You might have noticed that the Guild has updated the scoring criteria for the upcoming season of MegaCon Live Cosplay Masquerades: 5% of your overall marks will now be rewarded for the sustainable materials, practices, and techniques that you included within your competition piece. We’ve produced this guide to give you some more information, but you can always email or DM us with any questions.
What does this change actually mean?
In a nutshell, the scoring breakdown for the MegaCon Live Cosplay Masquerade is now as follows:
- 35% craftsmanship;
- 30% accuracy/creativity;
- 30% performance;
- 5% sustainability.
This means that, if you don’t explain how you factored in sustainability to your project during pre-judging or in your build book, you will miss out on 5% of the possible marks. We’ll also be introducing a specific Sustainability Prize to our prize categories, which will be awarded to the most sustainable and ethically-conscious costume in the competition, regardless of experience class.
Why are you doing this?
Between foam, Worbla, 3D printing, heat-gunning PVC pipes, and huge amounts of fabric off-cuts, along with the huge rise in fast-fashion attitudes, the ease and convenience of drop-shipping, and the social media pressure to keep producing new work, it doesn’t take long to notice that cosplay is an inherently wasteful hobby. The Guild is aware that, by encouraging cosplayers to enter competitions, we are contributing to this, so we think it’s important that we take a stand to develop an eco-centric approach to our competitions. We’re in the position to try and make change at scale, so we’re beginning by introducing sustainability marks to ensure our entrants are thinking about their environmental impact during the crafting process.
On a really positive note, we’ve also seen a significant increase in the number of costumes at MegaCon competitions that have been created with unique media and recycled materials. We know how proud those cosplayers have been to share those facts with us, and we want to ensure that the ‘green’ approach to reducing, reusing, and recycling is appropriately encouraged and rewarded.
What’s the mark scheme for sustainability points?
- 0% – You haven’t thought about sustainability on your project at all and you’ve crafted in your normal way. You haven’t demonstrated that you’re interested in learning how to be more sustainable.
- 1-2% – You’re starting to consider sustainability practices in your work, such as using some stash materials, but you’re aware that there are still additional steps you can take.
- 3% – You’ve crafted in a sustainable way to the best of your current knowledge and abilities, perhaps by repurposing parts of your old costumes for a new one, or using recycled materials like cardboard, but you’re keen to learn how you can do better.
- 4% – You’ve made every reasonable attempt to ensure your work is as sustainable as possible, and have reduced/reused/recycled materials wherever possible within the bounds of your costume design. You’ve disposed of your waste in the best way you can, and can demonstrate that you’ve thought about sustainability and eco-friendliness while crafting.
- 5% – You’ve demonstrated that sustainability is important to you, and have gone out of your way to be considered a sustainable crafter. You might have invented new ways to reuse and recycle materials, and have utilised materials in unique and creative ways that save them from going to landfill.
Guild tip: 5% is a relatively small amount of your overall mark. You may not be able to immediately meet this rubric, but consider it something to strive for in your crafting process. Remember, judges don’t take marks away if you’re not being sustainable, but they will award them if you are. Look at sustainability points as an opportunity to gain some new strings to your bow, and think about your relationship with your craft in a new and important way.
What are some examples of sustainable crafting?
Sustainable crafting describes the thought processes and methods you can factor into your material collection and crafting process for a specific costume or project, for example:
- Using stash fabric or trims instead of buying new, eg. ‘I have something similar in my stash already. Do I really need to buy this new piece of fabric?’ Our weighting ensures you will never be ‘marked down’ if your material isn’t 100% accurate, but will instead be given the credit for responsible use of materials.
- Ensuring any new fabric you must buy is deadstock (leftover rolls from commercial factories) rather than brand new materials.
- Altering, or harvesting the materials from, second hand items, including clothing items, tablecloths, bed linen, and curtains.
- Removing and reusing notions, eg. zips, buttons, hooks & eyes, lacing, etc. from old garments and costumes rather than buying new.
- Keeping decently sized foam scraps for future patterns, and using smaller scraps as glue spreaders.
- Salvaging paper and card packaging and using them to make your own patterns, held together with masking tape, so they can be recycled when you’re done.
What are some examples of other sustainable practices?
Other sustainable practices are techniques and behaviours that may not immediately impact the sustainability of your individual crafting process in the short-term, but do in the long-run, for example:
- Reusing small elements from previous costumes, ie. not making an identical shirt twice because you’ve already made one.
- Ensuring that you dispose of your 3D printed waste appropriately, eg. curing your wastewater and draining it, not just pouring it down the sink when you’re done.
- Swapping and trading supplies with friends rather than buying new, and selling or donating old wigs, costumes, tools, and materials to friends or charities.
- Striving to order fabrics and materials in person rather than online, or from one online shop rather than multiple, reducing the carbon cost associated with shipping, and favouring companies that are upfront about their sustainability practices.
- Proper storage of cosplays, tools, and materials, eg. storing 3D print filament in airtight containers, washing paint brushes rather than buying new, and paying attention to storage instructions of adhesives and paints so they don’t need to be replaced before they’re finished.
Guild tip: you don’t have to demonstrate that you’ve recycled things into that same costume; your sustainability practice can be that you’ve kept all of your off-cuts with the intention to make a quilt out of them. Just make sure you include a photo of the storage box so the judges can see you’re following through! For a great example of a stash project, check out CosplayCyanide’s Bilbo Baggins dressing gown, which is made entirely from fabric scraps from her previous projects.
How do I tell you about what I’ve done to be sustainable?
There are two main ways you can communicate your sustainable practices to the judges. You can do either or both, but the key thing is that you tell us.
Verbally in pre-judging: Take fifteen seconds, just a sentence or two, of your pre-judging time to explain any of the sustainability practices you’ve undertaken during the project. You can find more tips about pre-judging here.
In your progress book: Dedicate a page of your progress book to the methods you’ve used to ensure your project is as sustainable as it can be. You can find more tips about progress books here.
Guild tip: You can also write it into the ‘inspirations’ section of your application form, though please remember this information is only used to determine your suitability for the competition and is not judged.
This isn’t fair! You’re making it harder to get top marks in the competition!
We believe that everyone is able to at least consider the sustainability and environmental consciousness of their work, regardless of what class they’re entering or their experience in the hobby, or in competitions. With the vast majority of points still coming from craftsmanship, accuracy/creativity, and performance, 5% is just a small amount on our scoring rubric. We’re trying to make it as easy as possible for you to be sustainable, so take a look at the comprehensive guide above to explain how exactly you can gain sustainability marks – you’re probably already doing a bunch of these things already, so the next step is just to tell the judges!
What else is the Guild doing on its end to support this ethos?
- We’ll be removing single-use plastics backstage at competitions. Please bring your own water bottle if you can!
- We’re limiting the amount of single-use printing we’re doing, and recycling anything we do need to produce. We’ve moved to digital progress books rather than physical, and are creating our signage with more longevity, eg. reusable table covers and erasable whiteboards instead of paper signage.
- We’re introducing sustainable programming at events, including informative panels about ‘green’ cosplay, stash swaps, and cosplay swap meets to give cosplayers a fun and easy way to pass on their old or unused supplies and costumes.
- We’re encouraging Guild members and volunteers to travel to events on public transport, by electric vehicle, or car share wherever possible. In the future, we hope to be able to offset the carbon emissions of our team’s event travel.
- We’re committed to avoiding using AI in our work due to the considerable environmental impact.
- We’re actively seeking to work only with ethical, sustainable brands and community partners within the Cosplay Village.
We’ll be running our sustainability initiatives as a trial for 2025 and monitoring the response during the year; look out for our new ‘policies’ tab coming soon, including our sustainability policy. We’re still learning, so we’re more than happy to take on feedback, so if you have any questions about the process, a great idea for us to do better, or you’d like to get involved with helping out with a stash swap or cosplay swap meet, please get in touch!
