Cosplay Realm Magazine’s 2019 Annual Holiday Gift Guide
Written by Aesthel
Photography and Modeling by Aesthel and Emily Rey
Every year Cosplay Realm Magazine works to put together a holiday gift guide for your cosplaying friends and family. The things you can find in this gift guide are perfect for cosplayers, photographers, nerds, and fans of all kinds of pop culture. This year we partnered up with such a fun group of shops to give you some of our gift suggestions!
Arda Wigs
Arda Wigs is one of our personal favorite wig brands out there. It was such an honor to create some content for them for this year’s gift guide! Arda Wigs are perfect both out of the bag and for light to heavy styling. Seriously, these wigs can do so much! Their fibers are high quality and heat resistant, which really helps out for styling your wigs. They have a huge array of colors and styles available in their shop from short to long, pig tails to lace fronts, you are certain to find what you need for your cosplay in their shop!
Chibi CLASSIC - Small 21" in the shade Dark Blue - $46.00
“I used Arda’s Chibi pigtail wig to cosplay as my Dungeons and Dragons character, Yuukie Hana. It was the perfect shade for my character and styling it was really easy! For my wig styling I trimmed the bangs and the face framing pieces into Yuukie’s signature choppy look. I also untied the pigtails from how they came and tied them lower on the head. The wig is super comfortable and has really high quality fibers perfect for heavy or light styling! I could easily contain all of my own long hair inside of this wig too!”
-Aesthel
Buttercup CLASSIC in the shade Rust Red - $35.00
This wig was just very lightly styled, and is mostly right out of the bag! Triss Merigold’s hair is split into two buns on the back of her head and she has a few wispy hairs that come out around her hairline. We lightly trimmed a couple of strands near the front of the wig to frame around Emily’s face and tied the length of the wig up into the small messy buns. The bright red color was perfect to replicate the bright vibrant colors from the video game!
Co-Kan
We love the crew over at Co-Kan! They can supply all of your ita bag needs and more! Co-Kan has various bags of all different sizes and colors available, so you can easily match the bag to your own personal style or to your favorite character!
Be sure to use code CRM19 for 20% off your first order with Cokan! Code expires on December 31st 2019 at midnight!
Cutility Pack Ita Bag - $59.95
“Unmatched utility meets heart-stopping cuteness in the Cutility Pack ita bag. Our most durable and user friendly ita bag yet, the Cutility Pack comes with a swappable fabric insert and safety pins - both of which are color matching! The deco window on this puppy zips shut from the inside, keeping your merch extra safe! Best of all, it can be worn as a backpack or crossbody style with a simple adjustment of the straps.”
In addition to Co-Kan’s bags, we also got the chance to include some of their awesome bag accessories! C-oKan bag accessories featured in our bags include Deco Lights, Glass Charms, and Badge Bands! Co-Kan’s accessories are the perfect way to even further personalize our bags and make them stand out from the crowd, plus their Badge Bands and Merch Covers really help protect your merch when decorating your bag!
RoleCosplay
RoleCosplay is a relatively new cosplay store to the scene, and they definitely did not disappoint! We had so much fun bringing this character to life for our photoshoot, and the costume felt like such good quality! RoleCosplay carries a wide range of cosplays from anime, video games, and movies. Through their site you can fight costumes, wigs, accessories, and more for all of your cosplay needs! They also have costumes available for both adults and children so the whole family can dress up together! Shipping was fast, which is also always a big bonus with online shopping.
The Rising of the Shield Hero Raphtalia Cosplay Costume Full Set - Size Medium - $129.24
The Rising of the Shield Hero Raphtalia Brown Long Cosplay Wigs - $35.51
Wolftail Tail Light Brown White Plush Cosplay - $18.83
“The Rising of the Shield Hero was one of my favorite anime series of 2019, and Raphtalia is such a precious character! It was so much fun to cosplay as her thanks to Rolecosplay! The cosplay is very comfortable and the fabric feels like a really nice quality. My favorite part was the soft fluffy tail! The tail has a wire in it so you can pose it for photos too!” -Aesthel
Kawaii Box
Kawaii Box is the cutest monthly subscription box out there! It’s affordable, has free shipping, and has the cutest things inside! Every box is so much fun and you’ll be surprised every month! Kawaii Box includes authentic brands and characters like those of Sanrio, Rilakkuma, Moomin, and many more! Not only does this box have cute items, but it also has useful items and even snacks and treats!
The cutest subscription box! Kawaii-fy your life with a monthly box filled with cute things, kawaii squishies, plushies & more!
Pictured here is the November 2019 Kawaii Box. The box was themed after a magical adventure, and we definitely felt the magic in this box! The bright colors and cute themed items were so much fun and we’re definitely going to be getting a lot of use out of them!
Check out our unboxing video to see our first reaction to everything inside this box!
This month we’re giving away one Kawaii Box! Check out the widget below for more information on how to join the giveaway!
Pukaparade
In addition to bigger shops, we also wanted to include an independent artist in this year’s gift guide! This year’s featured artist is Pukaparade, one of our personal favorite artists! Plus they are actually local to us here in New England, so it’s extra special for us to celebrate someone close to us!
Kasia of Pukaparade makes art from all of our favorite fandoms including Critical Role, The Arcana, Fire Emblem, Dragon Age, and more! They make tons of fun merch like pins/buttons, charms, 3D mousepads, lanyards, squishy keychains, and lots more. You can find them in convention artist alleys, or on their Etsy shop! We both personally own a bunch of different items from their shop and we’ve loved every single one of them! You can even spy a couple of Pukaparade pieces in our Co-Kan photos earlier in this article! If you’d like to learn more about Kasia and their artwork and shop, be sure to pick up the 2019 Winter Holiday issue of Cosplay Realm Magazine to read a full interview with them!
We’re hosting a giveaway with Pukaparade for a gift certificate code to their shop! Enter the giveaway now through Twitter! Giveaway runs until 12/23/2019!
Cosplay Realm Magazine
Cosplay Realm Magazine is a monthly internationally published cosplay, photography, and geek culture outlet. New issues of the magazine come out every month and we have tons of fun themes! Every issue features cosplayers of all levels, interviews, articles, and personal stories.
Cosplay Realm Magazine Issues Available Now!
Already a fan of Cosplay Realm Magazine? Share your love of cosplay and fandom with pride by checking out some Cosplay Realm Merch! We have tees, hoodies, stickers, and more available over on our merch site.
We hope you were able to find some good ideas for gifts for yourself or your loved ones in our gift guide this year! Be sure to go enter our giveaways for a chance to win some goodies of your own! Be sure to pick up the 2019 Annual Winter Holiday issue of Cosplay Realm Magazine, available now, to see some awesome cosplayers and the print gift guide too!