[Lucy Cosplay] Cyberpunk: Edgerunner Under the Night Sky

Chongqing's rooftop night view matches Cyberpunk: Edgerunners almost one-to-one. To shoot this Lucy night cosplay photoshoot, I took a high-speed train for several hours with all my gear to get to this location. The shoot was set on an open-air fire exit platform of a high-rise building. The metal grates and railings under my feet, paired with the distant city neon lights, instantly filled the atmosphere with the vibe from the anime.

Regarding the makeup and styling this time, the wig was specially hand-dyed with highlights. To facilitate outdoor lighting, silver fibers were woven into the hair strands, which exhibit an inorganic, high-tech vibe under night flashes. As for the costume, it consists of a white jacket and a black shiny leather bodysuit. This material reflects light exceptionally well under night lighting, particularly highlighting the high boots and leg details, perfectly outlining the character's body shape. To recreate that elusive urban atmosphere, I deliberately draped the jacket halfway over my shoulders, which not only adds visual layers but also allows for freer movements.

The difficulty of the shoot was actually quite high. To layer me together with the staggered high-rises in the background, the photographer almost leaned half his body outside the guardrail. We worked really hard and shot until early morning. The most critical aspect was handling the rim light on the character and the light spots of the background skyscrapers—ensuring enough cool white light on my face while keeping the background city lights from becoming too dim. This time, we alternated between wide-angle and telephoto lenses. Wide-angle lenses captured more of the environment, emphasizing the oppressive sense of the skyscrapers, while telephoto lenses brought me closer to the background buildings, blurring the background into beautiful large-aperture bokeh. I particularly love one shot where I'm sitting on the edge of the rooftop; this angle perfectly shows off the boots and leg lines, creating a great sense of atmosphere against the deep blue background. There's also a standing half-body wide-angle shot where the feeling of levitation was intense during shooting. In fact, there was a wire mesh underneath my feet, but due to the aperture setting, it was hardly visible, which achieved the desired visual effect.

Chongqing's three-dimensionality and dramatic elevation changes provided an absolute advantage when shooting this genre. The distance between high-rises is extremely small, and the light density is exceptionally high. You can find many building clusters towering into the clouds and filled with a sense of oppression, just like Night City in Cyberpunk 2077. This shoot didn't require special studio visual effects—relying entirely on the city's own bizarre and vibrant lights was enough to capture the core of the cyberpunk spirit. Because night scenes have high lighting contrast, I put a lot of effort into post-production color grading as well. Instead of overly chasing popular magenta-purple tones, I maintained a cold tone dominated by black and dark blue, retaining only the warm yellow window lights of the skyscrapers as accents. This gives the entire image a cinematic quality that won't cause visual fatigue.

Let's talk about the posing concept. Since the rooftop environment itself is quite hard-edged and industrial, I tried to avoid flashy, difficult poses, relying more on the architecture itself for support. For instance, leaning against the railing requires controlling the core balance—looking relaxed yet maintaining a sense of balance on a dangerous edge. Another aspect is showing close-up textures, which heavily relies on makeup and skin base preparation. Under direct flash, skin and material textures demand strong makeup, as even minor flaws are amplified under flashlights. To cover these up, we worked hard during early preparation and used lighting setups to minimize shadows, giving the skin a digitized, clear translucency. Furthermore, while this outfit looks minimalist, securing it was much harder than imagined—especially wearing the boots. In Chongqing's hot and humid weather, walking up a few stairs left me drenched in sweat, but for the sake of visual neatness, I just had to power through it.

In the final photos, you can see many compositions that I'm personally very satisfied with. On one hand, the photographer captured incredible angles; on the other hand, Chongqing—this cyberpunk metropolis—provided excellent raw material through its infrastructure. Choosing to shoot on a rooftop also carries a symbolic meaning: standing at the apex of man-made engineering, overlooking the brightly lit city below, evokes a sense of loneliness and freedom that transcends reality. I'll probably post some behind-the-scenes videos later to show everyone how challenging night photography can be. All in all, despite the exhausting location shoot, the final photos far exceeded expectations. Whether it's the imposing skyscrapers from a distance or the high-texture materials up close, this photoshoot successfully combined the character with the urban environment, conveying the exact cold, sleek vibe I envisioned.