The sun beams fiercely on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and even as evening approaches, the humidity is relentless. Backstage, costume makers prepare to show off their best to a circus tent loaded with strangers who share their eccentric hobby. I glance over my opening speech one last time before noticing a veteran cosplayer sweating bullets through her eye shadow, shaded cheekbones and full-body jumpsuit.

Though she has been modeling her homemade costumes for over six years, earning over thirty awards from conventions across America, Caitlin Beards is sweating through her skintight pleather and spandex one-piece. This is her one-hundredth costume to date, and she has poured three months of her skill into sculpting the seven yards of metal chain and the eighteen-inch tall wig strapped to her head to become the video game heroine Bayonetta. Beards, like many others, belongs to a previously underground sub-culture of geeks that has blossomed in recent years.

The selected nineteen cosplayers standing with me under the tent are accustomed to posing for photos at conventions, but never for an audience of magazine and radio personalities, and never after having their make-up applied by personnel from MAC Cosmetics. For the first time in New York’s history, fashion-centered video game and Japanese anime fans have been pampered and prepped by internationally acclaimed make-up artists. 2010 has so far marked a new step in public exposure and professional treatment for cosplaying, and the community is still rising in the public eye. The hobby of cosplay is easy to explain but difficult to execute: it is the act of dressing like your favorite character from a TV show, movie, video game or comic book. In some social circles, cosplay is a competitive sport, to others it is a challenge to prove their sewing skills, and for some it is purely for fun and an excuse to meet other fans.