Are OCs a good idea for a Costume Contest?

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  • Hey guys I basically wanted some advice.
    When it comes to games like World of Warcraft and Diablo 3, playable characters almost always look different since there are several different looks, armors, equiptment, etc.

    In my case, I wanted to do a witchdoctor costume from Diablo 3. I've already begun buying materials based off official game art, but I don't really like the main designs TOO much. I like the way it looks but I wanted to design my own mask and change up the outfit a bit to reflect my style a bit more. My redesign for the character still looks like a witchdoctor, it's just a brand new design.

    ANYWAY
    I was just wondering, how well do things like this last in cosplay or costume contests? Do judges think it's more impressive when you design the costume yourself or do they think maybe it's an attempt to be lazy since you didn't follow the character correctly?

  • It all depends on the contest and the judges. Some cons I've been to don't allow originals to compete, others do. The biggest problem with having an original judged is that there are no references for the judges to really work from sometimes, so they might not know how accurate or not something is.

  • What about if I borrowed a lot of the designs from actual pictures and I brought them in? Blizzard released a lot of concept art for the character so I made my design encorporate a lot of what makes a witchdoctor a witchdoctor, I just don't like any of the designs that much that I'd copy them exactly.

    I wanted to do my own take on it while still showing I was skilled at making all the props and accessories

  • Honestly, beyond if the contest allows original designs, it's really up in the air. I would say to take as much as reference as possible, but the mood of the judges and what they are looking for that will dictate if you do any good in a contest with an original character.

  • If it's a contest that allows original designs, if it's any good then the whole "well, they can't judge original design for accuracy" shouldn't matter. Reproduction costumes should be scored for the accuracy and the execution of workmanship, and originals should be scored for intention and execution of design and...the execution of workmanship.

    Since you're basing it off of something that exists in media, you're in a grey area. What you should do is include your reasons for deviating away from the character design. I'm not familiar with Diablo, but I know a lot of in game design vary widely from the concept art. Maybe with your ref pics include in game pics, concept art, maybe sketches of your own, and some bullet points outlining your rationale.

    If I may brag about my own experience, my Madame Red was quite different from what the character wore in the manga/anime, and it did very well in a masquerade. The changes I made were in the interest of historical accuracy, and I made sure to show to the judges with my documentation that I was very familiar with fashion from 1888 (the year of the Jack the Ripper murders, which happened at the beginning of the series).

    tl;dr

    your mileage may vary, but always, always make deliberate design choices and explain your choices!

  • It's not that I don't think I can do what the costume is, I just wanted to redesign it. So yea, I would tell the judges that I just wanted to make it look more sinister than it already was.
    I'm trying to make a male and a female version, the male version is only deviating in color while the female I'm almost completely re-doing.

    The female doesn't look evil enough for me, she seems too much like a WoW character (since they're both made from blizzard). I just wanted to give my take on it a bit. That's my only real reason for deviating.

  • I did an OC, and got an honorable mention in the Master's category last year- In your case, having some notes explaining why you made the changes you did would be helpful.

  • If it's FROM something, then you only have to worry about how accurate the getup is, else, judges would be loose about it. OC can usually get honorable mentions and judges choice at these cons, but usually nothing in placement. If you start adding things that don't belong and still call it an oc, then ppl get skeptical and iffy about the project: what are you really trying to do, your own or someone's developed character.
    I'd limit it to no OC if I were a judge of a themed con, else you get infinite costumes(which includes extra gore Ninja Halloween town bleach Street Fighter characters). General theme cons are your ticket for what you want.

  • Yeah, Sci Fi and mixed genre cons are the places where an OC is likely to be more at home. At the one in my town, one of the judges told me that she actually prefers OCs, she likes the creativity at work.

  • I'm wondering the exact same thing actually. For me and my boyfriend, we're planning the wizard (for me) and demon hunter from Diablo 3, but we both want to design our own armor sets to bring to Blizzcon 2013. We're trying to figure out if it's allowed or not in their costume contest and whether or not they would look kindly or not on our own creativity that we add to their base designs.

  • I cannot find their costume contest rules anywhere, so I can't say for sure, but I HAVE seen a video of an entire masquerade from 2011, and no one I noticed had an original version of any costume. Of course, I can't be certain, but I can see where they might make a rule stating only their (Blizzard's) designs may be used.

    Honestly, it's up to the rules of the CON and not the "rules" of the judges. Our costume contest allows original costumes because, while it is mainly an anime con, it has a huge multi-genre component. If a judge decided not to award a costume because it wasn't an exact media re-creation, and we found out, we would not have that judge back. As it was, an original costume which was inspired by Harry Potter and incredibly creative (she even had a "pet dragon" which breathed smoke!) won Best in Show this year. But I can totally see big cons excluding these costumes on the basis that their cosplay contest is already way too big, though I'd still just limit the NUMBER of entries so as not to exclude something which could be really awesome arbitrarily.

  • ^Yeah, limiting the number of entrants to keep things manageable sounds a lot more fair to me, than making rules restricting the type of costume allowed. After all, if it's a big con and they're worried about the contest being manageable, restricting costume subject matter might not work- they could make the strictest rules ever, saying "Anime costumes only, NOTHING else allowed", and they could still get swamped with entrants.

    I think putting a cap on the number of entrants is the best way to keep the number of entrants to a manageable level.

  • Agreed. I really should just e-mail each con and see what their rules are. I would be hesitant to really dive in and make the entire original design and not be able to compete with it anywhere :(

  • At a mixed genre convention, you wouldn't have an issue with an original design. It's only at genre-specific (anime) cons, that this would be an issue.

  • One way of finding out what costumes appear on stage at cons is to see if anyone has posted the masquerades on line. If you're really lucky, they also posted the awards afterwards. That'll give you an idea of how well original designs are received and rewarded.