When choosing a character to cosplay there is one big thing you must pay attention to - Having fun.
Choose the character that you love, no matter the gender, body type or anything else.
If you love the character that you cosplay, you will have fun.
Anime has a characteristic style of drawing of the characters, and it is this particular style you are trying to emulate. Starting with the hair, which is often brightly colored, spiky or unnaturally long and flowy.

The face of any anime character has really big and sparkly eyes, perfect skin and small, barely visible lips. Trying to achieve this kind of look with makeup is easy, but it requires some practice.
Male characters are either lean or very muscular, and every detail on them is there to make them look more manly. Male anime characters will always have spiky hair, even if it is long. Often, characters have bracers around their arms, unbuttoned shirts and manly jewelry, such as pendant around their neck.

Female characters tend to be sweet, dressed in bright colors and sexualized. Hair is usually very long, flowy and in some funky, bright color. Sometimes hair stands in impossible shapes and angles, which you can easily achieve with wig and wire.

Clothes for anime girls tend to be skimpy, usually in some sexy form of school or cheerleader uniform.
If you are going to cosplay anime girl, sweet, sexy and multicolored is the way to go.


There are also characters known as “traps”, usually male crossdressers, and their true gender is never known until the end of the show. When cosplaying trap character, same aesthetic are applied as for female character.

Now, if you never cosplayed before, you might consider “closet cosplay” - that is, looking in your closet and finding what character you can make from clothes and accessories you already have. It is a great and inexpensive way to dip your toes in the cosplay waters.

And if you want to do an anime character using a closet cosplay method, then, pick a character you can build with things that are easy enough to find around the house. Or you may borrow some props and clothes from friends.

Basically, any schoolgirl uniform or a “cat-girl” character will do, as it is easy to find clothes to closet cosplay them. Just flip through your favorite animes and find something easy that matches your wardrobe or the wardrobe of one of your friends.

Pay special attention to makeup, try it out at least a week before the cosplay event. There are tutorials online for almost every anime character imaginable.
After you gain some experience in cosplay with your closet cosplay characters, you might want to make a cosplay costume that is more demanding.

If you are just beginning your cosplay career, here are some tips for making a costume and choosing a character you want to cosplay :

Choose a character that you love and can relate to. There is no point in cosplaying a character that you don’t like just because you look like it.

If you wanna do gender-bender crossplay - just go for it - it is so fun and creative.

Gather all the info you can find, including the cost for all materials, props and wigs, shipping times and how long will it take to make the costume.

Consider calling friends for help, as it will make the work more interesting and together you will do it much faster.


Think about the theme of the convention you are going to.

If it is an anime convention, go as anime character, if it is a comic-con, go as comic character.
It is not the rule, but be sure that you will run into a bunch of characters from the same
show/anime/comic/movie/cartoon…. and it’s a great fun to group up with them, make
photos and stroll around as a gang.