By Luke Voogt
Cosplay is more than fancy dress for its thousands of fans – it’s about becoming someone else entirely – if only for a day.
LUKE VOOGT steps into a quirky world of mythical creatures, comic book characters and physics-defying costumes with three Geelong cosplayers.
A facial feature which gave Kristian Schutz the most grief as a kid has become one his best cosplay assets.
“I had horribly low self-esteem growing up,” says the 29-year-old, who grew up in Leopold.
“I was massively self-conscious about my nose.”
But when he stepped into character as Aladdin for the first time, he discovered an uncanny resemblance to the fictional Arabian street rat.
“I look like him when I have a wig on and it’s because of the nose.”
One young Harry Potter fan hid behind his mother in awe when he saw Kristian in costume, thinking he was the real Professor Snape.
The boy was dressed as Harry Potter, but Snape was his favourite character, his mum explained.
With his prominent nose Kristian was a dead ringer for Alan Rickman’s portrayal of the tragic wizard.
Kristian regularly pulls out costumes of Disney princes for children’s festivals.“You get kids that walk in and it’s like they’re transported into magical world.”
He loves the reaction of older fans when he gets into character too.
“It’s amazing when you hear someone scream your character’s name and they want to crash tackle you out of happiness,” he says.
Kristian fondly remembers meeting with one very special fan, Stan Lee, who visited Brisbane Supernova earlier this year.
His depiction of X-men’s Angel, complete with fold-out wings, blew the legendary comic book writer away, he says.
“I still remember what he said verbatim – he was like ‘Wowee! You look like you’re about to take off’.”
The other best part of cosplay is the challenge of making the costume, Kristian says.
He remembers with pride his one of his first outfits – Dragon Ball Z’s Majin Buu.
“He has really weird ears,” he says. “Everything was failing – foam, fabric, everything.”
But after days experimenting he tried two Styrofoam cups and double-sided sticky tape.
“It was the simplest solution but it worked,” he says.
Apart from teaching himself to sew, Kristian says making costumes is mostly “finding the right combination of swearwords”.
“We’re our own worst critics. No-one else see the failures.”
He watched four seasons of TV series Breaking Bad while working on one shirt alone.
“That’s how I judge the work of a costume – the amount of seasons that I watch by the time it’s done,” he says.
Kristian says he has made more than 200 costumes, ranging in cost from $2000 to $50.
“Cosplayers are amazingly resourceful.”
His latest project was Professor Chaos, the villainous alter-ego of South Park character Butters Stotch.
Kristian’s lifetime love of comics and pop culture led him to cosplay.
“Being out of high school I just started to think ’Hey, this isn’t a bad thing’,” he says.
“My grandmother adores it but it takes a while for family to understand why you do it.”
Kristian has met some of his best friends at conventions and random cosplay meets, including partner Hayley Shaw.
Although naturally, it can be had to keep track of who is who.
“You can run into people 10 times without even knowing you’ve met them,” he says.
Cosplay “makes the impossible possible” for Geelong West’s Bianca Mileti, AKA Bianca Bella.
Physics-defying props, giant robot costumes and mythical creatures like centaurs walking around at conventions fascinate the avid 29-year-old cosplayer.
“You think ‘How do people do that?’ “ she said. “It’s amazing.”
Bianca got into cosplay through her love of gaming.
“I’ve always liked geeky things,” she says. “It didn’t take long for the cosplay bug to take hold of me.”
Perhaps Bianca’s biggest cosplay hit was her depiction of Cersei Lannister from hit TV series Game of Thrones.
She mimicked the show’s chief female villain down to her mannerisms.
“People love it when I cock the eyebrow,” she says.
Her portrayal earnt the approval of three guests from the series including Eugene Simon, who plays Cersei’s cousin Lancel Lannister.
Like Kristian, Bianca loves the fan reactions to her costumes, like the princess from the video game Zelda.
“So many of them have the time to talk to you and make your day,” she says.
“With Zelda I found I got lots more fan-girling and gushing.”
One of stranger get-ups was the dead, cryogenically frozen Nora from Fallout 4. The costume involved the tricky application of ice and snow.
“I ended up using spray-on adhesive and doing layer upon layer – without getting high from the fumes, thankfully.”
Bianca wants to learn how to craft costumes but a car accident in 2016 has prevented her so far.
The nasty T-bone smash on the Midland Highway at 6am on 20 June left her with chronic neck and back pain.
But for now Bianca is happy just to have survived to continue her favourite pastime.
“I have no idea how I’m still alive,“ she says.
Grovedale’s Andrew Cameron has been addicted to cosplay for the past decade.
“I’m a nerd of all variations – I love sci-fi, gaming, anime, manga,” says the man known as Andy Cam in costumed circles.
“It all just snowballed from there.”
Andy embraced his passion for drama when he changed schools in Year 7.
“I always was sort of the weird outsider kid,” the 28-year-old says.
“(Changing schools) was the big game changer where I went from the quiet nerdy kid to being more confident and outrageous.”
He became interested in anime in Year 12 which, combined with his graphic design degree and a visit to Melbourne Anime Festival, led to his addiction.
“It’s just one of those random things I stumbled across,” he says. “If I wasn’t doing cosplay at the moment I don’t know what I would be doing.”
Andy has 150 costumes under his belt, with 30 Power Rangers alone.
“They’re good for charity events and I bash them out quickly,” he says.
His hobby has seen him travel to some of the biggest conventions in the US.
It also won him his job as a supervisor at Lincraft.
“They saw me as a regular and said ’You should put a resume in’,” he says.
But he prefers local events like Adelaide Supernova, where he can carpool with other cosplayers.
“I don’t fit on planes half the time,”
Andy’s favourite costumes include Thranduil from The Hobbit and Doctor Strange.
The latter was an exception for Andy, who normally likes to “smash out costumes at the last minute“.
“I spent four weeks replicating every piece, from hand-stamping the lining to hand-weaving all the belts and braids,” he says.
“Being a creative person – half the fun is making the costume and creating something from nothing.”
