[Woman and man dressed in Legend of Zelda cosplay posing for the camera]
[Man with his dog dressed as Thoma from Genshin Impact]
[Man with animatronic bird pet dressed in his original character cosplay posing for the camera]
[Jess Stiff and a friend both dressed as Widomaker from Overwatch posing for the camera]
[Jess Stiff pointing her gun at the camera]
[Widowmaker’s helmet]
Jess Stiff (interview): “It’s only expensive if you make it expensive, you can keep things very low budget. You can keep things very, very cheap. You don’t have to make things expensive. I sometimes do, but that’s because I’m OCD and I like the highest of details.”
[Kyle James dressed as General Gorou from Genshin Impact]
[Kyle James showing animatronic ears]
Kyle James (interview): “Cost of living massively affects both myself and the lots of people even trying to sell things as the prices of buying things, whether that’s cosplay, whether that’s materials, whether that’s just getting prints and places here, it really does affect people.”
[General Gorou’s animatronic tail]
Kyle James (interview): “For Genshin because I was a buyer, Genshin tends to be quite complicated they tend to be quite expensive. Of course I’ve got the animatronics as well, which didn’t come cheap, but you can really start with any sort of budget, if you’ve got a sewing machine, if you’ve got sort of like the basic steps you can go or you can even closet cosplay. And that’s a great place to start for a lot of cosplayers.”
[Woman cosplaying as a fairy (original creation) posing for the camera]
[Woman in cosplay with large hammer posing for the camera]
[Man in original cosplay with animatronic gloves posing for the camera]
[Remote controlled moving Star Wars pit drone on a go kart]
[Drone’s leg movements]
[Chris Osborne with radio controls]
[Radio controls and drone]
Chris Osborne (interview): “It is an expensive hobby. But then I’d compare it to having a Premiership football ticket, season ticket or a nice set of golf clubs or a good fishing kit or whatever. So along those lines it can be expensive, but not that bad.”
[Chris Osborne constructing Dalek model he built]
Chris Osborne (interview): “I think the main issue for us, because we do so many conventions, is the cost of fuel, because we run a van purely for the hobby, the cost of the van and ensuring taxing and fueling the van is probably a big part of it for us.”
[Tim Black as Han Solo with Chewbacca cosplayer from Rebel Legion with Darth Vader posing for the camera]
[Darth Vader strangling Han Solo posing for the camera]
Tim Black (interview): “It can be a really expensive hobby. Yeah, absolutely. It’s as with anything, you can get it 90% accurate. But if you want to get it 95% accurate, it’s not five per cent more expensive. It just really really grows.”
[Woman dressed as Freminet from Genshin Impact being photographed by her friend]
[Woman dressed as Red Son from Monkie Kid posing for the camera]
[Pikachu walking through the exhibition]
[Pikachu]
[Karen Grover arranging a Nuka Cola girl outfit from Fallout]
Karen Grover (interview): “It can be an expensive hobby or it could be as cheap as you make it. It depends how slavishly you want to stick to the original character, but because you’re putting a twist on something, you can make it cheaper. I always say to people buy the best quality fabric that you can afford and then hunt around and look for the accessories at car boot sales, charity shops it’s amazing what you can pick up. But go for good quality fabric because that’s going to hang nicely. It’s going to look nice. And at the end of the day you want your outfit, mannequin, garments to look the best they can.”
[Man in cosplay with long sword posing for the camera]
[Man dressed as Luke Skywalker]
[Woman in 1960s cosplay]
[Group of cosplayers posing for the camera]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.