I've got some online friends that do that sort of thing, they even have booths at the major events selling their art and other stuff. I know one girl, an immensely cute Japanese-Canadian young woman that is making a decent living from cosplay and Lolita styles, she can get upwards of $800-900 for one of her designs. She gets invited to events all around the world and they pay her expenses, air fare, hotel, meals, everything, just so she will come and speak to them in a two hour panel discussion. How many people do you know that get round trip first class air fare to Perth, AUS. along with a top notch hotel suite, just to participate in a panel discussion on Emerging Trends in Lolita Fashion?

Another young woman I know will spend $500-$600 on material and countless hours making her own cosplay outfits and she generally makes four to take to a convention. One for each day - Friday evening, all day Saturday, and Sunday until the convention closes. All in all the people doing cosplay are like people involved in any organized activity. Many are nice, some are such sweet people you want to keep them as BFFs. The majority, well they are the majority in any group, mostly just going along for the fun and friendships.

Then there are the assholes, like the "reviewer" who has never seen a costume he didn't hate, the hecklers, the grumps, the followers-on. Then there are a select group of dicks (of both sexes) that will try and take somebody down if they look better than the evil one. They'll resort to deliberate sabotage if they have to. "Oh, I'm so sorry, did I spill my super-sized Coke on the dress you were going to wear in the pageant contest this evening? Well, maybe you can have it cleaned when you get home. Here's a couple of bucks to help pay for the cleaning. Well, I must go, I'm due to be in a photo shoot shortly."

Being an Okie, I would have thought you'd have heard about the yearly con in Tulsa, "Tokyo in Tulsa" It's fun to go and look at all the array of clothing the people are wearing. I've put together a couple of costumes I wear to blend in. Ones a gothic Lolita style, the other is kind of a street Lolita look, a cute jumper that must have about 4,000 safety pins adorning it, a tastefully designed "lower class" frilly blouse, about 4 pettycoats to fluff out the skirt. white knee socks with lace around the tops, and a pair of Mary Janes with 4 inch heels. Oh and my cute little tophat, must be about 4 inchs in diameter (the brim, that is, the hat is about half that) and the ribbons to tie it on. I need an artfully distressed umbrella with the usual Lolita accouterments, but the going rate is pretty stiff.

This is all second tier stuff, BTSSB and AP are simply out of my budget. I've had a few nice pieces gifted me by some really sweet friends, which is even more generous than you realize. Resale value of gently used top tier items is about two-thirds of retail, so the items they gave me could have put a real jingle in their purses.

I know there is a con in Dallas-Fort Worth every year, and I have heard some people in OKC may be putting something together, so that gives you two, possibly three places to look the scene over. It really is fun, with lots of great people!

Number one on that list is Yuna, from one of my favorite Final Fantasy games; Final Fantasy X (an extremely popular series of role playing games). Final Fantasy X was so popular they made a sequel (X-2) and changed the character's costumes. In fact, they had multiple "jobs" to play as, from warrior to songstress, and changed between jobs with something called "dress spheres". (A lot of costumes to play with in that regard.) Yuna was the secondary main character of the first story (X), and arguably the main character in X-2 (although she split that title with 2 other female characters). Final Fantasy X-2 was actually the first game I ever played where the main characters were all female, and not simply thrown in as token characters for the girls to play.

Another popular game series, Tomb Raider, also had a female main character. That would be number 12 on the list. Lara Croft journeyed from tomb to tomb solving puzzles and fighting ancient baddies (usually) to collect relics. Think male Indiana Jones, but more guns. The game series was so popular, it had two movies as a result, both starring Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft. Lara was actually the pinnacle of female lead characters in video games.

Mostly cosplay is popular video game or anime characters. I don't watch a lot of anime, so I don't recognize half of the costumes people wear for cosplay. Although, most of the video game characters are highly recognizable to me. People also dress up as popular characters from movies and tv shows (Star Wars and Star Trek being popular at sci-fi conventions), as well as comic book characters (more popular at Comicons). Basically anything that is recognizable in pop culture, someone will dress up as that character eventually.