[C.C. cosplay] Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, The Green-Haired Witch in the Rocky Wilderness

Shooting this C.C. finished set was chosen on a very hardcore rocky terrain near Sydney, serving as part of a wonderful Sydney photoshoot experience. This grey-white wavy texture and sense of openness perfectly neutralized the high-gloss, smooth texture of the costume.

First of all is the design of this costume. The entire outfit is made of a deep blue high-gloss material with a prominent reflective effect, similar to a patent leather texture. Silver-white geometric strips and borders are stitched onto the clothing, reasonably distributed across the sleeves and pant legs. The wide water sleeves design is a highlight of this styling, with black patchwork at the cuffs serving as the finish. The bell-bottom pants on the lower half combined with the slit design at the knees visually elongate one's proportions immensely. In particular, those few hanging long white streamers are very prone to creating dynamic effects on the windy rocky terrain. However, the strong wind also meant it was difficult to control. To capture the moments of the streamers falling naturally or fluttering, we reshot back and forth many times, and finally had to manually adjust the direction of the streamers to prevent them from getting dirtied by sand and rocks. The footwear is a pair of pure white ankle boots. Since the ground here consists of layered rocks, walking is actually quite wearing on the soles and easily gathers dust on the white shoe surfaces, requiring extra care to wipe them down with wet wipes between shoots.

For the hair and makeup, to restore the texture of the green hair, the hair volume of the wig was highly demanding. As light penetrated the green hair strands, it formed a faint rim light under backlighting, which became an anchor point for the mood of the entire photograph. For the eye makeup, I intentionally controlled the colors, trying my best to preserve a cold and detached feeling without too many pink tones, and the lip color was also a cool, dark shade. Paired with the character's posture, it brought out that tsundere yet powerful aura. Controlling the gaze was actually quite crucial; it needed to gaze into the distance without focusing, giving off a mysterious and unfathomable ambiance.

Shooting cosplay in the wild, especially in high-contrast scenes with large areas like this, makes the pre-shoot preparation work much more complex than indoors. The wind over in Sydney was quite strong. When the wind blew, although the clothes didn't cling to the body as easily, a flowing elegance emerged. Standing on those wavy rocky ridge lines, the ground was sometimes uneven underfoot. To stabilize my posture, I had to drop my center of gravity onto my back leg first, then rely on the other leg to support my balance. Maintaining an extended pose was actually quite tiring, especially with both arms spread open to hold up the wide sleeve edges. A few times midway through, the heavy gusts almost folded the sleeves backward, forcing us to stop and wait for the wind to die down before continuing, which heavily tested our patience during the photoshoot.

When seeing the final photos, I felt that the cold wind blown in the wilderness was totally worth it. The overall composition of the frame is very clean, with the character right in the middle of the frame; although the ground underfoot consists of grey-white rocks, the character's deep blue costume precisely forms a visual contrast. This time, we didn't overly rely on post-processing special effects to reshape the light and shadow, but mainly counted on natural light and the color contrast of the terrain to present the texture. Overcoming this glossy leather clothing under strong light can be said to be the core soul of this C.C. cosplay finished set. Merging that highly reflective fabric, complex clothing tailoring, and the wide outdoor photography environment together preserves both the mystery belonging to an anime character and adds a hint of dashing coolness of adapting to the real world. This slightly cool-toned outdoor witch style was indeed a very interesting attempt, as well as a comprehensive test of my performance state under cosplay photography.