means that people of any race, gender, or size can become any character they love.
I absolutely love this image of Panterona as Wonder Woman. A strong, black Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is an Amazonian, a woman of color herself, so its empowering to see her portrayed as a woman of color in this cosplay.
Panterona herself is Caribbean, from the Island of Trinidad. She is a professional cosplayer and model who sews all of her own costumes, the latest of which was an authentic Belle gown from the ballroom scene in "Beauty and the Beast". She regularly does photo shoots in and out of costume with a variety of professional photographers. Check out her Patreon to give her some financial support. Her goal is to be able to make one detailed costume per month.
Check out Instagram to see what these amazing cosplayers have going on and checking out their Facebook pages to see what events they will be attending next!
