Before instagram (& this website)

...there were other websites. Deviantart (dA) was the main place I met other artists and cosplayers. Posting cosplay to dA was kind of dicey back then because fanart was widely bashed unless it was VERY GOOD. Cosplay photography was essentially seen as the equivalent of that within the photo category so it was rare to see any cosplay photography arrive on the main page... unless it was VERY VERY GOOD.

That's how I came to learn about one of my cosplay idols, Jin, using the handle behindinfinity. This was when I was into Naruto Shippuuden so their Naruto cosplay with their Sasuke lured me in big-time and got me to take cosplay a lot more seriously!

Up until that point, I'd only done a handful of cosplays: Temari (Naruto, 1st style of outfit, and using my own hair) Kagura (Gintama) Hidan (Naruto, with my own hair sprayed with white hairspray paint) But I was getting into more different series, attending events that I heard about via dA held in cities outside of cons, and I got to meet other cosplayers too. So then came...

CosplayIsland I miss you every day, CosplayIsland. This website was a cosplay categorising website for the UK.

CureCos A popular Japanese website for uploading cosplay. I uploaded here a lot too. Both CosplayIsland and Curecos are no more, and sadly I never saved any copies of my profiles. But safe to say I've been cosplaying for a long time, with the best photographers ever who I'm proud to call my friends to this day! Since I don't focus on cosplay as work, I've never thought to create a new profile other than on Instagram. There just don't seem to be any other cosplay websites where you can easily host and categorise images for each outfit. Instagram also seems to be the platform folks flock to in our app-only age, so that's where I've been for a while. But it's never felt right, to be able to link different content easily, archive things, or share multiple images - some of these things have only been recent developments from 2023 onwards. My memory of those other websites was starting to fade, so I hope this acts like a lovely shrine to those places.