100+ Cosplay Tutorials
Tutorial: How to Make Tiefling Horns for Costumes
Crafting tiefling horns for your cosplay ensemble isn’t just about adding a striking visual; it’s about embodying your character’s otherworldly charm. It’s easier than you might think to create your own custom horns that look great and stay put no…
Tutorial: Male Makeup for Female Cosplayers
One of the main challenges in creating a realistic crossplay is getting the makeup right. Believe it or not, male and female skulls are actually shaped differently. Everything from the protruding brow bone, to the wider chin, makes it more…
Tutorial: Creating Realistic Cosplay Scars with Rigid Collodion
Creating realistic scars can add a compelling layer of detail to many character’s appearances. Scars can tell a story of past battles, adventures, or encounters. One effective method for crafting these details is by using a product called rigid collodion…
Tutorial: Untangle Impossible Knots from Cosplay Wigs!
We’ve all done it. We wore a wig to a convention and were just too tired or excited to worry about taking care of it after changing out of the cosplay. Then once we get home, we realize that we’ve…
How to Make a Collar Stand Up Like an Anime Character
As someone who does not have a background in sewing, there was a lot I had to teach myself about how to make costumes look the way they should. One of the things I had to learn was how to…
Tutorial: Apply Face Paint for Costumes
Whether you’re going for a look that’s cute, scary, or utterly otherworldly, perfecting your face paint is key to nailing your cosplay. But if it’s your first time, or you’re looking to improve your techniques, it may seem a bit…
How to Make Floppy Dog Ears with (faux) Fur
Making floppy dog ears is a little different than cat ears for a costume. In order for the material to accurately reflect the shape of a dog’s ear, you need to create a solid base for the ear (I used…
Tutorial: Superhero Eyemasks for Costumes
Creating a superhero eyemask for cosplay is a fun way to immerse yourself in your character. Whether you’re aiming to replicate the iconic look of characters like the Incredibles or crafting an original creation, the eye mask is a central…
How to Paint Something to Look Like Wood (the easy way)
When making cosplay props, one of the most common painting techniques you’ll need to learn is how to paint something that is not wooden to look like wood. There are really countless techniques for painting objects to look like they…
Tutorial: How to Color Your Eyebrows for Cosplay
So you got a brand new bright wig and decided to try it on. It looks great on you except for one small thing. Your eyebrows are the wrong color! You can make that wig look just a little more…
Tutorial: How to Make Your Wig Smaller
When your wig is too large, it can shift uncomfortably and ruin the overall effect of your cosplay. But don’t worry—making a wig smaller is a straightforward process that you can do at home. With some simple adjustments, you can…
Tutorial: Sturdy Boot and Shoe Covers for Costumes (EVA foam)
There are countless methods for creating boot covers for your cosplay. For some, you glue (or otherwise attach) the cover to the base shoe. However, I prefer to make covers that are completely detachable. Since I expect to wear these…
How to Paint Fabric for Cosplay Costumes
Many anime and comic costumes have unique designs that you’re not going to find at the fabric store. This can be anything from a superhero logo to a specific pattern of stripes on your character’s T-shirt. If you can’t find…
How to Make a ‘Wooden’ Wizard Staff (with clay)
Sometimes you need to make a wooden wizard staff for your next cosplay, but there’s no way to get ahold of an actual stick to use. Or maybe you need to create a wooden staff that has a very specific…
Tutorial: Cosplay Swords for Beginners
Need a shield to go with your sword? check out my other tutorial (which includes two types of shields) Crafting a cosplay sword can elevate your costume from good to great, providing that element of realism that can impress at…
Tutorial: How to Make “Wooden” Shield for Costumes
You can use props of any kind to help your costume stand out within the crowd of cosplayers. One of the most common types of props that costumes call for is some form of shield. There are many different types…
Tutorial: How to Create Claws for Costumes
You can attach claws directly to your fingernails for a beast-like effect. The type of claws you make will depend on the overall look you’re going for and the amount of work you want to put into the claws. Nail…
Tutorial: How to Make Dragon or Bat Wings
Making cellophane wings is slightly more difficult than other methods of costume wings, but it’s still doable for the determined beginner. This method creates shining, see-through wings that look somewhat ephemeral. It’s best used for open wing structures, such as…
Tutorial: Create Armor Talons for Costumes (with moveable joints)
If you want to create talons that you can wear and move around with your fingers, EVA foam (or craft foam) will be the easiest material to use. You will create three separate pieces and create hinges around your finger…
Tutorial: How to Make a Snaggle Tooth for Costumes
Adding fangs to the bottom jaw is a little more difficult than adding them to the top. This is because most people have a slight overbite, so a bottom tooth that stands straight up will poke into your top gums…
Tutorial: How to Dye a Wig With Fabric Dye
This method of dying a wig with fabric dye will create the most uniform color throughout the wig compared to the other methods (or you can create a basic gradient). However, it’s more difficult to get a vibrant color and…
Tutorial: Create Costume Jewelry With EVA Foam
EVA foam is a common, lightweight material that is used for all kinds of cosplay props. You can get big sheets of a flat, foam material. Then you’ll cut it and use heat to shape the EVA foam into three-dimensional…
Cosplay Armor: How to Make a Simple Chest Plate
Many anime and video game characters have a chest plate as part of their costume design. This tutorial will go over the basics for creating your own breastplate with EVA foam. You can add as many details as you want…
Tutorial: Color Your Eyebrows to Match Bright Wigs
When you wear a bright and unnaturally colored wig with a costume, the natural color of your eyebrows will probably look a little awkward. To give your cosplay a more realistic look, you’ll want to use makeup to color your…
Cosplay Armor: How to Make a Full-Face Helmet with EVA Foam
Helmets are absolutely one of the most difficult pieces of armor to construct for a costume. Not only do you have to get the shape of the helmet right, but it also has to fit over your face (sometimes with…
How to Make a Detachable Magic Staff Prop (the easy way)
Sometimes magic staffs that you need for cosplay are too tall or large to easily transport to an anime convention. In these cases, you’ll need to design your prop in a way that allows you to detach the head, save…
Cosplay Armor: How to Make Basic Arm Bracers and Hand Guards
If you’re new to using EVA foam and making cosplay armor, arm guards are one of the easiest places to start. The shape and design for these are fairly simple, and you can easily make tests using paper before cutting…
9 Tips to Weather Your Props
Weathering props adds character and story to them. After all, what fighter will ever have a pristine shield or armor that looks like it’s never seen battle? All of the items that we use day-to-day will have some kind of…
4 Methods to Make Cosplay Props Look Like Metal (for beginners)
The easiest method for making your swords and other props look like metal is by using metallic acrylic paint. However, this doesn’t give you the most realistic effect, since there will always be brush strokes and surface texture even if…
Cosplay Armor: How to Create Leg Armor with a Knee Guard
This tutorial will go over the basic technique for creating leg armor with a knee guard. Leg armor is fairly straightforward to make, so this is a great project to start with if it’s your first time using EVA foam…
3 Methods to Create a Fake Beard or Goatee for Cosplay
There are a lot of skills to learn in cosplay, and one that doesn’t get talked about as much is creating fake facial hair. Despite this, it’s an essential skill for crossplayers to master but is a useful skill for…
How to Make Custom Goggles for Your Cosplay (it’s easier than you think)
Goggles are a very common accessory among cosplay protagonists, but they all come in unique shapes with odd details added on. Unless the character is very popular, it’s usually pretty difficult to find ready-made goggles that are perfect for your…
Cosplay Armor: How to Make Basic Pauldrons or Shoulder Guards
Because of their domed shape, pauldrons can be one of the more difficult pieces of armor until you understand the trick for creating curves. This tutorial will walk you through how to create basic shoulder guards. You can build upon…
Tutorial: Cover and Redraw Your Eyebrows to Match Your Wig
Unless you have very light eyebrows to begin with, the only way to truly match your wig color using makeup is by completely covering your eyebrows and redrawing them in a matching color. This method is easiest if you have…
Cosplay Armor: How to Make Hip Plates and Attach Them to Your Costume
Hip armor is a fairly common detail in anime and game character designs. It’s one of the easier types of armor to make since you can easily create mock-ups with paper to test out your design. Sometimes the hardest thing…
Tutorial: Create Fake Freckles Using a Spooly Brush
The idea of this method of creating freckles is to flick powder onto your face to create a truly random array of dark spots. You’ll get the widest variety in freckle size using this method since the powder can fall…
Cosplay Armor: How to Make a Female Chest Plate
If you were making an actual female breastplate, the construction wouldn’t actually be all that different from a standard male breastplate. However, most anime, cartoons, and video games take a lot of creative license with this. So as cosplayers, we…
How to Make Easy Deer Antlers for Cosplay
You can create antlers for your next cosplay (or Christmas-related event). This type of headdress is actually a lot simpler and cheaper than it looks. Even if you’ve never made a cosplay prop before, you’ll be able to get a…
Make Custom Rings For Cosplay (or just for fun)
Sometimes a character you’re cosplaying has a ring with a very unique design. You may be able to find a prop replica if it happens to be a popular show or series, but often your only option is to make…
How to Make a Cardboard Dagger or Knife for Your Cosplay (the easy way)
There are any number of ways to go about making a dagger for cosplay. If you’re a beginner and you want an easy first project to try your hand at prop making, this tutorial is for you. It is a…
Tutorial: How to Paint Faux Leather For Cosplay
There are lots of characters in anime, comics, D&D, and games that have leather as some aspect of their costume. However, real leather is not a material that most of us will want to use for a cosplay costume. Not…
How to Make (faux) Fur Animal Ears For Cosplay (a step-by-step guide)
In these tutorials you will learn how to create animal ears that are made of fur and can be attached directly to a wig or headband. The other method will involve attaching ears to a hoodie, coat, or caplet so…
Worbla 101: How to Use Worbla for Basic Cosplay Props
Worbla is a material used for cosplay that has become increasingly popular over the last decade. You may have heard of this material as a cosplay miracle-maker and want to know how you can use it too. Worbla is a…
Tutorial: How to Make Simple Shoujo-Style Wings For Costumes
You don’t need to be a master crafter to take your outfit to new heights; making simple wings for cosplay is something you can totally do on your own. This guide will walk you through the process, from selecting materials…
Tutorial: Cosplay Shoe Covers Using Fabric
Cosplay shoe covers are your secret weapon for bringing your favorite characters to life without breaking the bank on footwear. Instead of hunting down the perfect boots to match your costume, you can create a custom cover that slips over…
How to Make a Poseable Cosplay Tail for Cats and Tieflings
Your cosplay character has a tail and you want to make one that doesn’t just hang behind you lifelessly. You’ve come to the right place! I will teach you how to create a tail that you can position into various…
A Beginner’s Guide to EVA Foam for Costumes
EVA foam is a versatile material commonly used in creating costumes and props for cosplay. It’s lightweight, flexible, and can be shaped into complex forms, making it ideal for simulating armor, weaponry, and other intricate designs. When starting with EVA…
10 Easy Makeup Hacks to Level Up Your Cosplay
Before I started cosplaying, I didn’t wear makeup. I didn’t know what foundation was and had no clue how to apply eyeliner, eyeshadow or anything. It took a number of years of cosplaying before I really started getting the hang…
5 Simple Steps to Take Care of Cosplay Wigs
A good wig can effortlessly make or break your costume. Unfortunately, wigs are not always simple to work with. It’s too easy for wigs to tangle and frizz when transporting them or wearing them. Inappropriate storage can also lead to…
How to Correctly Wear a Lace Front Wig for Cosplay
Lace front wigs can drastically improve the look of a cosplay. They have a more natural hairline that gives even the craziest anime hairstyles a more seamless look. However, to achieve the most with your lace front wig, you have…
Tutorial: How to Make Vampire Fangs for Cosplay
It’s pretty easy to create custom fangs for your next cosplay. You can use a non-toxic thermoplastic and mold your fangs from scratch. With this method, you can also create bottom fangs, a snaggle tooth, or even large tusks (links…
Tutorial: Make a Unicorn Horn and Hold it on Your Forehead
Whether you’re dressing up as a unicorn for Halloween, cosplaying as a galarian ponyta, or just want to be a narwhal, you’ll have to make a horn to match your costume. If you’re ambitious, you might also try to find…
Tutorial: How to Create a Perfect Bow (shoujo style)
I am not good at tying bows. They always end up droopy, uneven, and upside down (somehow?). So for cosplay, I try to never rely on my ability to tie a pretty bow. Instead, I fake it. There are multiple…
How to Create Custom Gems for Your Next Cosplay
Gems are used everywhere in anime, cartoons, comics, and TV shows. If you cosplay a lot, you’ll have to figure out how to make them at some point. It’s inevitable. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to find ready-made gems…
Tutorial: How to Make the Perfect Witch Hat for Cosplay or Halloween
Have you tried making a witch hat only to find that it looks stiff and lifeless or keeps drooping? Well, I have the fix for you! Mostly, this comes down to the material you use for your witch hat. I…
Resin 101: How to Cast Resin and Make a Custom Silicone Mold
Resin is a useful tool in cosplay, especially when you need to create multiple copies of one costume piece. A custom resin mold makes it easy for everything on the costume to look uniform. You can easily purchase ready-made molds…
Tutorial: How to Remove Shine from Costume Wigs
High-sheen wigs can look fake and detract from the authenticity of your character portrayal. But don’t worry—toning down the shine on your cosplay wig is easier than you might think. With a few household items and simple techniques, you can…
How to Create Custom Hats for Cosplay (with EVA foam)
Hats are one of those parts of cosplay costumes that are intimidating to many beginners. Unless it’s a popular character, you’re not going to be able to find your hat in the store. Of course, you can find a similar…
Tutorial: Using Paper Clay for Cosplay Props
Clay is my favorite type of material to use for my cosplay props. It’s a beginner-friendly material, and it’s fairly cheap compared to many alternatives. You also don’t need to work with a pattern like you do with most other…
How to Tea-Dye Fabric and Synthetic Wigs
Tea staining fabric and wigs is a really simple skill that can help to add dimension and subtle realism to your costume. It can help your white fabric look aged or worn. If you want, you can also create a…
Tutorial: How to Make Stretch Gloves for Costumes
Custom gloves can add that finishing touch to your costume, setting you apart in a sea of store-bought outfits. From sleek superheroes to Victorian damsels, gloves can play an essential role in a character’s look. Making gloves might seem daunting…
Making Comfortable Invisible Shoes for Barefoot Cosplays
It’s not uncommon for characters in movies, comics, and anime to walk around barefoot all the time. They don’t have to worry about glass on the ground or rusty nails on the ground (or just plain unsanitary conditions). If you…
Tutorial: Dye a Synthetic Wig With Bold Colors for Costumes (gradient colors too!)
If you’ve got a synthetic wig and you’re looking to switch up its color, consider using acrylic ink rather than traditional dye. It’s a popular method among DIY enthusiasts and cosplay fans for its flexibility and the vivid color results…
How to Make a Custom Prop Template for Any Cosplay (without software)
The starting point for (almost) all cosplay props is a template. This is especially important for any props you’ll be making out of EVA foam or Worbla. The template will act similar to a sewing pattern so you can have…
Tutorial: How to Use Polymer Clay for Cosplay Jewelry
It’s pretty common for characters from all sorts of anime, comics, or games to be wearing jewelry that you just can’t find at a store. Sometimes the jewelry pieces have symbolism that has meaning to the character, and sometimes it’s…
How to Style a Wig WITHOUT a Wig Head
If you’re new to cosplay or new to wearing wigs with your costumes, you may not have realized that wigs you order will almost always require some amount of styling when they come out of the bag. You probably didn’t…
3 Methods to Add Volume to Your Cosplay Wig
It’s pretty common for anime and comic characters to have extremely fluffy hair. Sometimes, when you get a new wig for cosplay it looks a little flat and boring. Even if the wig is high quality, it just might not…
Tutorial: Short Wig Long Hair
Wearing a short wig when you have long hair can seem like a daunting task, but it’s a lot simpler than you might think. Getting that sleek look without any tell-tale lumps or bumps just takes a bit of practice…
Tutorial: How to Create Fake Freckles With Eyeliner Pencils
There are many characters that have freckles. If you want to cosplay them accurately and you don’t have any, you’ll need to use makeup to your advantage so you can complete your freckled look. There are multiple ways you can…
Tutorial: Butterfly Fairy Wings (with wire and fabric)
Fabric and wire are ideal for creating large wings with a closed shape. Butterfly or insect wings are good options. The idea is to create your desired shape with the wire, pull the fabric over it, and paint your design…
Tutorial: How to Make Fake Burn Scars With Liquid Latex
Liquid latex is the most versatile method for creating scars, cuts, and any kind of special effects makeup. You can use it to create large burn scars, like for Zuko or Todoroki, but you can also use it for realistic…
Tutorial: How to Quickly Detangle a Cosplay Wig
If it’s the day before the convention and you’re just realizing your wig needs some work, you can still make a lot of progress on the wig without completely washing it. This method won’t necessarily get your wig looking shiny…
Tutorial: Create a Round Domed Shield for Costumes
For this tutorial, we will be heat-forming a flat disc of EVA foam into a domed shape (like the Captain America shield). If you’re unfamiliar with EVA foam, I recommend you take a couple of minutes to learn the basics…
Tutorial: How to Make a Wig Bigger
Some wigs are quite so. So small, in fact, that the wig won’t fit around your head head. In this case, you’ll need to adjust the wig to be a size bigger. This is actually a fairly common issue when…
Tutorial: Making Large Tusks for Costumes
To make your tusks, we’re going to use moldable thermoplastic. This is a type of material that looks like small bead dots to start. When you heat them, they melt into a putty-like material that you can use to mold…
Tutorial: Make a Clip-On Unicorn Horn
For this tutorial, you use two strands of clay and twist them around each other to create the horn effect. This method creates unicorn horns that have a somewhat more cartoonish look, which will work well for a lot of…
Tutorial: Sew an Anime-Style Bow With Ribbon
This is not a tutorial for how to tie a bow, instead it’s for how to sew one in place so you can reuse it. It will create a bow with a visible looping effect, rather than the flat look…
Tutorial: Easy Full-Face Mask for Costumes
There are many, many ways of creating a full mask, but this is the method that’s the cheapest and does not require you to make a mold of your face. This method will not work for a mask that’s supposed…
Tutorial: Using Foam Clay for Costume Props
Foam clay is kind of like plastic clay. It’s a little rubbery and moldable, but when it dries it behaves similarly to EVA foam. EVA foam is a common material used for cosplay prop making. It’s excellent for making lightweight…
Tutorial: How to Color a Wig With Sharpies
You can use sharpies to color a wig and dye it. This is the method that takes a lot of time, but also gives you the most control over where the color appears, if you need to make a specific…
Tutorial: How to Make Costume Scars With Only Makeup
If you don’t want to use liquid latex or rigid collodion, you can create scars by simply drawing them on with makeup. This method is ideal for scars that are very close to or on top of senstive areas (like…
Tutorial: Creating Faux Leather With EVA Foam
You can use EVA foam to create a faux leather effect. It’s not going to be 100% realistic, but the overall look is still pretty good for costumes. While I certainly don’t recommend using EVA foam in any kind of…
Tutorial: Easy Vampire Fangs with Acrylic Nails
It’s pretty easy to create custom fangs for your next cosplay. The cheap, simple method is to use acrylic nails and cut them into points. If you want to create more realistic teeth, you can use a non-toxic thermoplastic and…
Tutorial: Make a Cute Fake Bow for Hair Accessories and Waistbands
This method for creating a bow is not really trying to look real. It more of a 2-D version of a bow that looks great for costumes based on anime or cartoon characters. This type of faux bow is simple…
Tutorial: Easy Visor Tutorial for Costumes
In this tutorial, I’ll be making a visor using EVA foam (or craft foam). But you can use the same idea to construct many different types of simple hats. This works best for hats that you can build off of…
Tutorial: How to Use Polymer Clay for Costume Props and Accessories
Polymer clay is a type of clay that needs to be baked to harden. You can mold it as much as you want before baking, the clay will not dry out, but once you bake it, you cannot go back…
Tutorial: How to Make Gloves (and fingerless) for Anime Costumes
Making gloves from non-stretch fabric is difficult because you need to take the thickness of your hand and fingers into account. The fabric is not going to be able to stretch around your hand. It took me three tries to…
Tutorial: How to Tea-Dye a Synthetic Wig
Because cosplay wigs are made of plastic fibers, they don’t tea-stain as easily as natural fabrics. You will need to leave them in the tea bath overnight if you want a truly blonde color. However, a tea-stained blonde wig will…
Tutorial: Make Gems for Custom Jewelry with Resin
A lot of jewelry will have gems and jewels inlaid as part of the design. The good news is that you don’t have to go out and purchase expensive gemstones to recreate the costume piece. Instead, you can create fake…
EVA Foam FAQ for Costume Props
When you’re stepping into the world of cosplay, crafting your own costume is half the adventure. One of the golden materials at your disposal is EVA foam, a favorite in the cosplayer’s toolkit. It’s versatile, lightweight, and relatively easy to…
A Beginner’s Guide to Cosplay Armor (tips and tutorials)
Making cosplay armor may seem like a daunting task when you first start out. And I’m not going to lie to you, cosplay armor is not easy. BUT you can figure it out. You do not have to be an…
How to Iron Your Cosplay Costume
It happens pretty frequently. You have a beautiful costume ready to wear at the next convention only to unpack it in the hotel room and find that it’s become wrinkled during transport. You want your costume to look as good…
How to Wash Cosplay Costumes Without Ruining Them
You had a blast wearing your costume to the latest anime convention or comic con, but now you realize that your costume stinks. In fact, most of the time the dreaded con-funk that you hear of isn’t actually from people…
7 Ways to Make Your Hair Colored for a Costume
There are so many characters from anime, movies, comics, and games that have unusual and unnatural hair colors. You might also want to find a way to temporarily color your hair a different natural color without applying any kind of…
6 Ways to Make Your Hair White or Gray for a Costume
It’s not uncommon for characters from anime, movies, comics, and games to have stark white hair that you want to mimic. You might also want to color your hair gray to wear a costume of a middle-aged or older character…
What Kind of Paint Do You Use for Cosplay?
An often overlooked but highly important step of cosplay construction is the process of painting. Even if you’ve done a fantastic job at sewing your costume or putting your prop together, it won’t look great if you did a shoddy…
Washing and Storing Cosplay After the Con is Over
You just got back from a long convention and all you want to do is throw your costumes into the closet and forget about them. But don’t do it! If you take a little bit of time now to store…
Tutorial: Realistic Fake Freckles Using a Stipple Sponge (for cosplay)
For this method of creating fake freckles, you will use a stipple sponge (often used for stage makeup) to press a pattern of freckles onto your face. It’s best to use cream makeup for this method, but you can also…
How to Make a Devil Tail and Horns (For Halloween, cosplay, tieflings, etc.)
If you want to be a devil, demon, tiefling, oni, or any other similar type of mythical creature, you’ll want to make a tail and some horns to go with the costume. There are a lot of different ways to…
5 Ways to Keep Any Hat On Your Head (even if it’s tilted)
Sometimes anime characters have the weirdest designs. Maybe they have a hat that’s so top-heavy, there’s no way it could stay up. Or maybe it’s tilted all the way to the side of the head. Alternatively, maybe you’re faced with…
7 Tips to Store Cosplay Wigs After the Convention is Over
The anime convention is over and all you want to do is rip your wig off your head and toss it into your suitcase to bring home. Or maybe you’re already home and realize you need to take the wig…
Tips to Keep Cosplay Wigs from Sliding Back
Struggling with your cosplay wig slipping can be a real hassle, especially when you’re doing your best to stay in character. Whether at a convention or a photoshoot, the last thing you want is to keep adjusting your wig. Fortunately,…
How to Wear a Cosplay Wig (and make it look natural)
Did you ever try on a wig for cosplay only to be disappointed at how odd it looks on your face? The wig looked lumpy, the bangs looked weird and the wig hair just didn’t hang down in a natural…
7 Tips for Flawless Anime Makeup for Cosplay
Anime characters have it good. They never have to worry about pimples, wrinkles, or discolored skin. Not to mention their big, adorable eyes. It can be difficult to translate these perfect cartoon faces onto our own very real faces. But,…
10 Quick Tips for Wig Styling for Costumes
Stepping into the vibrant world of cosplay can be thrilling, and part of that excitement is bringing your favorite characters to life. One of the key aspects of your transformation is the wig. You might feel a bit overwhelmed at…
How to Make Long Ears Stand Up on a Hoodie (a step-by-step guide)
This method will involve attaching ears to a hoodie, coat, or caplet so that they stand up straight on top of your head. I’ll be making rabbit ears, but the same technique can be used for Eeveelution ears, totoro ears,…