Cosplay

See what New York’s most creative costumers came up with this year.

For four days, Star Wars Celebration captivated fans of all ages with remarkable panels, early peeks at the latest Star Wars adventures, amazing merchandise and spectacular cosplay. Typically the final day of a convention is a day of rest for the cosplaying faithful, but this Star Wars Celebration, there was no rest for the weary. With no new Celebration for another two years, cosplayers turned out in their Easter Sunday best for the final day in Orlando.

Whatever the first few days had brought, they say three is the magic number. Proving that idiom, Star Wars Celebration Orlando's third day of Jedi action was filled with even more creativity from cosplaying fans.

The talk of Star Wars Celebration on Friday was undoubtedly all that lovely The Last Jedi footage, but once those glorious two minutes were up, there was still plenty of amazing sights and sounds to take in around the floor. If you thought Thursday was a good day for cosplay, day two of Star Wars Celebration Orlando brought it even harder. For real.

No matter where Star Wars Celebration calls home in a given year however, you can be sure the best and brightest cosplayers from around the globe will be there. Just one day in, we're blown away by the creativity on display. But day one offered but a glimpse of the wonders to come. These are the best cosplays from Star Wars Celebration Orlando, day one.

Cosplay has become part of the communal fan experience. Dressing up as your favorite characters in increasingly elaborate fashion has gone from niche hobby to a pop culture phenomenon, especially when it comes to Star Wars. But, as cosplay has become almost omnipresent at fan functions, there’s one place where it won’t be welcome. Three of the biggest movie theater chains in the U.S. have enacted some strict restrictions on Star Wars cosplay during upcoming screenings of The Force Awakens.

If you’ve been to enough Comic-Cons (or at least browsed enough Comic-Con photo galleries), it becomes harder and harder to be impressed by the cosplay. But, then you see something like this 10-foot tall Hulkbuster from New York Comic-Con, and it’s hard for even the most jaded comic book fan to not be really, really impressed.

Though New York Comic Con 2014 kicked off this past Thursday, October 9, the high-profile panels and festivities bring out more intense fans, and that means more cosplayers. For those of you who can't attend the four-day-long nerd fest, check out our NYCC cosplay photo gallery and see what you've been missing.

While cosplayers are present at virtually every major convention celebrating comics, gaming, fantasy and science fiction, it’s Atlanta’s Dragon*Con that has become a a kind of Mecca to which most of the scene’s most dedicated hobbyists and professionals pilgrimage every year. The cosplay phenomenon can be compared to that of b-boying, where the primary inspiration is expressing creativity, performing and earning props from other people like themselves. You can see what we mean in this gallery of fabulous photography by Pat Loika -- convention photo maestro and host of the popular Loikamania podcast -- whose shots from Dragon*Con express just how much fun cosplayers are having without us.

Zoe Saldana's Gamora may be considered the deadliest assassin in the galaxy, but we're singing a different tune after seeing this Nebula cosplay. As Marvel's 'Guardians of the Galaxy' hits more milestones, the latest being its rise to the No. 1 movie of the summer, more cosplayers are incorporating the film into their works, and one standout is Karin Olava.