Cook Cosplays Characters

Freshman Erica Cook has a cosplaying hobby. Cosplaying is an act in which participants dress up in costumes and makeup to represent a specific character.

Erica said she started cosplaying in 2019 after seeing a cosplay on her social media feed. She first cosplayed Hatsune Miku, a Vocaloid developed by Crypton Future Media, a Japanese media company. A Vocaloid is a software program developed to represent a human voice.

When Erica gets into cosplay, she acts and dances. She posts her work on Tik Tok and Instagram.

“I like to act in my videos…sometimes I do dances and sometimes I lip sync,” she added.

Erica said her favorite cosplay that she has done was Amber from Genshin Impact, a popular video game created by miHoYo, a Chinese game company.

According to Erica, on average, a single cosplay costs anywhere from $50 to $100. To afford this, Erica said she has a job and also babysits for $10 an hour.

Erica added she shops for costumes and accessories mostly on Amazon, but if she cannot find a good quality cosplay, she shops on Miccoustume or DokiDoki Cosplay.

Erica said it takes around 30 minutes to get into cosplay, which includes dressing up, putting on a wig and doing makeup, but if she is doing face paint as well, it takes about an hour.

Erica said the most fun part of cosplay is her makeup. She likes being able to be creative with it. “The hardest part of cosplay is styling wigs, it’s very stressful in my opinion, and it is very time consuming,” she added.

Erica said she learned how to cosplay from a lot of YouTube tutorials and other creators on Instagram.

Erica said she has a friend who is another student that she cosplays with.

Freshman Jaxon Valladares said a love of anime spurred them to begin cosplaying with Erica. “Erica’s cosplays are insanely beautiful,” they said. Jaxon said they learned how to do makeup a lot better since cosplaying with Erica and they have learned how to put their own spin on their cosplays.

“Erica is my biggest inspiration…She’s amazing at everything she does and I’m so very grateful to have someone so astonishing. She has boosted my confidence and got me into so many hobbies…,” they added. Jaxon was first introduced to cosplay in 2019 and started cosplaying in July 2020.

In the future, Erica said she wants to go to a Con (Anime Convention.), which is an event where fans meet to cosplay as their favorite characters. Anime Conventions are commonly held at hotels and convention centers.

Erica said she plans on cosplaying Kanae Kocho from popular Japanese anime series Demon Slayer next.

She added that she can be found on Tiktok and Instagram.