Felicity Banks

5 Best MCU: Infinity Saga characters to cosplay

July 1, 2020 at 12:48 am (Reviews, TV/movie review, With a list)

I love Trappers Bakery in Goulburn. (For those who regularly travel between Canberra and Sydney, it’s a perfect stopping place—right near the Gouburn Maccers.) I also love the annual Goulburn Waterworks Steampunk & Victoriana Fair (which is every October, except this year due to COVID-19).

Last time I went to the Steampunk Fair, I stopped off at Trappers Bakery and was talking about the fair. The server said, “Oh, that’s why so many people are dressed up.”

“When adults do it,” I informed him, “it’s called cosplay.”

*

Cosplay is an awesome way to express your creativity, and/or to express how much a character means to you.

*

I almost always cosplay as something vaguely steampunk, in part because it’s not that different to my regular clothing. (This is an extremely old photo, but you get the idea.)

So, who are the most awesome MCU characters to cosplay (so far)? I’m sticking to a semi-plausible costume budget of around $50-$300, and presuming most but not all of my readers are white/white-ish.

5. Fat Thor

Finally a hero for us fatties.

There are three visual elements to this cosplay: beard, long greasy/dreadlocked hair, and being fat. You can add Lebowski-style sunnies if you like. As a bonus (and handy, since ‘long greasy hair’ isn’t super distinctive) either or both of his classic weapons can be added, since he uses both in Avengers: Endgame. The down side is that carrying a prop gets old fast.

4. Dr Strange

The crucial visual elements are a goatee (FYI mascara makes great facial hair) and a cross-grained red patchwork cloak. If you can sew, you can make this costume. If you have high cheekbones and dark hair, then you’ll be doing great. If you want a bit more to your costume, a piece of round perspex drawn on with orange texta (the kind that’ll draw on perspex) can look like his magic. You may also want to source a ‘sling ring’. The Eye of Agamomnon is a more complex build but you can buy one or build one if you like. But the cloak is what matters, and it puts this costume within the budgets of most people. You can make dark-blue robes for underneath, or just wear clothes that are dark and unobtrusive.

Handy hint: The main thing that makes cloaks tricky to wear is that when they fasten around the neck they hang funny and tend to choke you (especially if they’re heavy, as this cloak should be). I recommend designing one that fastens in two places near the collarbones or shoulders instead.

3. Gamora

FINALLY a girl, and FINALLY a person of colour (although given that she’s green, it’s fairly easy for any race to cosplay as her). Her long dark hair is predominantly a very artificial red, and her skin is green. There are loads of skin paints you can buy online or at cons (although obviously it can rub or sweat off, which can make things tricky). Her outfits range from black/brown to dark red leather (when she joins the ravagers). She can also be part of a great pair or group cosplay with Thanos and/or the other Guardians of the Galaxy, especially her sister Nebula (who of course is blue and bald, with metal bits). She has a distinctive sword (and/or a distinctive double-ended knife), but you don’t need props if you don’t want them.

2. Grandmaster

He has fantastically iconic visual looks (shiny gold cloak, blue under-eye liner, blue chin stripe, and blue fingernails) and a wonderfully distinctive manner as well thanks both to the writing and to Jeff Goldblum. So if you like a bit of acting with your cosplay, this is fantastic.

Handy hint: Putting eyeliner under eyes can be tricky to maintain, especially if you get dry eyes at all. I recommend trying it one evening at home and/or skipping it.

Can be paired with his guard (above; the white face paint and staff are all a New Zealand woman of colour needs although she can go the whole leather outfit if she wants; bonus points if the cosplayer is not thin). Can also be paired with Valkyrie, Thor, Loki, or Korg. Golblum is fairly tanned, so hopefully at least some people of colour can cosplay this one without the cosplay police hassling them (unfortunately people of colour are often told they “can’t” cosplay any white characters, which sucks). Or not, because the cosplay police are really just horrid and no logic can stop them so you might as well cosplay as whatever you want and ignore them.

And the winner is. . .

1. Loki

Any decent purveyor of cosplay knows that Loki cosplay works just as well for female and male cosplayers (high cheekbones are a bonus once again). All you need is long dark hair, green and black leather (a dark green cloak is optional but recommended) and ideally that iconic helmet:

If you have a dark green cloak, an awesome attitude, that helmet, and have/can acquire long dark hair, you should be good to go no matter what you look like because Loki is a friggin shapeshifter.

If I had the physical strength to commit to a costume and strut about all day, I’d cosplay as fat female Loki. That black corset from the picture at the top of this entry would be grand with black pants, and I would not say no to a fabulous forest green cloak.

Another bonus about Loki is that, since he’s getting a TV show, he’ll remain at the centre of pop culture for a good long while to come.

Honorable mentions:

Captain America. All you really need is a shield (you can buy a backpack that looks like that shield, by the way), and you can play as either Chris Evans or as Anthony Mackie if you’d like a choice of Caucasian or African American (or indeed African).

I’ve seen a bunch of glorious steampunk interpretations of Iron Man and others.

The Winter Soldier wears a mask, so that’s a great cosplay for 2020/2021.

Some basic cosplay concepts:

*Always ask before taking a photo. This is a legal consent issue, and you can (and should) be thrown out of a conference if you don’t follow this rule. If you plan to show a photo to anyone else, eg social media, you need permission for that too. If you plan to monetise the picture in any way, you need written consent.

*Never touch someone without their enthusiastic consent, even/especially if they are not wearing many clothes. It is a costume, not an invitation, and any decent con will throw you out if you act even a tiny bit creepy. Also be careful with your compliments eg, “That’s a fantastic Gamora!” rather than, “You are so sexy!” Recognising who someone is playing is a great compliment.

*Please shut up about racial stuff. If someone is cosplaying as a race different to their own, that is not an invitation for you to comment on anything to do with race or skin colour or whatever.