Cardinal Cosplay club meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center. It will also have a booth in the Atrium from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Feb. 5. For more information on Cardinal Cosplay, check out its Facebook page.
When most people think of costumes, they imagine Halloween. But the Cardinal Cosplay club, a new Ball State student organization, doesn’t limit dressing up to October.
Many of its members work on costumes all year round, some even doing the designing and crafting themselves.
Cosplay involves making or wearing costumes to look like characters from media. It’s largely associated with Japanese anime and manga, but people cosplay as characters from television shows, movies, books and video games. It’s become more popular in recent years, with shows like "Heroes of Cosplay" on SyFy.
Freshman Ashley Rumford said she likes to stay in character when she’s dressed up, but not everyone does. She said the club has really helped her come out of her shell.
A small group of students founded the club just last year when they weren’t satisfied with what the established university clubs had to offer.
“We want to encourage people and give them a safe environment to do what they love,” Cardinal Cosplay President Lauren Bane said.
Regular club activities include guest speakers, discussions and cosplay tutorials, such as how to make better costumes.
Bane said she hopes to make the club more beneficial for the members’ professional and academic careers so they don’t feel like they’re sacrificing time from the organizations relating to their future endeavors.
She hopes to start work on a documentary about cosplay with help from any journalism or telecommunications majors.
Cardinal Cosplay is aiming to collaborate with other clubs, such as modeling for the Asian American Student Association fashion show and helping to create an “artist’s alley” to sell their own art work at C-Con, a mini convention at Ball State put on by the Japanese Animation Society.
“I don’t really cosplay in public, especially not on campus, because I like to keep that separate from my school life. If I came to class like this, it’d be awfully distracting," club member Mandy Machura said, gesturing to her Sailor Venus costume. "That’s why I really like cosplay club.”
The members sometimes attend conventions together. There are many in Indiana and the surrounding states, including Anime Crossroads, Indy Pop Con, Anime Central and Indiana Comic Con.
Emily Combs, another club member, loves going to conventions and being recognized. She and Machura said there is a sort of Comic Con etiquette that can also apply elsewhere, with unspoken rules such as asking before taking someone’s picture.
“My favorite thing is getting to make all the props,” sophomore Andrew Miller said.
Miller has made things like swords and armor for other people’s costumes and his own. Miller and his girlfriend, junior Kate Badgley, dressed as Edward Elric and Winry Rockbell from "Fullmetal Alchemist" at a recent meeting.
While Machura wears her cosplays as Halloween costumes, Miller and Badgley do not. Some cosplayers don’t want their costumes to be associated with Halloween because of how much time and effort they put into them, compared with most people simply buying a pre-made costume.
“Cosplayers come from all walks of life," Combs said. "They cosplay everything from anime to the most popular movie. Anyone can cosplay; you don’t even have to be the most hardcore fan of something. It’s a hobby."
Bane wants to get rid of the negative stigma sometimes surrounding cosplay culture and believes the club can help do that.
“My favorite thing about the club is having a place to belong, it’s a no judgment zone,” she said.
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