[Sheng Cai'er & Chen Ying'er Cosplay] Throne of Seal: Behind-the-Scenes of the Dual Holy Maidens Duo Shot

For these two looks of Sheng Cai'er and Chen Ying'er from Throne of Seal, from makeup finalization to the final shutter press, the early-stage preparations took up most of our energy. This time, we decided to use a slightly high-key screen to present the holiness of the setting, and chose a pure white European-style studio scene to echo the colors of the costumes.

Let's start with the clothing details. For Sheng Cai'er cosplay, this white, blue, and purple color-palette long dress heavily tested the tailoring and weight distribution. To maintain the crispness and flatness of the clothes before the lens, the lining fabric was specially thickened, and the off-the-shoulder design and deep V-neck line tailoring could fit the body shape beautifully, visually elongating the waistline when paired with the deep purple waist seal. The silver-white wig is long and smooth; to prevent the hair strands from looking messy during poses, we used hairspray to fix them in advance. On the other hand, Chen Ying'er cosplay's pink and purple dual-colored dress is visually much more complex. The core highlight is a circle of hand-sewn pink and blue roses on the skirt hem, where every stamen and petal underwent fine processing. Combined with the golden wing hair accessories on the pink twin tails and that pair of wrap-around high-heeled sandals on the feet, the character's overall look carries both a maiden's playfulness and a touch of elegance.

The props brought along this time also took quite a lot of effort. Sheng Cai'er's long-handled magic wand is nearly 1.8 meters, made of rigid foam with a metallic paint coating. To wield it in a limited space during shooting without appearing clumsy required extremely careful control of the holding angle. We thought of many holding methods, and ultimately found a pose that could both showcase the weapon's intimidation and maintain the composition's balance. Chen Ying'er's little rabbit plushie is a powerful tool to add interactive fun, using it to find an emotional anchor in many static poses, making the frame carry more of a narrative feel.

Regarding the staggered positioning for the duo shot cooperation, we fully utilized the multi-layered steps and arch structures inside the studio. When taking well-staggered positions at high and low points, the perspective relationship of the wide-angle lens can be leveraged to form an excellent depth of field in the frame, while allowing the pink and white attire to form a strong visual complementarity. Shooting a duo shot is much harder than single shots because you must not only look after your own expressions and limbs but also consider the alignment of both gazes and the continuity of actions. Before officially starting the shoot, we spent a long time simulating interactive movements, such as holding hands, turning back from the side, and locking eyes, attempting to make the frame present a sense of perfect tacit understanding rather than a rigid piecing together.

In terms of lighting, the photography master utilized a high-key approach with a main light plus a softbox, illuminating the entire white set to an extreme brightness, ultimately presenting a cool-toned dreamlike effect. Coordinated with the drape of the white gauze drapes on-site, it removed all miscellaneous colors from the environment, making the frame appear exceptionally clean and translucent. This high-exposure shooting method actually heavily tests the makeup; if the shadows are too heavy or the wig is too rigid, it's easy to expose flaws under the strong light. Therefore, we checked the reflectivity of the wig and clothing accessories in advance to ensure that excessive highlight glare would not appear under the strong strobe flashes. This forms a perfect backdrop for Cosplay studio shooting.

When returning to the computer to select photos after a day of shooting, seeing the frames presented on the screen made me feel that all the previous efforts of repeatedly adjusting poses and arranging the skirt hem were valuable. This shoot, whether in costume details or scene atmosphere, tried its best to restore our understanding of these two characters. Every outtake and shoot is a polishing of one's own acting and performance, and seeing the final cuts reflect that side of the characters is the most gratifying moment.