TF2's Amazing Cosplay Possibilities

hi hello it's me the TF2 girl has my on-screen appearance spooked you would you rather I go back to the avatar wrong Avatar [Music] so cosplay despite the fact that I've been doing this longer than seriously creating YouTube content I've never actually made a true video in my style about it I've done a couple Vlog Style videos about my time at a convention but I've never truly talked about it in depth that changes today it's well overdue but it's time I talk about cosplaying and since it's the only way to appease the masses and the algorithm I'll be talking specifically about the wonderful world of TF2 cosplay and why it's such an underrated property for anyone and everyone to tackle but since this is a topic that's not super familiar to my YouTube channel I've got to give you guys an introduction to it before we take a deeper dive though to be fair even if it was a well-known topic we all know I'd explain it anyhow if you want to get into the nitty-gritty here's a time stamp for when I start diving into the TF2 stuff so technically cosplay is made up of two parts the costume and the role-playing hence caused playing is pretty straightforward costume refers to what you're currently seeing on my body the clothing the accessories anything that transforms your appearance into the intended character but that's something I'm assuming all of you know it's like Halloween without the one day a year dress-up restriction the costume someone chooses to assemble doesn't have to be accurate nor does it have to be Handmade by yourself it can be items repurposed from your existing wardrobe for a casual cosplay it can be a pre-made costume you purchase from a store like what a lot of people do for Halloween if you're just doing it for fun put however much time money and effort into it as you want for me personally though I'm a perfectionist and accuracy fiend so I usually try to get my costumes as close to the source material as possible and I think that'll be pretty evident throughout this video on the other hand there's role playing the act of well acting as the character of what you're dressed up as technically cosplay is considered a performing art when you take into account the role-playing aspect of the term however and this is a big big however cosplaying does not have to include role playing you do not have to act in character if it's not your type of thing this is something I want to make clear for two reasons the first is that I believe there can be a bit of a lack of understanding as to what exactly cosplaying is I think some people think it really is some big performative art akin to a stage show or drag queens and it absolutely can be but in reality if you're just doing it for fun it can be whatever you want for some it may just be the costume part of Cosplay and that's totally fine my second reason is that I'm frankly a failure in the play part of Cosplay role-playing means really putting yourself out there and it's something I'm not comfortable doing sure it may look like I'm putting myself out there right now but it's because I'm doing it in the comfort of my own home as long as I don't think about the thousands of people who may be watching in the future I'm perfectly fine but doing so in public at a convention makes me feel weird in a not good way so if it wasn't obvious I'll be focusing on the costume side of things as I'm not one to be able to speak on the role-playing aspects of Cosplay go to go to Tumblr or something if you want role-playing discussions this isn't the video for that but why do people cosplay I just gave you the soulless literal definition of the word but the real question is why why do people do it a relatively safe answer to that is cosplay is an art form it can be used by people to show their love and appreciation for something whether that be original characters or characters from an IP spending time money and skill crafting a costume and or their role-playing skills is often a way for someone to visually state that yes I like this thing and here's how I will show that some people make videos some write fan fiction some make fan art and some people dress up as a 6 000 year old Wizard who's lost his hat to further prove they have an unchecked obsession so why TF2 why cosplay TF2 let's look at a lineup of the mercs the main characters were going to be analyzing an important first step in cosplaying is to break down the costume so you know what makes up the entire outfit you'll notice that a lot of them are wearing pretty basic pieces of clothing lots of solid colored shirts slacks and Boots sniper and Angie are wearing solid colored long sleeve colored t-shirts with rolled up sleeves Scout is wearing a super basic T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up Heavies wearing a colored pullover vest solid colored t-shirt and an undershirt because TF2 is set in the late 1960s early 1970s The Mercenaries default uniforms are pretty grounded in reality despite their color foolish nature it's not like an anime costume where you have fabric that defies the laws of physics that require some serious engineering to recreate oh you you thought I was gonna show a picture of that an example yeah no I'm not angering the demonetizing gods to show an overly busty unrealistic woman whose breasticles may as well be flopping about only additions to most of the Merck standard clothing are the class emblems on their shoulders which are either easily recreatable with some crafting or purchasable online from various places even custom pieces of clothing like medic's coat are all based around real world items if you're working on a budget it can easily be worked around so long as your goal isn't accuracy the current point I'm trying to make is that there is a lot of pieces of the costumes that can easily be found at clothing hardware and military supply stores making them pretty easy to find in terms of the team colored clothing articles red is generally easier to find than blue simply because the shade of blue used for the blue team is a bit uncommon the only one I find notably easier to find for blue is specifically spy maybe engineer extends out to the rest of the cast as well TF2 keeps its base character designs pretty simple which is an effect of the art style and time period the game is based off of even some characters that have slightly more complex pieces to their design like merasmus's skull hat or greymon's life extending machine are still dressed in simplistic outfits that are made up of relatively Common Real World clothing this character design that TF2 employs lends itself really really well to thrifting one of my rules of cosplaying is if it exists there's no reason to custom make it so long as you aren't entering any professional costume contest which usually requires 60 or more of a costume to be handmade then there's no reason to make Scout's basic shirt from scratch it's literally just a t-shirt with rolled up sleeves with your help we can all remember that Scout wears his sleeves rolled up this has been a public Skyman announcement spend time making more Uncommon complex pieces as opposed to a common colored shirt being that a lot of tf2's clothing can be bought off the rack with little to no modification thrift stores can be ripe with options especially if you're working on a budget several classes outfits can be done for relatively cheap if you just argen hunt around now I'm only talking about the outfits here once you get into backpacks like Medics or full-on weapon props like a flamethrower you can't exactly Waltz into a Goodwill and find one sitting on the back shelf for 9.99 the most modification most pieces of clothings will need is the addition of the class emblems on the shirt shoulders yeah there we go here you can see it I think maybe seven of the nine classes have these emblems but adding them is pretty simple especially for beginners there's a bunch of crafting methods to go about but for new people the easiest option is finding embroidered patches online and ironing them on if I were to rank The Mercenaries from hardest default costume to easiest in terms of accuracy and Recreation this is what I'd say Medics completely custom coat is a must make or commission while you can fudge it with a lab coat a standard lab coat looks nothing like Medics and because medic's coat is integral to his design it still has to look somewhat similar the medipack also requires craft skills additionally this costume is hot like really hot due to the fact that you're covered from the neck to Toe with pleather or rubber gloves insulating everything however an alternative much easier option is casual medic you know medic without the coat as he originally appears in Meet the medic if I were to place that somewhere I'd place it as the second easiest costume to do pyro also has a custom mask that really doesn't exist anywhere you can find a similar mask online but if you wanted to go for accuracy you'd need to get crafty plus there were a lot of extra bits and Bobs even if we take out the gas tank on the back this is also a really hot costume likely worse than medic due to the mask highly custom vest that if you want to try to aim for accuracy it will need to be made as a tip from a demo I once met a yoga mat is a great material to use because the vest is pretty rigid spies balaclava is unique and while you can probably find one online somewhere chances are you'll need to modify it as most ski masks don't have one giant eye hole and a mouth hole like it's glued to his chin additionally finding a pinstripe suit particularly a red one is extremely hard it's why most spies go for Blue uh the colors in the mask and the suit are much easier to find though a lot of spies do say screw the colors and just grab black suits and work with what they can semi difficult part is his vest which is unique even then a lot of people fudge it since the details of his vest aren't the most identifying parts of his outfit everything else can easily be found as real world items the hardest part about Soldier is probably finding a tunic like coat I have no personal experience with this costume so I'm more or less inferring all of Angie's outfits are common pieces you can find in clothing and hardware stores the only thing you'll need to probably do is paint the knee pads but that's only if you're a stickler for the shade of yellow they are yellow knee pads are actually really common in industrial equipment heavy is mostly normal clothing as well with his vest probably being the hardest to find but even then it's the easiest style of this to come across a fake bandolier is really easy to find as well if you're going for detail and accuracy you'd probably have to pay the bandolier though lastly the Scout is just pissed easy the the hardest part about the outfit really is just the headset that's about it and I guess the shoes if you want to get super accurate which good luck you're either gonna have to paint some shoes or you're gonna have to go buy some from the 60s TF2 cosplay is so so friendly to new people unlike the game there is so much that doesn't have to be handmade it doesn't require serious crafting and sewing skills unless you choose to because of how basic many of the outfits are like any property some character designs are a little bit more complex and involved like Medics but even then due to the iconic nature of his appearance many have worked around his custom coat by using white lab coats because it can still be easily identifiable as medic why because the iconic nature of the mercenaries designs are derived from their outfits not their bodily appearances while a large emphasis was placed on the body types and postures for the sake of clarity in game what really sets them apart to be recognized out in the real world are their outfits not their faces this means TF2 lends itself really well to omitting the required use of wigs and makeup at least for The Mercenaries who thinks about Scout's hair huh it's so Bland and unimportant hell half of these people either don't have hair or if they do it's completely covered a medic probably has the most distinct hairstyle and that's just because of this little wisp of a bang it's it's not that important these aren't anime people where a character is designed and identifiable by illogical hairstyles and color this is a hat simulator masquerading as a shooting game everyone has a military style haircuts covered by wacky nonsensical hats or maybe sometimes they do get wacky nonsensical hairstyles but I digress wigs and makeup can be daunting to a lot of people who are just starting out some may not be comfortable maintaining wigs and some may not even be comfortable doing those things in general I can tell you I'm one of them wigs are uncomfortable to wear for an entire sweat filled day and I just personally don't like makeup so I don't do that as part of my cosplays unless I deem it absolutely required and with TF2 there were a bunch of guys killing each other on a battlefield what is there to make up maybe some five o'clock shadow and some eyebrows if you really want to get accurate but that's pretty much it probably also helps that original characters are pretty prominent within the TF2 fandom need an example of an OC fem Scout we all know Femme Scout and she was originally an OC since the concept of female mercenaries being a prominent use of rule 63 well before it was revealed that there were actual plans to implement female classes into a game yeah if you didn't know that it's actually really fascinating so I'm guessing a lot of you are pretty used to seeing different character designs wearing either identical outfits to The Mercenaries or adapted outfits that still keep the identifiable aspects of the original because TF2 character designs are very much about the outfit the person wearing the costume doesn't matter visually I mean look at me do I look like some 50 year old German man no but can you tell I'm the medic yes because I have all the parts of the costume that identify me as that plus my dumb hat I was going to put this on but I realized I have no mobility in this costume especially with these gloves so I'm just gonna smash cut which is a great segue into the second reason why TF2 is such an amazing IP to cosplay TF2 is the Hat simulator we all know that right TF2 has literally over a thousand Cosmetics that can be used to dress your mercenaries up however you please and this is something that can be factored into your costume this is wholly unique to TF2 cosplay a lot of cosplayers already get creative with their costumes some do franchise crossovers some modify it based on a meme and some just want to put their personal Flair on it tf2's absurd amount of Cosmetics actually kind of works like a blueprint for creativity and individuality want to do something other than default sniper make him an edgy fashioned avoid Bushman with the anger extra layer and Flashdance footies don't want to do the same old Tire default Scout festivize them up however I have found that there is a bit of a downside to customizing your look for a cosplay the general rule I've come to realize is that the more you deviate from mercenary's default look the less recognizable you become regardless of accuracy let's compare my normal Scout and my festive Scout on my festive Scout removes the iconic headgear and hat combo as well as the solid red shirt you guys know this is Scout but that's because you're watching a video about TF2 cosplay but think about seeing this in the wild no context nothing at all you just see me walk by which of these two costumes would you recognize as Scout first probably the default right because that design is likely burned into your memory but the festive one is not hell you may not even recognize some of the Cosmetic pieces simply because TF2 has so damn many and that's the greatest thing about TF2 cosplay endless customization constant iteration between weapons cosmetics and teams there may as well be an infinite amount of possibilities for people who want their costumes to be unique from the thousands of other Scouts that have existed you can easily do that with the Myriad of Cosmetics the game has introduced the Cosmetic possibilities also provide challenges some of the props needed require you to get pretty crafty for instance I think it's safe to say that this festive pile of hats is a lot more complex than my standard medic tyrolian and you can tell just by looking at them or how there's a stark difference in the difficulty of making a golden frying pan versus a sun on a stick that I'm not going to turn on because if I turn it on I'm going to give you guys a seizure through the footage TF2 offers crafting challenges for all levels of experience and skill and that's what makes TF2 such a wonderful thing to cause play throughout my nine years of cosplaying I've always come back to TF2 not just because I love it but because I can continue to pick up more challenging things to do with it and improve what I've done in the past the insane number of potential props and outfit choices means you can always add something new to your cosplay for instance over the years I've made a real conscientious objector a holy mackerel golden pan a sun on a stick and some more that I I probably don't even own anymore to be honest and that's just Scout although the conscientious objector is an all-class weapon with sniper I've had a sniper rifle Huntsman and gerardi and there's always something new you can add whether it be things made with your own hands or commissioned from an artist I feel that TF2 cosplay has really only scratched the surface of possibilities despite the fact the game has been around since 2007. not only do I want to see more people give it a shot regardless of experience I want to see more people stray away from the default looks give me that cancerous lime green Scout give me that Burly Beast medic give me that Mr Mundy's Wild Ride Sniper I'm serious I want to see someone do this even if they just get a crappy blow up ostrich costume from Spirit Halloween TF2 cosplay has something for everyone and it certainly deserves more participation and respect from the overall community so how do you get into TF2 cosplay what do you do if you don't have any crafting or sewing skills for the more complex pieces well you have two choices you can either buy everything or it's time to start learning new skills I'm going to give you guys some broad advice as opposed to specific storefront links because I don't want to point you to a store that may not exist down the line first off if you are wanting to buy an entire costume for the love of God don't cheap out oh yeah that hundred dollar complete sniper set might look nice online but once you get it just just don't do it don't get entire costume sets from Amazon easy cosplay or any mass-produced storefront individual pieces can work but my general advice is if it's shirt or pants for the love of Saxton please just get normal shirts and pants these sets tend to use the worst most rigid materials my original sniper was from one of these sets and I had to immediately replace the shirt because once I barely got my head through the hole my shoulders couldn't even move an inch the only thing that remains from the set is this vest because it did a serviceable job and I've never gotten around to replacing it only adding minor modifications to make it look a little bit better than it initially did see bullets those bullets didn't come with that costume gotta go add those yourself if you're wanting to buy an entire outfit or a large part of one I'd really suggest going to an individually owned storefront to commission it most of the time you want to find some place that asks for your measurements now asking for measurements doesn't always mean they're actually taking them into account as the front could just be selling mass-produced versions but it's a good way to eliminate stores and if you aren't sure reverse image search the product image and see if you see the same image being used elsewhere or if you see very similar images that have identical costumes if it is it's probably a super cheap mass-produced costume and I'd advise against getting it mass-produced pieces are particularly bad if you're like myself and don't have what is considered a normal body type in the clothing industry a lot of basic weapon props can also be found and sold online but they can get really expensive especially if they are 3D printed my advice if you're on a smaller budget is to just recreate some of the simpler weapons for the Merc that you're doing since many can be straight up bought as they are you know real items I'll put up suggestion list of the easiest props to put together for each class that don't require purchasing TF2 specific merchandise in general a lot of accessories that the mercs have can be easily found at military supply stores a particularly the belts helmets and pouches now outside of the nine mercenaries there's also a bunch of other characters that can be cosplay I've personally done merasmus and two versions of Miss Pauling in the past and they're just as if not more simple to put together than some of the mercs and I don't think the NPCs get as much love as they should but I guess the downside of most characters outside of the nine classes in Miss Pauling being considered pretty obscure is probably the reason maybe one of these days we'll get a Francis a talking France a woman can dream so I hope I've shown you guys the fantastically broad possibilities of TF2 cosplay and maybe I've convinced some of you to give it a shot I'm going to keep a living document in the description of the pinned comment then I'll answer any frequently asked questions about the TF2 cosplay cosplay in general suggestions on where to get stuff and my own cosplaying experience this will let me keep it up to date as things potentially change unlike if I had included them in the video additionally if you want to keep up to date on my own cosplays I'll include my active socials there as well I was originally going to say them here but considering the seemingly fickle nature of some of these social medias I'm not chancing at being Irrelevant in the future lastly I want to thank everyone who submitted their cosplays to be featured in this video you made it so I didn't have to look psychotic by constantly using my own cosplays as examples but seriously all of you rock keep expanding the creativity and expansive nature that TF2 cosplay has the potential to reach the next time I go to a convention I want to see more of you rocking that 1960s Flair with a side of hat insanity Monday foreign foreign foreign

Channel: SkyminSlash

Views: 90,659

Keywords: skymin, skyminslash, pc, gaming, fps, video, essay, gaming essay, stream highlights, tf2, team fortress 2, cosplay, tf2 cosplay, tf2 costume, tf2 medic, tf2 scout, tf2 sniper, tf2 community, tf2 fandom, dragoncon, momocon, anime weekend atlanta, comic con, cosplayers

Id: liPDilUXOqg

Length: 28min 2sec (1682 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 31 2023