We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Chell thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

While I do a lot of cosplay, a big part of it is also the photography and video aspect. I’ve grown up always making little home videos or taking photos and making something fun or interesting with them. I remember decorating my room with my own merch from games and shows I enjoyed, everything handmade from ‘stained glass’ windows made from tissue paper, to mini figurines of iconic video game items. It’s these early days, just playing around with art and digital media, that my passion for all of this grew and became what it is today: I’m an award-winning cosmaker and cosplayer, and a professional cosplay photographer who does have a name in the community – I never thought that I’d ever be able to say all of that!

The first time I ever used photoshop was to make myself look like Alice Cullen from the Twilight series (I guess you could say it was my first-ever cosplay before I even knew what cosplay was – she had a cool look and I didn’t know I could buy a wig if I really wanted to look like her! So instead I decided to try my hand at Photoshop). It was just basic things like changing my eye colour, merging a hairstyle to my head, and making a movie poster background. What I didn’t know back then, as I tried to make sense of how layers and masks worked and how to photomash, was that a love for photography and video editing and creating props and costumes from series I enjoyed really began there – and one day many people around the world would follow my craft and even learn from me – I’d gain clients that wanted to work with me because of my skills and because they were inspired by me.

Even though it’s been years since that first time in Photoshop, I feel like I never stop learning. Even when I officially began to do photography commissions back in 2022, I still felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. I look back at my work from two years ago and I can really feel like I’ve improved in my skills and I’ve gained so much more confidence in what I do.

This extends to cosplay as well. Every time I make something new, whether it’s a wig or new sewing technique, I always remind myself of where I was even a year ago. The ability to create something with so much more ease and pushing my skills to new places can only come with practice and being inspired by those I surround myself with.

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the creativity process. It drives me to make better and bigger things, and to find new avenues of my skillsets that I didn’t think existed within. It makes me want to connect to others, to challenge myself – and it’s just so fulfilling. I definitely couldn’t have learned everything I’ve learned without being inspired by the creatives around me, and those I follow and strive to be like online. I owe a lot to watching how others thrive in their element! And to be told now that people are inspired by what I do, makes me really feel like I’ve accomplished something in my learning journey.

It’s difficult to admit to myself when I’m proud of something I do, but I can say that I am proud of the things I create, and how far I’ve come from those mid-2000s days in Photoshop or ten years ago with my first sewing machine.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Chell, also known as chell.creates. I’m a cosmaker, cosplayer, cosplay photographer and video creator. I grew up always making things, whether it was editing videos, shooting photos, drawing, or crafting. Cosplay is something that allows me to bring so many of my hobbies together into one beautiful artform that also connects me with an amazing community of other creators.

I began cosplaying and making costumes since 2013, but remained pretty quiet online and at conventions for most of those years – up until 2021. In recent years, I’ve gained a following I never could have anticipated, and this has led me to become more involved in the local and online cosplay community, granting me so many incredible opportunities and amazing experiences. I have guested at local conventions, hosted panels, co-hosted and wrote interactive panels, created unique photography for other cosplayers, won awards for my craft, and of course, just have had the most amount of fun I’ve ever had in my life doing it all.

Online, I’m mostly known for my TikTok and Instagram channels, ‘chell.creates’, where I post handmade costumes that I document the process of creation for. These videos, where I merge aesthetically pleasing visual storytelling and cozy crafting audio with the creative process, are what my audience typically knows me for, and how I gained my following. Since then, I have honed so many different skills, and even began doing wig and costume commissions for other creatives.

With my background in video and photography, I now also do photography commissions on my chell.creates.media account, where I’m able to work with local cosplayers and other creatives to make incredible art that not only looks beautiful, but tells a story. For some time, I also included behind-the-scenes and editing tutorials on my Patreon, as well as offer patterns for cosplay props and build-books on my Kofi.

Cosplay really opens up so many different creative avenues for me, and I take pride in what I create and the connections I make with others. I’ve met so many incredible people that I now call my closest friends because of it, and my skills have grown exponentially because of the opportunities I’ve had to keep creating through this hobby.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

There are many aspects of being a creative that are so rewarding, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to just talk about one. I think I’ll be able to narrow it down to two, however: community, and seeing growth.

Since I began my online journey with cosplay, I think it definitely changed the trajectory in my life. I don’t think I would have found the people I call my dearest friends now, if I didn’t start to post my craft online and grow an audience. Growing that online audience made me want to cosplay more, which made me want to attend more conventions, which inspired me to start doing cosplay photography for others, which is how I now have my group of friends, why I’ve worked with so many amazing and talented people, and why I continue to do what I do. The community I’ve involved myself in has been inspiring and welcoming, and I always want to give back. I really was someone that kept to myself and only attended one convention a year at most, but now these events are what I look forward to. It has been so rewarding to put in the time and effort into the community and gain pleasant experiences and friendships from it.

Going hand-in-hand with community is growth. Not only in being continually pushed to do more, to experience more, to learn more – but also being able to have something to look back on. Ever since I began really documenting everything I do, it’s always nice to look back on everything I created and visually be able to see how much I’ve grown as a person and a creative. It definitely motivates me to keep trying new things and learning every day. I’m able to do something I absolutely love, which is to make things by hand, to create beautiful photography and videos for friends and for others, and to share so many positive memories with people I love – I really owe all of that to the community and for just being a creative! It brings me so much joy in my life.

How did you build your audience on social media?

In 2021, I decided to clean up my personal Instagram account and create a cosplay-only space where I could share my work. I’ve been creating cosplays and documenting them since 2013, so this was definitely a new and conscious effort I was making. It wasn’t until I found my niche in mixing cosplay progress videos with aesthetically pleasing visuals, and taking the advice of my two college friends to post those videos on TikTok, that I started to gain a following. I posted my very first and second videos on TikTok, right after one another, and one reached 300k views in a few hours. TikTok’s algorithm makes it much easier to get discovered, but also makes it a little difficult to gain a loyal following. Every TikTok video I post, I also post onto Instagram reels. I think it was the mixture of high quality video and the way I edited clips to music, was the reason why I gained a following.

In 2022 I started to become much more active in the local cosplay community and made a core cosplay group of friends which allows me to create so much more.

At the end of the day, however, I never expected to become that well-known in the community. I just wanted to share my craft. I enjoyed getting to know fellow cosplayers, locally and around the world, and create really cool things with them. I was just very lucky that my videos resonated with others – and since I had that motivation from an audience, it helped push me to continue to create more and more, and therefore practise my craft more. This opened up a multitude of opportunities for me, from winning competitions to guesting at conventions. I am so grateful for it all.

My advice is – remember why you create and why you post. A lot of social media comes down to luck – I definitely feel like I was lucky. Even nowadays, three years after I started posting on TikTok, I find my views aren’t reaching what they used to, or sometimes when I post something on Instagram that I’m really excited about (like my Zelda cosplays) they just don’t perform as well as something like other cosplays do – and of course I find it to be frustrating and demotivating. But that’s when I remember the purpose of making the content I make in the first place – I create cosplays that I truly find joy in wearing and creating, I connect with my friends and online circles to show the skills we have and we always have fun doing it. If you aren’t enjoying what you’re doing, especially if it’s just a hobby, then I don’t think that you should force yourself to do it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/chell.creates
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/chellcreates
• Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@chell.creates Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/chellcreates

Image Credits
Calvin Campos Media (calcamposmedia) Steph (stephiscopes) KeyoZee Photography (lookkeyo) chell.creates.media