When it comes to incredible cosplay, San Diego Comic-Con always delivers, and this year was no exception. The event, which ran from July 20 to July 23 and took place at the famed San Diego Convention Center, brought fun panels, cool interactive experiences, and almost provided us with an unofficial GTA: San Andreas restaurant before Rockstar’s lawyers shut it down. But what about the cosplay?
The video and photos brought to you today were all provided, as usual, by Minerablu (you can check out way more of his stuff on his Instagram page or on his YouTube channel). Click through to see The Fifth Element cosplays, The Last of Us looks, and much, much more.
From Comic-Con to C2E2, the vast majority of cosplay coverage you see on this website comes from American conventions. Which is fine! This is an American website, many of the world’s biggest shows are in the US and our intrepid cosplay photographer Mineralblu is also American.
But sometimes it’s nice to break that up a little, no? Spread our wings, fly overseas, check out a cosplay show on some other shores. So it’s wonderful tonight to get the chance to share this video and gallery of cosplayers from Dreamhack Melbourne, a show that took place earlier this year and is the first time in a long time we’ve been able to feature a show post made up mostly of Aussie cosplayers.
In this slideshow you’ll find a video of the show below, then images of some of our favourite cosplay, with a cosplayer’s credits, social media info and character details watermarked on each.
As usual—so yeah, he went some distance for this one!—all video and photos are by Mineralblu, and you can check out more of his work at his Facebook page.
Our favourite cosplay from Dreamhack Melbourne 2023
Maul is one of the best and most famous cosplayers on the planet, a man whose work we’ve featured here for everything from God of War to Assassin’s Creed to, repeatedly, The Witcher. His latest shoot, however, might well be his best yet.
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To commemorate the anniversary of Superman’s comics debut back in 1938, Maul took to the skies above Cologne/Köln (home of GamesCom!) to pay tribute to a character who “is my absolute hero”. With a crane, some cables, harnesses and no small amount of bravery, Maul and Emilija Wellrock—playing Lois Lane—were hoisted above the city to hold up a van, a helicopter and each other.
Photo: Maul Cosplay | Jun Kim | eosAndy
To pull it off of course required a whole team of folks working behind the scenes. Firstly, it should be noted, Maul—who has stuntman training—didn’t just wake up one day and bankroll this whole thing from his billionaire cosplay holdings; the shoot was sponsored by Pringles, as many big-budget cosplay features are these days.
All that organisation and work was more than worth it, though, when you see the results. Maul and Wellrock ended up getting hoisted 70 metres (230 feet) into the air above the city for most of the shots:
Photo: Maul Cosplay | Jun Kim | eosAndy
With the exception being this one taken on the ground, with Maul (and a crane) holding up a van:
Photo: Maul Cosplay | Jun Kim | eosAndy
And yes, OK, there had to be a little bit of editing required to get rid of the wires, but that doesn’t count.
You can see the full gallery of shots at Maul’s Facebook page, and below is the first of two short videos showing some of the preparation work that went into it all:
And here’s a clip uploaded by Wellrock showing the pair taking off:
Holiday Matsuri is one of the coolest cosplay shows on the North American calendar. Taking place in Florida in December, the location means that instead of shivering inside a convention centre somewhere freezing their asses off, attendees are instead free to hit the pool, and the timing means we get to see a bunch of neat holiday-themed takes on costumes.
The 2019 edition (which we covered in early 2020) was one of the last before the pandemic hit, and while the event returned in 2021 it wasn’t until the most recent show that things really got back in their stride.
In this gallery you’ll find both a music video and collection of photos of the 2022 event, all taken by Mineralblu. Each cosplayer’s social media, character and series details are watermarked on the image.
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The 2022 edition of the LACC went down at the Los Angeles Convention Center between December 2-4. Why are we only posting it now? I’ve been on vacation, give me a break!
It’s comfortably one of the biggest nerd shows on the calendar; last year’s event drew over 126,000 people through the gates over those three days, and because a huge number of them were cosplayers, the video and pics you’re about to see are of the highest order.
As usual everything was shot by our friend Mineralblu, and as usual you’ll find each cosplayer’s character, series and social media details watermarked on the image. You can see some video highlights below, or click through for a gallery of some of our favourite photos.
THIS IS LOS ANGELES COMIC CON LACC 2022 MASHUP BEST COSPLAY MUSIC VIDEO BEST COSTUMES ANIME EXPO CMV
New York was able to hold its biggest Comic-Con since 2019 last month, and fans certainly turned up for it; around 200,000 people went through the turnstiles between October 6-9 at the Javits Center, many of them cosplayers.
In this gallery you’ll find a collection of some of our favourite cosplay from the event, with highlights ranging from people wearing costumes to people wearing enormous costumes.
First, though, this video recap of the event by Mineralblu! And after that, clicking through the slideshow will be a collection of photos (also taken by Mineralblu), in which you’ll find each cosplayer’s character, series and social media information watermarked on each image.
THIS IS NEW YORK COMIC CON 2022 NYCC BEST COSPLAY MUSIC VIDEO BEST COSTUMES ANIME CMV NYC MANHATTAN
We post galleries from major cosplay shows all the time, and they’re always excellent, but for the recent New York Comic-Con one photographer wanted to do things a little differently.
Wanting to try something beyond just taking nice photos, veteran photographer Andrew Boyle (disclaimer: I wrote the foreword for his book) thought that for this year’s show he’d try and make the cosplayer “the sole focus” of his work.
“After my cosplay photo book ‘Heroes & Villains’ came out in 2017, I thought I’d relax it up a bit with the subject matter, but it kept pulling me back; the effort, the enthusiasm and the sense of community amongst the costumed fans”, Boyle tells Kotaku. “I shoot in a uniform style inspired by the portraits of Richard Avedon, so that the sole focus is the subject without background distraction.”
“I also work in collage pieces and motion I wanted to integrate a unique hand made feel for each selected subject. For some, I used cut out pieces that referred to the character, others were repetition of shapes, or color blocking with paper and textures. It was a way to differentiate from other cosplay photography, all of which has it’s own approach, and take a different feel to celebrate all the effort and energy the NYCC crowd brings. Plus I love reading the reactions people have to seeing themselves portrayed in such a way.”
The result is this heavily-stylised gallery which, by removing the usual convention background, really lets each cosplayer, their outfit and their performance shine.
