OH, IT'S MORE EXPENSIVE THAN I THOUGHT

• Custom work can get pricey. The more experience a person has (in any industry if you think about it) the more they value their time. Wouldn't you? They have spend thousands of hours honing their skills and that's why their time and handiwork is worth more then the next person. Cheap commissions can be found, but they are far and few in between. If someone with good cos-cred picks up cheaper work it may be because they have found materials on sale, have them in bulk already, or even simplicity of design. Even then it could still be well above some budgets because there's no *sale* on time. TRUTH.

​
IS IT OK TO ASK THEM TO MAKE THE THING AND THEN IF I LIKE IT I'LL BUY IT?

• No. Just no. Because the nature of commissions are customization, wanting to see the end result before you really invest a bunch of money is natural. BUT spec work is spec work and we just can't invest the time AND materials into making something you'll hopefully want to pay for when it's finished. This kind of, shall we call it "payment plan" usually gets turned down for those reasons. A very reasonable approach to this is that the commissioner ask for a down-payment or starting deposit to cover materials and time for beginning the commission. This also weeds out the serious commissionees from the non-serious ones, and it really protects both parties by having just enough to be invested into a pricey commission and seeing it to completion.
• Other than that, you have to trust that your commissioner is capable. Remember when we talked about researching them? Yes. If they have a large portfolio of historical costumes with a variety of angles, shots, close-ups, and their work looks good, then you can trust they can make you something just as clean and seamless along with all of your other needs met.

THEY OFFERED TO DO IT EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVEN'T WORKED WITH THE TYPE OF MATERIAL BEFORE

• Do not take on a commissioner who cannot show previous work with a certain material. Most of us crafty people are skilled in more than one medium, and chances are we can provide proof of that. If someone says "I haven't made anything out of X before but I'm excited to make this for you," just respectfully decline. There's a learning curve for working in a new medium for everyone, not to mention the cost that inevitably comes for buying the needed related tools and supplies specific to that thing. 

SO I SHOULDN'T COMMISSION MS. STRICTLY SEAMSTRESS TO MAKE ME SOMETHING OUT OF WORBLA?

• That's right!

OVERVIEW

This is the beginning of beginnings. If you're a cosplay noob or a cosplay veteran, or somewhere in between, you all have to make a choice between 4 basic routes of action:

1. Buy a complete costume $$-$$$$
2. Buy separate components and assemble a costume $$$
3. Carefully commission a custom costume (look! look at all the alliteration!) $$$$$
4. MAKE EVERYTHING! MAKE ALL THE THINGS YOURSELF! $-$$$$$$$$$IntoInfinity

The $ scale is kind of completely irrelevant since you can cosplay on any kind of budget and budgets are relative. Different people will choose different routes depending on time and budget, and the desire to manipulate materials. If you have no desire to engage with materials, fabrics, paints, power tools,  sometimes chemicals and sometimes blood and tears, your best bet is either option 1, 2, and 3. On the other hand, if you are short on time but have that cash money to spend on quality pieces you may want to scour your favorite retailers and assemble something piece by piece. Or your local thrift shop. That way you retain some creative control over your assembly and it'll still give your costume a uniqueness. OR (and this is the big "or'' that's been causing controversy and uppity turned-up noses) if you want to have complete control of the creative process you will do it all yourself. Yes. Yes you will. No matter the cost. No matter the blood sacrifices. No matter the amount of caffeine you will need to consume to finish the thing. HYPE!

It literally depends on your situation, what you want to accomplish, and for what purpose. There's no stigma *pauses. re-reads and edits* There shouldn't be any stigma attached to any of these options because you know what? They're options and we can choose whatever the fuck we feel like. We are different people with different wants and needs and that's ok.
IT'S ALL OK!
DON"T LET ANYONE TELL YOU OTHERWISE!

So, let's just break down and discuss our four options.
How do you know which route is best for you?

• NEED: A small to moderate budget. Average for a fabric costume fabricated somewhere in Asia is around 100$ excluding wigs and props.
• WANT: A complete costume. Willing to wait for parcels from China. (Yeah, sometimes that means you have to plan this shit months ahead of time. You hear me? MONTHS! So stop procrastinating on buying that wig, you.)

​
OK I WANT TO BUY A COSTUME. WHERE CAN I FIND IT?

• There are several websites where you can buy premades. A simple Google search for "buy cosplay" will turn up a ton of sites like these. I have had good experiences with CosplayHouse:
  • cosplayhouse.com
  • cosplaysky.com
  • lightinthebox.com

I'M NOT SURE ABOUT SIZING. WHAT DO I DO?

• Word of warning on sizing: Many of these websites are made overseas in Asiatic countries. I have experienced (this is a personal testimony here, if you've had different experiences let your voice be known!) that sizing runs 1-2 sizes on the small side. If purchasing from one of these sites, trust a sizing chart. Make sure to account for any wiggle room if needed (and you usually need it, unless you're planning on getting something skin tight). If there isn't a sizing chart CLOSE THE WINDOW IMMEDIATELY and restart somewhere else. Some sites have a "tailor-made" option, which is worth the extra cost associated with it if there even is one. Oh, be prepared to pay some high shipping prices. Because of this it's also a good idea to just suck it up and pay a few more bucks for insurance & tracking.

CAN I STILL ENTER A COSTUME CONTEST IF I BUY THE COSTUME?

• It is kind of understood that if you purchased a costume, you are not able to enter it in costume contests. Some contests will allow a percentage of the costume to be bought, and purchased things should make up under 50% of the assembled costume. Check with your convention's contest rules and read carefully! The only exception to this rule (at some conventions) is when you are accompanied by the costume-maker, therefore being the model and displaying their worksmanship.
• An exception to this might be in a performance contest, where you are not judged on the costume. Check with the respective con's policies.

I learned a pretty important thing last week on-site at a job. When you're in business for yourself and you make your living designing, crafting, or doing other custom creative work, sometimes you learn things the expensive way. And sometimes you can recoup from it if you know what you're dealing with in terms of still coming out on the profitable side - or maybe just knowing when and where to cut your losses. 

So last week my boss and I went to fix a customer's window treatments that had sporadically grown 1/8" to 2/8" of an inch (fabric does some weird things depending on the weaving structure of it; when fabric grows it literally gets longer because it eases as it hangs). It took us 2 hours to undo previous work and fix it. And I'm sure I learned this stuff the 3rd time I took accounting or micro-economics or whatever that soul-sucking, money-vacuuming, major-questioning class was back in '07, but it really wasn't on the  this-will-one-day-be-relevant-radar.

How many times did you make a thing only to realize something's on backwards and you have to take the seam ripper to it? Or maybe you ate yourBaconator a little too close to that sateen gown and now there's a big fat grease stain on it. Did you just cringe? And get a little hungry? Oh yeah. #memories

Let's break down the threefold cost associated with a mistake:

1. THE INITIAL COST
   • This is the cost associated with what the client initially gets charged for. For you it would includes cost of materials + labor + overhead + profit. (Thaaaaank you Mr. Marcus Lemonis!)
2. THE FIX-IT COST
   • If something goes wonky either during the construction process or after the construction is finished, chances are you have to fix it. 
   • Reasons for fixing something include
     
     • visible errors,
       
     • additional tailoring (some fabrics stretch and some shrink, knowing what to anticipate can save time and $),
       
     • something breaks or doesn't hold up to wear,
       
     • damaged in transit
       
     • etc.? The unicorns were so taken with it they had to mark their territory? 
       
   • Sometimes this can include additional shipping & handling fees that you will likely have to eat if you're concerned with customer service.
   • Depending on the industry, charging the client for additional labor due to the above errors is accepted. This is a shady area I don't know much about. If there are additional materials then that should definitely incur an extra charge.  It depends. Ask what others in your industry do and take the best advice. 
3. THE OPPORTUNITY COST
   • This is the money lost because you could have been using your time for another profitable job.

Damn. That's a lot of loss for a mistake. But if it happens, what else can you do? ​

A friend posed the question of why people create separate cosplay pages rather than post on their regular profile.

I've taught English and composition for something like 3 now (and only 6 weeks remain eeeee!! :D) and one of the things I have to lecture and drill about is audience. Write to your audience. 

• Figure out what their values are as a single person, as someone part of a group (or groups), as a society/culture. 
  
• Figure out what their expectations are.
  
• Understand if their attitudes towards what you're posting/creating/writing is going to be positive, neutral, or negative (and you can definitely appeal to the trolls too if you can spin it, case and point: http://www.twitch.tv/kaceytron). 
  

It's just like a maintaining a personal blog/website with FB functions. You want to be accessible, you want to be multiple places on the web, you want to appeal to the person that prefers following someone on FB rather than Tumblr or through an RSS feed, so on. It's more about knowing who your audience is and appealing to the cosplayers. 

We can go to cosplay page after cosplay page, and see what is successful for those with thousands upon thousands of likes.

So, do you separate your cosplay page from your personal page? Why or why not?