Delayed Costumes

Yesterday was what I would call the "soft debut" of Ash's Movie 21 (The Power of Us) costume for my cosplay purposes. It's the first time in a long time that I've been able to debut with a new costume. It is rather delayed from when the actual object of cosplay was first presented. Yet, come to think of it, many of my cosplay costumes, specifically my Pokémon costumes, can be considered to have been delayed in some way or another. They happen for different reasons, but I'm able to pin them down as three basic reasons regarding the cause of their occurrence.

One of these reasons is just purely and simply because of the creation of the costume. The most recent costume suffered from this reason. I actually had most of the costume prepared some months ago, but the only thing missing was the outerwear. I had bought the necessary materials and reserved its creation, but it kept getting delayed. It was only recently that the outerwear was finally finished and became ready for its debut. There was nothing else I could do (except continue to do other things) while I waited for the outerwear to be made. It's obviously hard for me when this happens.

Hand-in-hand with the creation of a costume is the research that goes into it. Sometimes not all of the details of a costume are available from the get-go, and that makes things hard if one desires to get things right the first time in order not to worry later on. An example is Ash's shirts, which are sometimes not immediately evident. I'll admit that these are less visible and can be made up, but if it turns out the detail is wrong, it means extra effort that may be deemed unnecessary. But this is obviously less desirable for the highly visible details. The research is thus important and may contribute to delays.

Perhaps the most extensive and tough delay is delay by effort. I've always had the desire to cosplay as Ash for a long time, by now even about two decades. But as will be evident shortly, it took around half that time before things were finally realized, and even then it still took a fair bit of external assistance. Nowadays, this isn't much of an issue as back then, but the issue still remains. I still wonder what would happen if I had actually been able to start cosplaying much earlier. It's a delay that probably might still have the same results then and now, but sometimes I still wish it hadn't occurred.

Obviously, everything takes time, even my foray into cosplaying Pokémon and particularly Ash. By the same token, some of that time could have also been cut down, allowing me to enjoy cosplaying even earlier. But then, things simply just seem to happen, and now even with the delays that have occurred as with the latest costume, I'm still pretty much where I want to be. It may seem that with or without the delays in effort, research, and creation, my fun as Ash in cosplay is never delayed, which seems to bode well regardless.

One year ago: Pokémon Go Community Day, 2/17/2019
Two years ago: Time for a Pikachu New 2DS XL?
Three years ago: The Park Is Open