Stunning, confident, and fearless, UTD students from all walks of life participated in SUAAB’s entertaining cosplay competition on March 23.
The cosplay competition, which was just one of several different events featured during Comet Con, UTD’s version of Comic-Con, allowed Comets to bring or see their favorite anime, video game or movie characters brought to life. This event received a lot of participation from both the participants and the live voting, where audience members were able to vote for their favorite costumes and select winners from different categories.
Comet Con, which is one of SUAAB’s largest annual events, was a one-day special that featured guest speakers, an artist’s alley aimed at supporting small and upcoming artists, an esports competition, wand making, pancake art and much more. The cosplay competition served as an opportunity for UTD students to embody their favorite piece of media and bond with others who also enjoy cosplay.
“I was surprised by how mixed [the cosplay competition] was. There wasn’t just anime, there was ‘Kung Fu Panda’ Po and some video games. [characters] too, so I’m glad they had a variety,” said Shohini Ghosh, a sophomore neuroscience student who attended the competition.
Some other entries included Glamrock Freddy from the new game “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach”, “Panty and Stocking”, and even a female version of Temoc. Each entry reflected the individual’s personal style and taste, allowing various fictional characters to come to life and diversifying the winners for each of the competition’s categories, such as Best Performer, Cutest Cosplay and more.
“There were a lot of unique characters, a lot of whom I didn’t know, but they all seemed to be really enjoying themselves and very happy with their costumes,” said Zachary Carver, a freshman computer science student who voted in the competition. “In fact, I was very impressed with the time some people put into their costumes.”
Several of the contestants made their costumes by hand, some even spending months perfecting their cosplay. The participants were able to give a brief explanation on how they created their cosplay and performed a brief interpretation of the character. Computer science sophomore Thomas Cortez won the Coolest Cosplay category with his extremely intricate, handmade Glamrock Freddy costume.
“I have three things that are very important to me: accuracy, uniqueness, and scale,” Cortez said. “For accuracy, I always want to try to make my costume look as close to the source material as possible, so I try to select colors that are most similar to the character. For scale, I always strive for the correct proportions of the character. For me personally, I want to be unique, so [Glamrock Freddy] it’s more or less a character that people haven’t seen before.”
Some of the homemade cosplays included typical costume materials such as foam and PVC piping. However, many entries also included unique and innovative elements to their costumes, such as Christmas decorations and even Easter eggs.
Comet Con as a whole gives UTD students who are interested in anime, video games, and more the opportunity to connect with other members of the community who share the same interests, and even gives students who don’t they can attend Comic-Con for the opportunity to experience a smaller-scale version.
“I always wanted to go to Comic-Con, like a big one, but I never got a chance to do that, so when I saw that [SUAAB] they were doing Comet Con, I thought, ‘Oh my God,’” said Brianna Teafatiller, a senior in Business Administration who competed as a variant of Loki.
With a successful showing for Comet Con’s 10th anniversary this year, SUAAB looks forward to growing this event well into the future. Many UTD students have expressed their continued commitment to cosplay, including Hope Shon, an ATEC senior and SUAAB president of marketing.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for people to do something they enjoy and can do, if they’ve created their own costume, show off their work and take pride in it, and represent their favorite characters.” Shonsaid.