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One week before San Diego Comic-Con, Eleanor Barnes, known as Snitchery on social media, still hadn’t decided on her cosplay for the first day of the convention. She was torn between two ideas: the Ice King from the animated TV show, Adventure Time, or Charlie the Unicorn from the 2005 YouTube series of shorts. Would she twirl in a cobalt blue gown or wear a prosthetic horse muzzle on the convention floor? “Honestly, that’s cosplay,” she said of her unconfirmed plans.
For Barnes, it always comes together. The proof is in her social media posts. The content creator has amassed over five million followers across platforms for her dramatic and fantastical transformations, as well as glimpses into her “closet cosplay” (the craft of creating costumes with everyday items). A video of her creating a Shai-Hulud (the giant sandworm from the Dune films) by spray-painting a children’s pop-up crawl tunnel had her followers applauding her ingenuity. “You just made it look like the easiest cosplay,” said one user. “This was insanely impressive,” fellow cosplayer Kiera Please commented.
Barnes has enjoyed dressing up in costume since she was a child. “I’ve always loved Halloween,” she says. “As a preteen, I started seeing convention footage [on Tumblr], and I was like, ‘What the hell? People are doing Halloween all yearlong.’”
Cosplay to Barnes is something everyone should feel comfortable doing, no matter how skilled you are in arts and crafts. “I immediately fell in love with it,” she says, adding that she remembers being intimidated when she first considered dabbling in the space. “I saw these super labor-intensive costumes, and while it was something that I really admired, I thought it was inaccessible to me because I didn’t know how to sew,” she says.
Still, Barnes encourages people to give cosplay a try, explaining that what makes dressing up as a character you love worth it is the community that comes with it. “It’s the least judgemental community,” she says. “It’s really about having fun, healing your inner child, and openly being dorky and in love with shit.”
After years of honing her craft, Barnes has become more comfortable sewing, taping, and gluing materials she finds at home and at costume shops. You’ll notice her looks aren’t precise re-creations of characters you might see onscreen. That’s intentional. “My style is a little chaotic and unhinged and imperfect,” she says. “I work pretty fast, faster than people think because I’m not 3D printing.”
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