Slang terms pop up in most hobbies lately. This is no exception for cosplay. Thus there are cosplay terms you need to know if you want to keep up with what others are talking about. Thankfully the following list should have a majority of the important ones so you can know what cosplayers are talking about.
- Costest – An important part of making cosplays is trying them on to ensure they look, fit and feel right. You also need to ensure you can walk around and move comfortably in them. Trying out a cosplay is often referred to as a costest.
- Cosplan – Getting a cosplay started means planning, drawing and creating a roadmap for how you’ll do it. These are called a cosplan and when shopping for planners it is often referred to as a cosplanner.
- Screen-Accurate – This term is often used to talk about cosplay characters from movies and TV shows. For a cosplay to be screen-accurate, it typically means the cosplay is accurate to what was seen on screen. It isn’t required for cosplay but some groups like the 501st and others do prioritize it.
- Mod and Base – The terms mod and base often are used when it comes to making alterations. Often someone will buy a costume or piece of clothing to use as a base and then when they alter the piece will use the term mod.
- Masquerade – These are quite different from the standard cosplay contest. Typically a contest focuses on craftsmanship whereas masquerades usually focus on performance in cosplay.
- Civvies – This refers to street clothes/civilian clothing.
- Genderbend – Genderbend in cosplay typically means taking a character and redesigning them as the opposite gender.
- Crossplay – This is when someone dresses up as a character that is the opposite gender of themselves.
- Gijinka – A gijinka is the humanization of non-human characters in the form of a cosplay. This is popular with Pokemon cosplays.
- OC – OC stands for original character. Besides just cosplaying existing characters, you are able to design your own.
- Con – This is just an abbreviation for convention.
- Con Season – This refers to a time of year when people are attending conventions.
- Con Crud – Often after a convention people find themselves sick, we refer to this as the con crud.