Introductions are in order

2008-03-02T01:00:00.000-08:00

General knowledge states that cosplaying in the Philippines enjoyed an explosion of participants/hobbyists back in the year 2000, but Ive been cosplaying since 1996 thanks to U.P.Tomo-Kai my college org. Cosplaying has its roots in Japanese pop-culture, so joining a Philippines-Japan cultural friendship org would eventually introduce me to cosplaying.

As an art student during the 1990s, the decade of anime resurgence in the Philippines, I was certainly attracted to the visual feast offered by anime. My participation in various Tomo-Kai org events as well as annual UP spectacles such as the U.P. Lantern Parade would bolster and hone my skills in both Filipino and Japanese-inspired artforms.

My experience in these events would eventually attract the attention of people who would become my first cosplay/fandom friends outside of the University setting- Fed Makabenta asked me to help build a GundamGirl costume along with his brother and other friends back in 2001.

Of course I was curious to know what other people thought of our costume project after they've seen her completed so to find out I joined the various local cosplay and anime fan mailing lists which sprang up during those years. Needless to say everyone in the mailing lists was glad to meet people who were in the same thing as they were- anime and manga and other fandom things.

But fandom sharing got faster and more interactive with the creation of fan forums, and forums purely dedicated to cosplaying. Most of the time fans collected anime merchandise to prove their love for a certain series or character but in cosplaying, the fans can not only show their love for the character by making a costume of this character thay can also blatantly show this to other people by participating in the cosplay events - wear an Astroboy costume and chances are a person who is a fan of Astro will be asking you for a photo - and maybe that's how your friendship will start.

Almost everyone in the forums wanted to make a cosplay of their fave character, but not everyone was well skilled in the crafts, so it's only natural for those who are to share their knowledge. Comments coming in from people with varying degrees of experience in craft-making have led to numerous enlightening discussions.

But honestly knowledge sharing with regards to the crafts and skills related to costume, armor, and prop making in a forum format has always been confusing and cluttered specially for people new to the hobby. Some threads of discussion get mired in other irrelevant comments, or usually get buried under newer threads.

With my creation of this blogspot, I intend to share personal knowledge, ideas, and skills i've gained and enhanced through my years as an artist and a cosplayer, and to least systematically arrange the information that I know so others may browse and learn specifically from what I know, hopefully in a confusion-free format.

Hello! I am Polidread, graphic artist by trade and general fanboy on the side.
I'm part of the administration team and moderators of cosplay.ph and it's sister forum filcosplay, the biggest sources of cosplay-relevant information in the Philippines.

and this is MechAtelier, my cosplay craft blog spot.

Mech Atelier

Introductions are in order