Is it hard?

[Toreneko]

I'm really new to this. I've made costumes in college for different plays, but they were all based on paterns. How do you guys start when you want to make a costume of your character?

[MikigamiTokiya]

If you're a beginer try to find a patern that looks really similar to yours and make it out of paper then make the adjustments you want the make it with cloth. I've been practicing alot with that method and it seems to work well enough

[Nine]

If you look closely at the different patterns around, you can mix and match for your own costume. Go with something simple at first, before you choose to do something more difficult if you aren't too confident with your costuming abilities. Also, like Mikigami said, try to find patterns that look like the character you want to cosplay. Also, mix and match to get the best results. Some patterns have different styles than pictured on the front so make sure you look closely at them.:)

[LLC]

Absolutely. I work also in leather (mostly) and cardboard patterns can be adapted.

The other thing that I have practiced at with paper and then to cardboard is learning how to few draw. Seems hard at first, but like anything else the more you do it the more you begin to get the hang of it .

[DancingVampire]

I print out a ton of pics of the diff chara Im thinking about cosplaying as and then I take all of them to the fabric store with me and I see which chara will do well with the current selection of fabirics ^_^; I try to only take it one costume at a time but sometimes I come out with fabrics for even two or three costumes