CutiePieSensei is well-known on the internet. Not only for her popular character recreations, but also for her work ethic, discipline, and sunny outlook on life. Jasmine has over 173,000 followers on Instagram, nearly 81,000 fans on Facebook, as well as 24,700 Twitter users eagerly awaiting for her newest content. Jasmine also has more than 4,600 people following her personal Instagram account.
In an interview with Bored Panda, CutiePieSensei revealed how she got into cosplay and went into detail about her favorite characters, as well as the greatest challenges she faced when making her cool costumes.
“To be honest, I didn't even know cosplay was a thing until my boyfriend (now husband) told me about conventions my freshman year of college. We were supposed to go to a con together after he told me about it but I got sick. So he brought me some souvenirs back from the dealer room. I didn't even know you could buy anime related merch so I was hyped! Later on, we were walking through our college campus and happened upon MomoCon, which started at our school. After seeing famous characters being cosplayed myself that was all I needed to want to get started. I love being creative (I'm a professional artist) so it served as another creative outlet for me.”
According to the cosplayer, each DIY costume takes a different amount of time to make, depending on the difficulty. ”Most real "builds" I make average about a month, but within that month I may spend a different number of hours. I get bored easily so I try to get stuff done in no longer than a month and a half. That's how long my Captain Marvel took! She was definitely my hardest build as it is majority real leather and I had never sewn leather before. But when Marvel asks if you wanna make Captain Marvel, you make Captain Marvel!”
“My favorite is a tie between Wonder Woman and Black Panther Shuri. Both characters are just so smart and powerful, and I always get amazing feedback from not only other women in the community, but parents and their kids! It's such a humbling experience for people to see you embody a character that they truly connect with and see that character's strengths in you. I get so much love and encouragement and support in those costumes.”
CutiePieSensei also had advice for those of you who love the idea of DIY cosplay and want to give costume-making and dressing up a go: “The advice I'd give is to not let fear prevent you from cosplaying. Just because you don't look exactly like a character, doesn't mean you still can't embody that character and what they stand for. For the longest time, I thought I could only cosplay characters with brown skin. When I finally stepped out of that box it was SO liberating. Focus on having fun and not letting others dictate who you can be.”
“I'm a cosplayer, but what a lot of people don't know is that cosplay is not my full time job. I do it on the side as a hobby," she told Bored Panda. "Full time, I'm a concept artist for a game company, so I'm legitimately an illustrator during the day!”
“I try to separate the "real world" me from cosplay me, but I think my skills in both cosplay and art kinda help me on either side and it's really cool to see the influences of my cosplay on my art. I don't think I'd ever be a full time cosplayer, purely because art is something I always wanted to do and I'm so blessed to be able to actually work in my field!”
“Instagram gets all the fun stuff, but they don’t see when I’m crying and covered in hot glue bits,” Jasmine joked while speaking to SyFy Wire reporters. She added that several years ago she never would’ve imagined that she’d have power tools in her home meant for making costumes. How things change, right?
Everyone lives by a certain code, whether we know it or not. And CutiePieSensei is no different. She seems to live by the motto of positivity and inclusiveness: in her opinion, everyone can be anyone they want to be. For her, cosplay is a way to find freedom by feeling like you actually are a powerful character. And that just melts all the stress of life away.
CutiePieSensei told SyFy Wire that her favorite things to do are mashups of different characters and that she also spends at least a couple of weeks researching her next costume, as well as ‘breaking down’ all the details to figure out what she wants to do. Charming, dedicated, able to have fun and keep going even when things are hard. Is it just me or does CutiePieSensei sound like a superhero?
