2009 Halloween Rit Armor Costume

A really well made costume. The competition was extremely hard this year, that could be a fair reason why you didnt place.
Anet must've had a hard time judging so many incredible entries spread across so many different categories. :/
At least you have an awesome Halloween costume, which will be with you forever!

Thanks for sharing though!

it is better then a few of the places and honorable mentions. they chose way too many mad king thorn stuff.

That looks really nice!

Rit armour is always so pretty when made in real life... xD You did a great representation of the casting pose the first picture too.

Beautiful costume, Nienna!

I'm no expert, but as a fellow cosplayer I can give you some constructive criticism if you like

First and foremost a wig makes any costume 100x better. It just helps complete the whole fantasy feel rather than risking looking like a girl wearing a costume. It helps you 'become' the character!

I love all the detailing you did, especially with the jewelry. I mean, that piece hanging from your bra--STUNNING! Did you make that? I love the little skull on your necklace. You didn't neglect the Rit tattoos either. Excellent work! Unfortunately, like others have said, the photos don't really help to show off the intricate details of your costume as much as nicer ones could. They're better than some GW cosplayer photos I've seen, but still a little blurry.

But yeah, I see nothing wrong with your costume. I even brought up the in-game model and flipped between the art and your costume, and you got all the details! I'm impressed!

The only other thing I can add is more of a personal preference, but I'll add it here just because I've wanna vent lol. There's so little GW cosplay out there, and it's really sad because it's such a great game with great characters and so many beautiful designs. However, every other cosplay that's made seems to be a Ritualist. (Or Eve...ugh, please no more Eve.) Maybe it's because I'm not a jewelry and bead person, lol, but I'd really like to see some other characters and classes represented by the fans. Absolutely nothing against anyone who wants to make a pretty Rit costume, it's just my personal wish for more characters
(have you seen the Charr? woooooooooow!!)

Awesome costume! I agree with Tagaki, the wig would really add a nice effect on the overall appearance.

If only I have the time, I'd cosplay as a mesmer. I miss cosplaying as well!

I dunno, there is rit hair that looks exactly like hers. If it was a wig imo it'd look too fake.

Indeed, I think the wig only has a place if you can't match the hairstyle - you don't 'want' it to look like w wig after all.

That is excellent work, and certainly one of the best costumes I have ever seen. I have to agree with the others in that I don't know why it didn't place at all. :/

I'm also wondering why I missed this topic until now.

I'm also going to disagree on "wigs always make it look better". That's the case only if you can find a high quality one that looks realistic. Which, unless you're planning on shelling out a decent chunk of change or ordering from ebay (and hoping you get lucky), isn't likely to be the case.

I use a wig about half the time with my cosplays, and that's only if the character I'm cosplaying as has hair that is drastically different from how mine looks (and even with that, I prefer to style my wigs myself). The other half of the time, I'm able to simply style my hair to match what I need it to look like.

The costume is very nice and you should be proud of your work. Technically, it looks very strong. Here are my crits though:
1)If you compare it to Tzu's entry the character isn't as universally recognizable as Jora so it may not have resonated with the judges in the same way
2) It took me a few minutes to recognize her as a ritualist. Perhaps a few props might have helped, like the hallmark headmask, an urn with ashes, or perhaps a spirit photoshoped into the background (if you do something like this again, let me know. I can probably composite one in for you). 3) The setting is nice but not very Canthan like. It reminds me more of pre-searing Ascalon.

I think if you focus on the things that trigger in people's minds "oh! that's a ritualist!" you will have much greater success.