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[sooyong]

I always do game cosplays so I usually have a copy of the game as a resource. For Dynasty Warriors it's the Character Gallery, for Soul Calibur it's the Edit/Create-A-Warrior option, and now for Dead or Alive 5 I've been taking screenshots of fights in Spectator Mode and exporting the images from the 360 to my computer. When I can't quite get the fine details, sometimes I just improvise.

[zeochan]

I go online and look for the costume on ebay, hellocosplay or any other cosplay site that has the most accurate looking costume and use that as my reference -- it gives an idea on what color I should use, what fabric to get/use ect. Of course I look up the character on google as well, but yeah basically.

[toxicXkitten]

Hey guys I'm sorry to bother you but I need some help if you don't mind. I've attatched a picture of a cosplay I'd love to do....but the problem is you can only see a small portion on the outfit...can anyone help me find a better picture of this outfit or tell me the best way to find it? I'd love to do this for my final project for class. Thanks guys for reading.

~toxic kitten

[usuyukisou]

Artbooks are my primary. Sometimes they'll include concept art which is very helpful (MadoMagi has definitely become a cash-cow franchise with production books, design process books, and various pricey merch). High-quality promotional images also help, as do screencaps. Calendars are another way to get a very clear large reference image, although I'll definitely browse online for lower quality pics/scans before I commit to dropping $35 on one. I have referenced figurines before, but figurines are not *always* accurate to the source, even if they are official.

I have also done the "use a reputable seller as reference" route. Cosrevo, Cos-pretto, Sweety Pop, Blue Rose, Love Laugh, etc.... Same goes for a reputable cosplayer; if I like him/her, he/she must be doing something right.

[Holygamer99]

I'm going through the same situation trying to find shots for a manga only character I want to cosplay as. I've gotten a lot, though there are very few color shots of him. So in the end, there may need to be some liberties taken with some of the minor colors, but everything else should work (hopefully).

[ichigo_m.]

@toxicXkitten That's either and artbook or splash page image and there probably aren't any more of her in that outfit.

One of my favorite parts of costuming is looking for refs! (: I try to find art sheets, official art book pages and screen caps. But another thing I look at is other people's cosplays. This way you can see what a costume looks like on a real body and you can see what you like and don't like of theirs to see what you want to do on yours! (:

[Lithium Flower]

Originally Posted by ichigo_m.

@toxicXkitten That's either and artbook or splash page image and there probably aren't any more of her in that outfit.

^Agreed.

It looks like the scan from this users gallery and on the actual image itself they mention this is from an artbook.

[usuyukisou]

Originally Posted by toxicXkitten

Hey guys I'm sorry to bother you but I need some help if you don't mind. I've attatched a picture of a cosplay I'd love to do....but the problem is you can only see a small portion on the outfit...can anyone help me find a better picture of this outfit or tell me the best way to find it? I'd love to do this for my final project for class. Thanks guys for reading.

~toxic kitten

ichigo_m. and Lithium Flower are correct. I have this very artbook and that's all there is to the image. Unless Yuuki wears that dress anytime within the story, you're going to have to design the rest of the dress on your own, based on what you can see.

[CapsuleCorp]

With figurines and other cosplay, you have to be careful - if you're going for full-on accuracy, the LEAST accurate sources are going to be in those two areas. No, I take that back; figurines from some companies have gotten ridiculously accurate. Figurarts is pretty damn good about it. But there are going to be things you won't find on figurines, like seams.

The two least-accurate places to source costume details are other cosplay (commercial or not) and fanart. Remember, the folks making those cosplays overseas are not given the art sheets from the anime/manga/movie so they can reproduce every last detail - they're making those costumes based off fewer reference pics than we hobbyists tend to use and are trying to cut corners so as to bring you the lowest-cost costume possible. With fanart, it doesn't matter how well the artist knows the character's design, they may draw things differently based on their own style, or may actually forget things from time to time. Or they get lazy. I've seen many a fan-artist just not want to draw every last pinstripe on Sanji's shirt so they give him a plain one instead (meaning his canonically pinstriped blue and orange shirts).

Now, if you're not as gung-ho about being to-the-last-detail accurate, by all means use anything you want. But professionally speaking, I don't use fanart as references for my commissions at all because as an artist, I know full well that it could be short on details. Of course, if you're cosplaying a version of a costume from someone's fanart precisely because they redesigned it well, that's a completely different story.

[pltshp]

i take screenshots and look at online reference images (NOT fanart!). like for koyashige for example i'll look at the official shop photos from the concerts and watch the performances so i can see the costumes.

[touchmon]

Sometimes I end up using fan-art as inspiration references if what I'm cosplaying only has one or two official reference images(I'm looking at you Saber. >_>) and usually they won't show off the whole outfit. The fan-art helps me have some idea of what to do although I never follow any fan-art to the T.

[riddeltk]

For video games I either take screen caps of cutscenes from youtube or use the theatre feature in some games and watch the scenes over and over.. The thing that some time sucks with the artbooks for video games is they release a concept art book so what's in the book isn't always what's in the game. And the most frustrating thing is inconsistent artwork. (I'm looking at you Fire Emblem. -.-) Getting reference pictures is one of my favorite parts though.

[ardhri]

I google as much as I can, although for newer anime it can be hard to find still pics. For my main cosplay this year, I might end up taking pics of my TV screen since we're watching the anime on crunchyroll.

I have used other cosplayers as a reference if I wanted to see how they did specific parts of a cosplay. Even if it's not accurate, it can be a good jumping-off point.

[ToroSonyCat]

Sometimes if you're lucky enough, the character might have super handy available references like this one for Madoka:

(If only these existed for every character...)

If not, I'll just search around for images until I find good enough ones or resort to taking screenshots if I really have to.

[daylight]

I mostly take my own screen caps, and look at figures. those are usually my best bet. and as ToroSonyCat posed above sometimes you can get lucky with the character design photos

if its a character from a manga, then usually its hard mode

one last thing, I look through allot of pictures of people cosplaying what I plan to cosplay
allot of the times I can get good ideas on things to do to make my costume look better or I see something that gives me a good idea on what to improve upon