cosplay

these are both girls cosplaying as male characters

Cosplay, short for "costume play," is a hobby in which participants design, construct, and wear costumes of their favorite anime, video game, comic, film, television, or book character.

there are allot of skills that are needed whilst doing cosplay. these skill are

• design
• sewing/tailoring
• hair styling
• makeup styling
• modeling
• photography
• acting 

costume
people often think that cosplay is just simply buying and wearing a costume that looks like a anime/video game character but it is actually allot more harder then that. most cosplayers create their own costumes so they can get as accurate as they can, because of this it takes quite a bit of time for the costume to be completed. most cosplayers also create their own accessories this also take allot of time. 
binding
in cosplay it is not uncommon for girls to cosplay as male characters and vice versa. so in order for girl to cosplay as a male character they use a method called binding that flattens their chest.
wigs
in cosplay wigs are always used. cosplayers don't use their own hair as this limits the characters they can be.
in most animes/video games the character has spiky hair so when it comes to styling the wig it take quite a bit of time and patients to style it as accurately as they can to the characters appearance.
makeup
all cosplayers whether they are female or male wear makeup. the first thing they nead to accomplish with makeup is to make their skin look as flawless as they can. then after they have done that they have to apply makeup to their eyes to make them look bigger the 'anime eye' affect. if a girl is cosplaying a boy it is even harder because they nead to make their eyes look bigger but they also nead to make sure that their makeup isn't girly. 
modeling
after the cosplayers costume is created and finished and their whole look is finished (hair, makeup)
they have photos taken so they can show to other people their finished costume etc. (like any other artist)
this part isn't as simple as just standing there and getting your photo taken. the things you nead to take into account is the personality of the character for example if the character you have chosen to cosplay never smiles then you wouldn't smile in your photo because then it would be out of character.
the second thing you nead to take into account is your surroundings for example with this picture it has been taken in a traditoal Japanese looking area and this suits the character because this character is from an  

anime that is about samurais and the olden time japan. then you also have to take into account your pose if you just stood there then you photo would not attract many views. so you nead to think of good poses to make the picture interesting the same as a model would. then the last thing you nead to take into account is props. for example this picture it has a samurai sword as a prop because the character they are cosplaying caries a sword with him.

eyes
even though eyes are a small part of the picture it is still a important part of the photo and cosplay. most anime/video game character has weird coloured eyes. for example this character has red eyes so in order for accuracy the cosplayer has bought and wearing red eye contacts. most cosplayers wear contacts to give a better affect because normally the character you cosplay has a different eye colour than the cosplayer