[Seraphine cosplay] League of Legends idol checks in at a real E-sports room

The overall effect of this shoot at the internet cafe turned out much better than I expected. I've always wanted to bring Seraphine from League of Legends into a real e-sports room environment, and this internet cafe event happened to give me the opportunity. The e-sports chair paired with this highly stage-oriented costume gives a wonderful feeling of breaking the dimension wall.
Costume details really need careful handling. This outfit has numerous layers; the white-and-purple upper garment paired with a red bow tie, along with a large area of yellow pleated skirt hem, tends to reflect light under the internet cafe's overhead lighting, so we adjusted the light positions several times. The gradient color of the wig is the focal point of the styling, transitioning from golden yellow to pink, and it needs to be combed very fluffy to support the weight of the headwear. To match the overall color scheme, the eye makeup purposely chose blue contact lenses, and a teardrop-shaped painted decoration was dotted under the right eye. The staff prop carries a fair amount of weight in hand, which actually tests arm strength quite a bit when posing.
Sitting in the e-sports chair to take photos, the biggest challenge was to maintain the character's elegance while blending into the casual vibe of the e-sports room. The pose in the second picture, stretching the arm to hold the staff, was meant to showcase the layers of the skirt and the lines of the white boots. In the second photo (note: referring to another pose mentioned), I crossed my legs to allow the yellow and red skirt hems to drape naturally, while also better displaying the boot styling. Although the internet cafe environment is relatively noisy, wearing headphones and focusing on the character really gives an illusion of performing on stage in the game.
The shooting process also tested the cooperation with the photographer. Since the internet cafe space is limited, the computer screen light behind and the reflections of the glass partitions needed to be cleverly avoided or utilized. I tried my best to make my posture look stretched while keeping the subject in the center of the frame, avoiding being blocked by nearby computer cases or peripherals. Although the white boots look great, walking in them for a long time is still tiring, and for the sake of shooting results, I had to keep a straight posture the whole time.
In terms of combining props and scenes, I especially liked how the game graphics on the computer screen echoed my costume colors. This attempt to blend a virtual character with a real e-sports environment gave me a new understanding of cosplay; there's no need to deliberately build a studio set, as real-world locations in daily life can actually bring a stronger sense of storytelling.
Moreover, the cut of this costume imposes quite a limit on movements, especially the purple spliced design at the waist. To keep the lines smooth, I hardly dared to bend over to sit down completely during shooting breaks. Every time I adjusted a posture, I had to reorganize the folds of the skirt to ensure the overlapping effect of red and yellow was full in front of the lens. The internet cafe's keyboard and mouse also became good foreground elements; although these details are not obvious in the final photos, that feeling of being surrounded by e-sports equipment at the time indeed brought a different emotional experience to the shoot.
Seraphine herself is a character full of stage presence and dreamy colors, and the internet cafe is where many people first encounter League of Legends. Combining the two always gives a wonderful sense of destiny. To keep the character from looking out of place in the internet cafe environment, I retained some of the idol's lightness in my action design, such as slightly lifted fingers and stretched limbs, which can neutralize the rigid mechanical lines of the e-sports room. The blue teardrop dots in the eye makeup weren't very obvious under the internet cafe's warm lighting, but as long as the lens zoomed in, that dreamy feeling belonging to the character could immediately come through.
Wearing and organizing the entire costume took a lot of time, but it is precisely the refinement of these details that allows the final photos to have a better presentation. This shooting experience gave me new thoughts on scene selection, and perhaps in the future, I can try more different real-life scenes to explore more possibilities of cosplay.