[Cartethyia Cosplay] Wuthering Waves summer Beach photo shoot record

For this outdoor shoot of Cartethyia's Swimsuit cosplay, we deliberately chose a real location venue featuring an artificial beach and pool edge. Because the character's costume itself contains a large amount of blue-and-white sheer tulle elements, in terms of lighting choice, I specifically asked the photographer to avoid the overhead light at noon and instead chose to shoot after 3 PM. By utilizing relatively soft side-backlight, the sheer material could reveal a lightweight texture.

Let's talk about the makeup and styling part first. To match the refreshing feel of the summer beach, I used light blue and silver-white sequins for accentuation in the eye makeup, and slightly smudged the outer corners of the eyes downward. Paired with blue contact lenses, this made the gaze look softer. The base makeup emphasized a translucent feel, with blush applied more noticeably than usual, concentrated in the middle of the face to simulate a natural flush after being sunburned. Wearing elf ears was a key focus of this styling; since it needed to match the blue branches and white flowers on the headpiece, I spent nearly half an hour adjusting the position when fixing the elf ears to ensure they fit closely with the edges of my real auricles without showing in profile shots.

For the clothing part, this blue-and-white off-the-shoulder sheer dress has a lot of layers. The inner black halter base needed to be adjusted to just the right position so that when the outer sheer layer slipped, it presented a natural and safe visual effect. The blue sheer skirt hem is very long, and dragging it on the beach easily catches debris, so every time I adjusted my sitting posture, I used my hand to straighten out the sheer skirt first before sitting down slowly, which ensured the directional folds of the skirt hem remained as smooth as possible. Since it was a Swimsuit cosplay theme, no shoes were worn throughout the whole set, and we went straight in barefoot. Walking barefoot on the sand is actually hotter than imagined, and sand easily sticks to the soles of the feet, so every time the camera turned towards me, I needed to quickly clean the soles with wet wipes to avoid dirt appearing in close-up shots.

In the first photo, I was sitting on a white plastic beach chair with my legs crossed. This posture was actually to maximize the sense of extension in the leg lines. To prevent the muscles from looking stiff, I leaned my center of gravity slightly back, placed my hands naturally clasped on my knees, and the hanging blue sheer fabric served as a visual guide. During the shoot, the sunlight happened to hit the green background wall on the right, forming some mottled light and shadow. I had the photographer use a large aperture to blur out these light and shadows, allowing the bright yellow surfboard and green background in the distance to form a color contrast, thereby keeping the visual focus more on the character and costume.

The second photo was captured candidly while sitting sideways. I had just finished adjusting my hair, with my hand resting near the blue neck ring, and the photographer felt this moment was very natural, so he had me hold that action. Since the side-profile angle makes the shoulders look thinner, when shooting angles like this, I would intentionally pull my shoulder blades slightly backward to keep the back upright. The yellow beaded bracelet and flower ring on my wrist were small accessories I added myself, aiming to break the coldness brought by the large area of blue-and-white color tones and add a bit of warm-toned pop.

The entire shooting process required constant back-and-forth movement between the rest area and the shooting area. Plastic chairs sink easily into the sand, and every time the position was moved, the level had to be re-adjusted. Although the process was a bit tiring, seeing the light and shadow of the blue-and-white sheer dress shining through the sunlight in the finished photos, along with the lazy seaside resort atmosphere presented overall, made all the early preparations and shooting struggles feel totally worth it.