Tell us about your first cosplay experience.

My first cosplay experience was a bit of an accident. I've always been fond of dressing up for Halloween, and the year Sailor Moon was shown on North American television for the first time, my friends started teasing me about my resemblance to one of the villains, Zoisite. So when the time for my university's costume parties rolled around, I made the costume. No one recognized me, but I loved both crafting and wearing it. I was hooked. It was only when I moved to the United States that I discovered anime conventions and stopped being forced to wait for Halloween.

Are military style uniforms your favorite type of costume?

Somehow I knew this question would come up! Dress military uniforms definitely rank as my favorite type of costume, and as a matter of fact, I am working on a new one right now! Since I enjoy well-tailored, structured, sleek clothes, which give you a long, lean look, an infatuation with uniforms is unavoidable. Moreover, our society has built a whole mystique around military uniforms; they look eye-catching, and are imbued with an atmosphere of loyalty, power and self-confidence which I find extremely sexy.

That being said, when I was a child, I wanted to grow up to be a Musketeer in order to wear the blue tabard, so I think I just read too many Alexandre Dumas novels.

If Angel Sanctuary had never been created, what would your nickname be?

Anything my friends would have chosen to call me instead. I firmly believe that you don't choose your nicknames, they choose you. I had a number of nicknames before I started meeting people at conventions who remembered and referred to me as Rosiel. It stuck. My initial account on Cosplay.com, a large cosplay board I help moderate, wasn't even under the name Rosiel.

How important is admiring a character when choosing a costume?

To me, loving the character is everything. I have made costumes to participate in groups organized by friends without being interested in the character, and I did not enjoy wearing them at all. I had to talk myself into the costume every single time and couldn't wait to change out of it.

While choosing the popular costume of the hour might bring a lot of attention, cosplay is too intimately linked to personal satisfaction for me to cosplay for others' sake. I cosplay for myself: when you're happy and comfortable, others will appreciate the costume too. And if they don't... it will have no bearing on your enjoyment anyway, because you like wearing it, and that's what counts in the end.

What suggestions can you offer to new cosplayers on how to get started, and what to include or exclude when translating a 2D drawing into 3D clothing?

First and foremost, remember that those costumes were designed for 2D characters with unrealistic body types and often anatomically incorrect bodies. That's why the goal is to adapt the cut to fit the individual cosplayer's body more than simply recreating exactly what you see onscreen. The process should start with a very realistic assessment of one's strengths and weaknesses and build from there, emphasizing the similarities and downplaying the differences by creating focal points that draw the eye in your favor. I can't stress this enough because the goal is not to hide what you may see as an imperfection, but to attract the eye to your best features. As an example, if you're bottom heavy, you could choose a costume with a darker, fitted bottom, and a colorful top, or use props and accessories as the focal point of the costume. Don't hide, enhance!

As a general rule, you want to raise waists, lengthen pants, and emphasize vertical lines and seams to achieve the leggy anime look. For school uniforms and other non-flowing costumes, staying closer to your body and avoiding bagginess will make you look leaner. Remember, anime characters are stick thin, so if they wear baggy clothes, the odds are they will look as big as you do when wearing rather fitted ones.

It's also a nice touch to incorporate the spirit of the design in your costume. Is the source material cartoony and colorful? Make sure to pick you fabric in bright, contrasting colors. Avoid shiny fabric unless the costume specifically calls for it because matte fabric looks closer to cel-shaded and is a lot more flattering. Is the source material angular and stylized, like, say, Utena? Pick crisp fabrics, interface heavily, reinforce seams, add shoulder pads, press and starch folds to achieve a geometric look.

In closing, I can never emphasize enough the need for a good fit. Experiment with a muslin, figure out what cuts work best with your figure, and keep notes for the next one! All the ribbons and frills and beading in the world can't save a badly cut garment.

When you die and you meet God,
what do you expect Him to say to you?

"So I had you fooled into believing I don't exist, uh?"

What do you do with all of your costumes after they're "retired"?

The only costumes I really retire are ones that have been damaged beyond repair or that I got tired of. I bought a bad batch a vinyl a few years ago which wrinkled, separated itself from the backing, and ruined a few costumes, forcing me to retire them. In that case, I harvested all I could from them, ribbon, buttons, notions that could be recycled for another costume, and trashed the rest. Costumes I just don't feel like wearing anymore accumulate in the hall closet. I'm too sentimental to let them go... and a well crafted costume will last for years. I recently re-wore a costume from early 2002 on a whim, so you never know when you might wish you had kept them.

Educate us on the finer points of wig creation and care. I happen to use the same principles on wigs as I do on hair. First cut, then color, then worry about the rest. For hold and styling, normal hair products you find in your nearby drugstore work great. I tend to prefer strong gel for the "spiky" look, with hairspray for lift, and a bit of blow-drying always help. The best part? When you want to recycle a wig, you can "reset" it to its original style by soaking it in hot water. Curling irons and flat irons are great time savers, affordable, and if you use them on the lowest setting on a good fiber, extremely safe for your wig. Working full time, I appreciate optimal results in minimal time. As for care, I'm not the best person to answer this because I just stuff them unceremoniously into a storage box (in separate bags to make sure my custom colors will not rub off) and refresh them before I wear them. I always found the idea of putting them all on wig heads or hanging them to be highly unrealistic. I don't know where people find the space!

How does cosplay complement your career choice?

I work as an engineer so cosplay is a pressure-free creative outlet, in that it's merely adapting and recreating an existing design, not having to imagine something entirely new and original from scratch. To me it's almost a passive hobby, as it requires reverse-engineering a design, then copying it. After a hard day of trying to write clever code, being able to slow down and bead or hand sew while listening to music or with one of my favorite movies playing in the background (like a good period drama), is extremely relaxing. I call those my Zen moments.

Unfortunately, I happen to have a very busy life outside of work, and many other hobbies, so the end result is that what should be a slow, relaxing hobby often turns into a manic run to finish by a set deadline... just like work. When that happens, I know it's time to step back and return to enjoying the little things in life, peppering it with a bit of cosplay along the way.

see more of Rosiel's costume collection here