:sniper:
how about we take aim at this idea....

how about we have people sign up at the con and perform a costume contest.
have everyone be introduced and then tell everyone whats going on. then... put the 3 contestants or w/e into a room and they cannot go into the room with anything. at the start they are shown a picture /told who they are supposed to try and make a costume of. and give them like 30 min-1hr or something.
(in the room have a bunch of scrap material ie. fabric, cardboard, foam, and just random stuff) and they have to make their cosplay out of the given materials. lol.

Basiclly we would be having 'Iron Cosplayer' then. hmmmmmm Sounds interesting.

I like the idea, though I'm not sure we'd have the budget for it. If not this year, definatly next!

What if people just donated some of their extra scrap material from when they made their own cosplay costumes? If enough people donated, you could have quite a collection.

That could do it well, if enough people did to give us a good variety. We'd have to probably announce at the con itself it it was actually happening though.

You could just have the contests who sign up bring there own stuff. They bring their own fabrics, sewing utinsiles, have finished projects they already have, and whatever else they need. I'm sure donations can be excepted, but the cosplayers should really plan on having their own stuff. I think it could attract some cosplayers who have been getting tired of simple cosplay and want a challenge.

You could include material donations information on the site for people who visit to learn about the con. You could also post it up at the con and maybe in the flyers. Also, if there was some way to inform people who pre-reg for the con that you're collecting donations of material they could decide to bring it with them to the con or not.

I think it's a good idea for people who want to participate in the game to gather and bring general materials themselves. Things they'll know they need like yards of a general material, thread and needles and such. But, that would be the same problem of people having to know in advance about the game.

Maybe you could get some nearby fabric and hobby stores to sponser the event! Then perhaps they'd give you freebees!

You could also provide the option to work in teams of say three that way they could get more of the costume finished in a shorter amount of time.

I'd let you use my sewing machine, as long as it doesn't get broken.

even better (due to money issues)

Have them draw out the break down of the costumes.
See who goes as close (as in detail by detail)
it is somewhat the same, yet very different

That seems like a good idea.

i have a bunch of scrap material as well. and i think that was a great suggestion!

That would be interesting....but how would you wait out the time? They'd have to have time to make the costumes, and people are going to get bored just sitting there.

actually, we could really use a lot of donated/borrowed supplies for "Anime Makeover" which is essentially the same thing.
Basically we take some people and dress them up, though we barely have enough supplies to do one design, so any cosplay donations would be AWESOME

yeah and the time thing is no big deal just have a little pre-show thing and announce who the contestants are, and then send them to where ever to do things and then tell the audience that they will be doing this for an hour (or w/e) and tell them to come back to see what they created.
or
you can just have sign up in a room and when they sign up for this they have an hour or so to create something and then have a show planned to unveil everyones creations later on in the day?