Cosplayers are diverse group of people with diverse costume interests and fandoms, but one thing almost all cosplayers can agree on is that there is always another costume waiting on the want-to-make list.

The truth is many of us often have quite a few costumes on our still-to-create lists. As we all know, most of the time we’re not even half finished with our current project before we see another costume in some movie or game or show that we just absolutely have to recreate. The trouble is, all those costumes can get a little hard to keep track of just swirling around in our heads.

In my cosplay life I have a standing request list where people have requested that I make certain costumes for my tutorials. Because I get requests faster than I make the costumes, there’s often between 20 and 30 requests on the list. It’s a lot of projects to keep track of, especially since I only go to town a few times a month in the winter (I live out in the boonies, so the store isn’t exactly down the road). I generally like to shop for material for several costumes at one time, so I’ve come up with a few organization tips that hopefully you might find helpful with your own costume lists.

Make A Costumes File

Start with a costume file. I have a folder on my computer labeled cosplay, and within that folder, I have a separate file for every upcoming costume I’m planning. Each time you add a new costume to your list, make a Word document (or something similar) file conveniently labeled with the costume’s name for easy access later.

This really comes in handy if you’re doing multiple versions of the same character i.e. ” Captain America – Avengers” “Captain America – Winter Soldier” etc. Do this with all your costume projects, even the distant future costume projects that you’d like to do someday. It will save time when you actually get to making it because you can just open up your nice little file and find all your info ready and waiting.

Once you’ve got your costume file created, you’ll probably find you fill it fairly quickly. The costume file is a great place to post those random perfect reference pictures that you might happen to run across even when you’re not searching for them. Stick the photo(s), or at least a link to the photo(s), in your costume file so that when you finally do get around to working on that particular costume, you’ll already have most or all of the needed reference pictures right there and ready.

Add Potential Production Notes

You’ll also want to fill the costume file with notes for production ideas as you come up with them. As time goes, you might be working on a completely unrelated project and suddenly have a burst of inspiration as to how it might help one of your future projects. When that happens, just open up the file, and stick the notes in there. Or if you’re planning on making the Justice League version of Hawkgirl, but prefer the Injustice version of her mace, add it to your costume files notes.

The costume file is also a great place to keep your shopping list. As you think of items you’ll need for each cosplay project (you might realize you’ll need something for a future project while you’re working on a current one), list them in your costume file. If possible, check the internet to see around how much a particular item will cost so you’ll already have an idea of how much your costume materials will be before you go out to purchase them.

So hope this has given you a few ideas for organizing for your own costumes. What projects-to-be do you have currently have waiting on your costumes-to-make list?

By Amber Reifsteck, The Woodland Elf

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