San Diego Comic-Con may be best known for headline-grabbing panels and pop culture announcements, but the California fan gathering is just as celebrated for the elaborate costumes that fill its halls.
Year after year, devotees of comics, video games, movies and fantasy worlds spend months designing and building looks that pay tribute to the characters and franchises they love.
For Sarah Lu, 27, a recent San Diego transplant, that dedication meant starting in January on a costume inspired by Toothless, the dragon from DreamWorks’ “How to Train Your Dragon,” and investing about $400 in the project.
“At least for me, it’s an intersection between theater and music and dance as well, so I kind of use all these skills to bring a character to life. I think there’s some sort of magic to that,” she told Reuters on the convention floor.
At Comic-Con, some costumes quickly turn into crowd favorites, while others pass by with less fanfare.
Jose Samaniego, 21, of San Diego, said the difference often has as much to do with confidence as craftsmanship.
“Be confident in yourself,” he said. “If you’re not confident in your own cosplay you’re going to give off a really bad aura and no-one’s going to like you. If you don’t like how you’re dressing, then your outfit’s awful,” he added.
And because Comic-Con unfolds in the middle of summer, fans wearing detailed, layered costumes also have to battle the heat.
“‘How do you stay cool?’ Hydrate, hydrate and hydrate,” said David Martinez, 54, a project manager for a pharmaceutical company in San Diego, who attended dressed as a mashup of Spider-Man and the artist Bob Ross.
Despite months of preparation, costumes can malfunction.
Glue can soften in the heat, causing pieces to fall apart, while fabric can rip or tear.
That is where Bryan Mero, a costume repairperson passionate about helping attendees steps in.
Dressed as Fix-it Felix from the Disney animated film “Wreck-it Ralph,” Mero patrols the convention floor carrying a yellow hammer and a backpack filled with repair supplies.
Lu told Reuters that Mero is the real “MVP” of the entire convention.
“I come and bring a supply of anything we need to fix a cosplay; superglue, duct tape, safety pins, bobby pins, hairspray, hair ties, all different colors, all the main colors for that, a soldering iron, a hot glue gun. I know I’m missing quite a few things because my pack is about 15 pounds,” he said.
“That’s kind of what I provide and I do it for free only because I’m just asking to just pay it forward,” Mero added.
San Diego Comic-Con is an annual multi-genre entertainment and comic book convention that takes place in San Diego, California, and celebrates comics, popular culture, and related media.
