J!-ENT's Cosplay Underground Photo Books by Nergene Arquelada. Click on the image to download.
2011 Update:
The interviews for Cosplay
Underground was a one-year project site which started back in
2002 while visiting
a friend who was a special guest at Fanime 2003. I was
amazed to see how much anime cons have grown within the last
decade and how the attendance has shifted from a dozen cosplayers
to almost 80% cosplayers to 20% normal attendees as it would
seem. Back
then,
cosplayers
were around a dozen (as you can see from our old school cosplay
photos below) but things have changed a lot since then.
So,
I decided for a side-project for the nt2099/J!-ENT website to
learn
more about these cosplayers, why they do it and to interview
these cosplayers to benefit those who are curious about them,
for those who want to learn from them and for those who want
to be like them. While many photos concentrate on the craft,
I wanted to tweak the photos and give them an artsy, dreamy or
even a dark and twisted look. Also, challenge myself in tweaking
the photos in the quickest amount
of time possible.
In
less than a year, this project site has been featured on several
publications with favorable reviews from magazines such as Newtype
USA, has spun off a party called ANI-JAM 2003 and introduced
myself and our Cosplay Underground staff to a lot of cool people
who we are very grateful to have as friends.
I
would like to take the time to thank the many cosplayers who
have given us the opportunity to take their pictures, the cosplayers
we interviewed for giving us the opportunity to know about them
through our interviews and also for the people who
enjoyed
our
trippy
photo gallery.
In 2011, J!-ENT still continues to cover cosplay but moreso for event coverage which you can see in our pictorials. Enjoy!
How
crazy can it get for female cosplayers at Comike? Click on the above
photo for a larger version.
What
Newtype USA had to say about Cosplay
Underground:
"Go
to the site! Click on the center links and you will be directed
to convention cosplay photos. Tantalizing thumbnails of wicked
cosplayer photos will entice you to view the full images.
Funky things have been done to the original images to give
them a dreamy, sultry Alice in Wonderland feel. Viewers will
not be disappointed! If you see a cutie cosplayer and want to get
inside their head, view the enlightening interviews! Many questions
that are presented to the cosplayer are wacky and atypical. There
are tons of other links (a few websites are in other languages)
to cosplay websites that will certainly satisfy a fan's appetite
for everything cosplay." - Newtype USA, December 2002, December
issue.