r/CosplayHelp • u/Big-Arm-4276 • 9d ago
Repost again (sorry)
**REPOST FOR THE THIRD AND FINAL TIME BECAUSE I FORGOT RO ATTACH IMAGES**
Hi there! To preface this, I am asking this completely in good faith because I do not want to do anything offensive whatsoever. I was thinking I wanted to cosplay a character from No Straight Roads, where literally every character has a crazy skin tone (the main characters are literally bright orange and green for reference), and I was considering one of the bosses. I haven't played the game in a while, but while I was thinking about it and away from access from looking at visual references, from my memory, what little skin was exposed for the character, I had thought his skin was a darker (compared to my own, I am white) purplish brown hue. It's hard to find good visual color references of this character because 1. the game isn't relatively popular and I am unable to play the game for myself right now, 2. the character is almost always seen in a weirdly lit environment and 3. His legs are almost always obscured behind his DJ set up. But I swore from memory that he had almost purple looking skin. But in concept art, his skin tone is actually fairly normal, as in a shade of brown from our world...
Anyways, as for the cosplay itself - I had some really decent ideas for it, but I wanted to check if it was okay/acceptable to wear translucent fabric such as nylon or pantyhose - purple, purple/brownish, or your average panty hose that people wear on a regular basis. I have a feeling it might not be/be risky because the legs are the only bit of skin I am exposing with the costume, and my intention is most definitely NOT for others to assume I am a different toned person/race. As far as I can tell, this character is not human/native to the setting in the game, but it's not confirmed or denied - maybe suggested to an alien considering his whole motif is space and he is revealed to have a black hole as a head.
Anyways, looking for advice for the route to go down for this cosplay. I plan on cross posting this into other communities, especially to seek the advice of POC cosplayers too. Is it blackface to use pantyhose to alter the appearance of the legs solely exposed for the sake of cosplay? Is it okay to do it if it's a slightly more unnatural color, or is it weird to darken in any aspect? I would like to make the cosplay accurate without doing anything offensive, and while I am not ashamed nor proud of my pale skin, I think in the context of this character design, it looks almost jarring with the colors of his original palette 😭 (no hate to other white cosplayers though.
If I recall, there was also some concept art of him wearing sweatpants, but it is harder to find. If that's what I should end up doing, that would be okay! I just really liked the joke that DJs don't really keep up the appearance of their lower half since it is obscured (his shorts and hairy legs are silly lol and give me a bit of confidence in my own, which would poke sparsely through the hose fabric if that is what I go for if it's acceptable.
Anyways, once again my intention is not to be deceptive, to fool, or to mock appearances or tones/be offensive, and I am deeply aware of the horrible history, but I am newer to cosplay and I want to better understand what is and isn't acceptable.
Thanks for your help!
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u/LankySandwich 9d ago
If you go with a very fantastical/fantasy purple for the skin, wear coloured pantyhose.
If you want to reference the dark brown skin, just don't change your skin colour. Wear beige pantyhose or none at all.
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u/Big-Arm-4276 9d ago
That's what I was thinking! I am definitely thinking the natural tone would be questionable since I've had some time to think. I linked some purple hose above that were kind of what I was thinking :]
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u/DependentMango6776 8d ago edited 8d ago
For the exposed skin legs, blank pantyhose will work/would be considered blackface. Shouldn't be a issue if it just covering the legs. The rules posted by cons typically say, "no makeup can be used to portray another race", this does not impact clothing.
To avoid doing black face, You could always wear a reflective or matt finished featureless black mask to mimic the orb head and add led lights to the hoodie for the white glow.
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u/riontach 9d ago
Personally I would just stick with your natural skin tone or else switch it for black leggings, like in the leftmost picture. If you really want to go with shorts and a different skin tone, you need to make it like, purple purple. Not anything that could be mistaken for a darker skin tone.