Where craft and fantasy collide: the Destiny Child Cosplay Contest!

Oct 16, 2018

When you a professional cosplayer, you are always looking for opportunities to show off your skills and create a world-class cosplay. So, when 8 cosplay pro’s from Los Angeles learned about the $5,000 Destiny Child cosplay contest at ESC 2018, they got to work quickly!

With around a month of time to prepare, these cosplayers were tested on, not only their attention to detail, but on their ability to produce a high-quality product under a deadline. Busy weekends and free afternoons filled their schedules leading up to the fateful October 12th contest where each of their work would be judged by LINE Games developers responsible for creating the Destiny Child Universe.

▲ *Cosplayers could choose from the following 32 Destiny Child characters -- just a small fraction of all of the characters available in the game*

We spoke with the Cosplayers about how they chose their character and each of their answers had something in common: they were each inspired by the high-fantasy setting of Destiny Child.

Jessie “Zerggie” Blaufus chose to cosplay Myrina and was attracted to her color palette and contrasting design elements:

“I have always loved the “small but deadly” theme and Myrina is just like that. She is so cute but then, she has this massive weapon and spikes on her crown. I really like that”

Meanwhile, Christian or better known by his Cosplay handle Kurisu.Cos chose a character that mirrors his personality in real life.

“Frej is a cool character that seems confident. I am confident in real life and I liked how he didn’t seem to care about what people think”

Three Stages of Voting

As the cosplayers finished up their costumes, before the contest on the 12th, online voting was opened allowing any Inven Global reader could vote on their favorite cosplayer based on the progress and finalized photos they submitted. Naturally, the cosplayers flocked to social media, each drawing upon their fan bases to get out and vote!

▲ *Cosplayers took to social media like Instagram to find votes!*

However, the online vote was only a small portion of what it would take to win. The next phase of the voting would start a day before the contest on October 11th and run through to the very last minute before showtime on the 12th. Hundreds of UCI students and ESC 2018 attendants would vote in person via sticker-board method.

The cosplayers were at the booth interacting with fans and explaining their costumes -- a valuable opportunity when trying to motivate passing by voters! With $5,000 on the line, it became clear to cosplayers sincere fan interaction went a long way to securing a vote.

The last stage of voting was the most important. LINE Games developers who traveled from Korea to attend the contest would each vote for their favorite cosplayer and costume. Their final say was worth the most significant amount of points, so the cosplayers time on stage was crucial to securing the win!

Check out the 8 final cosplayers and their outfits below; which would you vote for?

The Show Starts!

With the aid of the host and production crew backstage reading off descriptions and backstories of each character to the audience, the cosplayers took to the stage one by one, each trying their best to embody their chosen Destiny Child character. It takes confidence and charisma to impress the crowd -- not to mention answering the on-the-spot questions of the host!

▲ *Stella Chuu* *enjoyed her characters intimidation factor -- she even took the microphone from the host with police authority!*

▲ *MizzieMie* *reacting to a question about her expertly crafted ears -- how did she make those anyway?*

▲ *ReaganKathryn* *embodied the elegance of her character Bathory -- effortless laughter when asked about how hot her dress was on a sunny day!*

▲ *TokiMandee* *can’t help but laugh when describing her inspiration for choosing Mona as her cosplay “I just think she is cute!”*

After all online votes, in-person votes, and personal votes from the LINE games development were tallied, it was Stella Chuu and her Mafdet Cosplay that took 1st place and the $3,000 prize! It was an extremely close competition, but Stella took the lead with an impressive amount of in-person votes as well as a slight edge when it came to the LINE games staff vote!

In second place winning $1,000 was ReaganKathryn as Bathory. Lara Lunardi took 3rd place and $500 for her Dana cosplay and Zerggie won a special fan-vote award for $500 as well!

▲*Always in good spirits and enjoying the opportunity to cosplay with friends, the other contestants cheered for Stella Chuu as she accepted her prize.*

Congratulations to the winners! To learn more about the contest and its participants, visitInvenglobal.com/destinychildcosplay. There, you can see progress photos of each cosplay as well as high-resolution images of the original Destiny Child character art.

Destiny Child is developed by LINE Games -- check out their website for information on how to download their games and be on the looking out for the English release of Destiny Child this year!