About the time PAX East was happening last year, I had this thought: what if there was a place where cosplayers could go and work on their costumes together and have all the tools and proper ventilation? This would be like a Hackerspace, or a Games Workshop, but for cosplayers. A place with sergers and 3D printers…a magical place! I put forth the idea to my friend and fellow cosplayer, Liz Gmaz, who as it turns out, had already been looking for a place to hold cosplay classes and she thought that this would be the perfect space. We discussed that our group could also be active at conventions by providing a booth where cosplayers can repair their costumes. We started talking about the possibilities and realized that this was something that could be really useful to our community. Now, a lot of people talking at conventions will come up with wild ideas and leave it at that. But we are Cosplayers, which means we don’t just like things; we live them. We don’t just plan things; we do them. So we didn’t just come up with this idea; we recruited Stefanie Hackenberg and Daria Medved and formed a non-profit to make this happen! We created Studio Cosplay and we are working to change the world of cosplay!

Studio Cosplay is going live this year and I could not be more excited! We are launching a Kickstarter in February at Katsucon to work with the community to raise funds for a cosplay workshop here in the DC Metro area. If we are successful, we should have our work space up and running by the beginning of the summer convention season.

I hope that it will be a place that cosplayers will be happy to call home; a place where there is collaboration and sharing. Last year, watching Heroes of Cosplay, I was struck by how crazy some of the big cosplayer’s work spaces are. They have actual workshops and access to all these expensive tools. I don’t even have a garage. If I want to spray paint something, I either have to cover my whole house in plastic, or I have to go outside in the cold. I know I am not the only person with this problem and I hope that opening this workshop will make cosplay more accessible. I’ve talked to so many people over the years who wanted to create a costume, but didn’t know where to start or didn’t have the right tools to create what they imagined. Our workshop will have a 3D printer, sewing equipment, fabrication tools, classes and depending on how well our Kickstarter does, a whole lot more. We will also have a green screen set up where cosplayers can take pictures of their finished costumes and collaborate with photographers and graphic artists.

The best part is that this is not just a space but an organization. We are meeting people every day who are excited about this idea and want to help and as more people and more ideas come into play there is no limit to what we will create! We applied for and recently got 501(c)(3) status and this opens up a lot of opportunities. I hope that in the coming months we will be able to reach out to businesses and vendors and get support for this project. I’d like to see us get to a size where we can make bulk orders for supplies and make cosplay more affordable. I’d like to see our members donating their unused supplies for others to use. I’d like to see us reaching out to schools and educating people on what cosplay is; that cosplay really is an art and should be treated like one. Maybe as our organization grows we can help form spaces in other cities.

Obviously, none of this is going to happen overnight. Right now, the four of us are working hard to get our workshop going. We hope it is something people want. We have a lot of dreams and ideas and we have a lot of work ahead of us. It is definitely cutting into my crafting time, and I am really behind on blog posts, but it’s worth it. Studio Cosplay is going to be something special in our community and I am so excited to be a part of building it!

For more information about Studio Cosplay, please visit our website: www.studiocosplay.org or our Facebook Page.

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