Recently, I got a couple of requests for tips for posing in cosplay photography and I’d love to share how I go around finding poses I like. My methods involve a lot of muscle tension awareness, so you might end up feeling awkward the first time around. Don’t worry! Once you feel your body more, it gets easier to get those poses right. And to get ready for a cosplay photoshoot: do a little warming up and stretches. Don’t forget to do those with your face, hands and legs as well. No need to sweat, it is just to be more aware of your body.
I tend to “divide” my body into three main areas when posing for cosplay photography: face, torso + arms and legs.
Face and head
When you get up close and personal with photography, your face will often be the main focus. Emotion will show through in the smallest changes. It is time to be aware of how big you smile, how open your eyes are and how to tilt your head for the look you want. Eyes, eyebrows and mouth really sell your emotion. Joy and anger are the two most common emotions to portray, but have you tried sadness? Or disappointment? Grab a mirror or a camera and try those. What do you see? How does it feel?
For my Velkhana armor cosplay, I only had half my face available to show emotion. No eyes and eyebrows. Only my nose and mouth. What to do then? Make sure you’ve brushed your teeth properly and do some stretches with your mouth. Not kidding, this really helps pulling off a big angry face without ripping the sides of your mouth. Grin big, mime big silent screams and stick out your tongue if needed. My most extreme example would be this Velkhana picture:
Picture by Iloon Creations
Often a simple smile is enough, but I want to cover more than that. If we look at my Asuna, you can see that I went for a cutesy mad picture and for a strong female warrior look. She has that range and portraying that was a lot of fun. If you want to practice your emotions for cosplay pictures: grab a mirror and make silly faces. If you’re stuck on what to practice: have a look at a few manga panels that impressed you with their emotions. Try to match those in your mirror. Looking silly is perfectly fine! You might see a different expression you like instead of the one you were going for. Don’t worry, because you can always try and use your hands to gently adjust your face to create the emotion you want. Hold the expression for a bit, then let it go and try to get that expression again. Repeating it helps with muscle memory. 
Torso and arms
Not everything is up close in cosplay posing. It gets more interesting when your torso and arms are visible in the shot. Why? Action lines! Action lines are the lines the brain follows to see if an image is interesting. One straight line is kinda boring to look at. So forget about just standing straight and doing a peace sign. Luckily, triangles are very interesting to our brains and our arms are very easy to make triangle shapes with. Here are a few examples:
Picture by Diafragment media
Picture by Baka Photography
With your torso, you may have to keep in mind what your general body shape is. By positioning your torso right, you can create bigger action lines. Think about contra post posing! This is how the ancient marble statues are posing. They make a gentle S-shape by gently bending one knee and keeping one knee stiff. This makes your hips and shoulders tilt a little and thus creating a S-shape. From here, you can try various things with your arms to create shapes that look interesting and work for your character.
Action poses can also be done with keeping the torso in mind: hunching over forward can create a stalking or hiding pose. Want to pose like something crazy? Then lean over backwards. This requires a better spine than I have and some flexibility, but it is a very expressive way of posing. Doing yoga really helps with the flexibility and balance needed for more extreme poses. My best attempt was with the West Witch:
Picture by NozLan
Fern’s regular outfit really was a struggle to pose nicely with. Her big cloak is not much more than a black shapeless box (even though I added extra fabric for the swoosh). I asked Fhant to help me out with cloak throws, aka throwing the cloak upwards. Also often seen with capes. This breaks the boring rectangular shape that otherwise would exist. So sometimes it is a good idea to think about how to use the outfit in your favour. Fern is a case with a big disadvantage, but it is very easy and natural to do some dynamic poses with Aloy.
Picture by Sylphlike Photography
Legs
So, what to do with legs? Well, you do not often need to worry about how your legs are posed. They often only show up in full-body shots.
When you want to show that bit of extra personality, standing just right can do the trick. For an elegant lady, have a look at ballerina’s. No need to go en pointe. Just look at their resting poses legs. Those emit classy lady energy. Need to look strong and sturdy? Pose your legs a little wide, let’s say in line with your shoulders. Wanting a bit of elegant magic? Then standing on one leg while pulling the other up to create a triangle (Yay! Action lines!) might be what you need. Be sure to be very good in your balance when you try this. Else, you might faceplant. I’m not responsible for if you hurt yourself! Also, balance helps if you want to do high-kicking poses or those super hero landing poses. They look very dynamic.
Big dresses also are a challenge to pose with in the leg department. And they don’t always need to show legs. If your dress has a big hoopskirt, the shape from the waist down already looks like a triangle and is interesting to look at. But if you want to show leg in a big dress, you can. Walking up the stairs, would mean gently lifting the skirts to not fall and exposing the legs. Then it’s a good idea to keep in mind that modesty would be key from a historic point of view. Gwendolyn is an example for that:
Picture by Diafragment media
Where do I find inspiration?
I get inspired by dancing to find new poses I want to try. There is a lot of action in those poses and they work well without props. Also fashion magazines can be a source of inspiration, especially if you want to cosplay something from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
With props, posing looks better when you know the basics of your prop. A sword: How do you properly hold it? A bow: which archery style fits your character? A scythe: how would that work in combat? A handfan: did you read on the secret languages of handfans? A magic wand: have a look at orchestra conductors and see their action pictures. And always pose with intention!
Picture by Maeike Blauw Photography
Fan art and figurines are also great to find inspiration for poses. They might not always be realistic poses, so keep that in mind. But they are great to make moodboards with to share with your photographer and possible helpers, so you can get those amazing pictures. I shared an image with smoke flares when I was planning the Velkhana cosplay shoot and said jokingly that I could retire from cosplay if we got a shot like that with that cosplay. When I got to see the previews from Baka Photography, I was screaming because it was perfection!
The same thing happened with the Fern photoshoot. I told Teavui what I wanted in terms of feeling and she knocked it out of the park. My idea was Fern walking alone for a bit, just being comfortable doing what she likes. That gave these results:
A good photographer will catch on your idea for the pose and ask you to adjust tiny things to get the right shot. Eg. “Please move your chin gently to the right, and keep your eyes on me.” When I get these instructions, I keep my eyes where I was looking and slowly move my head. This way, the photographer can tell me to stop when I hit the pose just right. While in my opinion, the posing part lies for 95% with the cosplayer, the photographer really can make it an amazing pose by making little adjustments and getting the right perspective etc. As a cosplayer, you are the model and need to bring the character to life.
Use your costume
Some costumes have extra’s hidden in them. Like my dance dress for Fern, that has a lot of pleats in the skirt to maximize the twirls. Or Sakura Hime’s butterfly dress with the long, thin capes. Get yourself a nice location or set-up in which those can shine. Parts like that create more action lines! I was standing completely still here, but the picture below still pulls the eyes in to have a look.
Picture by MikoBura Photography
If you want to do things like this, it is smart to bring clothespins or fishing wire and a helper. And it is mandatory to talk about it with your photographer, because it takes more time to set up!
I hope this long entry in my tutorial list didn’t scare you. If you have any additions to this tutorial, send me an e-mail or DM me on socials.
Amirine