The Unseelie Allure Studios Top 20-Ish Cosplay Gallery
If you follow cosplayers and cosplay photography closely you will probably know who Kassandra Leigh is, not only is she a photographer but is also a model herself. She’s part of a photography team based in Long Island, NY that go by the name of Unseelie Allure Studios; she works along side her assistant/fiancée Patrick Purcell aka Conri to produce these amazing images of cosplayers and models! Here are some of the images they personally enjoy. We have linked to Facebook pages or Twitter accounts where possible so if you want to see more from these cosplayers, just try clicking their name!
Kassandra: Oh gosh I’m flattered! I’m also excited I was awake during daylight hours to even read this because it certainly took some time to figure what to send! A lot of my work is 18+ these days but here is a selection of safe for work images!
1. Kassandra Leigh as Miranda Lawson
Proof you don’t need to be the genetically perfect woman to nail those classic face/tits/ass/gun poses! I loved the challenge of this one – as it was not only pretty interesting to try and nail this iconic pose but to also do it while handling the photography aspect of it (self portrait!).
2. Lydia Vengeance as rule 63 Thor
Lydia has a tolerance for the cold that would impress the Jotun, Ymir himself! It was such a blast photographing her. She ran right into the NY winter’s ocean for these amazing shots!
Behind the scenes video:
3. Kassandra Leigh as Kymaera
Ordinarily I like to put a more liberal artistic spin on the cosplay photography Conri & I do. However for the 2014 GeekGoddess GoGo I did something a little different. I tried to recreate the marvel swimsuit card to the absolute detail! Granted, the wind had the chain hitting me in the face every couple seconds while we shot this! No amount of grumpy on looking fisherman scowls could dissuade me from the adventure!
4. Natsuki Shinaito as Catwomen
We have been photographing in abandoned places and ninjaing nude photo shoots for almost a decade now and never have we been in trouble before, although for this set, we were actually held at gunpoint by the cops! But the photos were fun and she worked her ass off the entire way through. One of the cops blurted out “CATWOMAN” and promptly looked embarrassed and walked away while the other cops looked at him. There are nerds everywhere!
5. Ayumi Davis as Felicia
You find light where you can in convention halls!
6. Kai Strider as a Homestruck character
(I don’t know Homestruck and I can’t find the character’s name anywhere!)
While I’m not a huge fan of Homestuck if you offer to light smoke bombs and spit blood for me I can be swayed to forget that fact! We had to shoot indoors at the time, so we were lighting the smoke bombs in my flower vases so people could hold them without burning their fingers off or damaging my very much rented apartment!
7. Patrick Purcell (AKA Conri) as Commissar from Warhammer
One of the perks of always having my assistant Conri with me is that if we see something awesome I can throw him in front of it when I’m not prepared to set up tripod, remote etc for selfie action. This was a random gate we walked past at Katsucon that I just fell in love with.
8. Nana Valtiel and Kassandra Leigh as Morrigan and Lilith
Here is a pretty solid example of the power of post production. This was photographed by my assistant Conri and then taken into Photoshop by myself and edited in such a way that replicated one of the stages from the Darkstalkers video game. While it is not meant to be photo-realistic its a reminder that photography can be a tool in your bag and you shouldn’t feel it necessary to only use it the way your told to.
9. Billy Booze
(This isn’t a cosplay character, the things worn in the photo are just things he brought along for the shoot)
One of the easiest ways to get people to loosen up in front of the camera I find is to ask them to climb on things. When they can interact and almost cuddle with their environment it looks much more natural than them feeling the pressure of standing in front of a blank backdrop like a robot.
10. Kassandra Leigh, Stella Chuu and Paranoid Lemons as Star Trek characters
Another obsession of mine is incorporating water into my images. When I can I will almost always opt to use it either as the environment or even just to splash onto the model’s skin to get that dewy look. There is something very attractive about the reflections and what not that my inner otter will always spot out when location scouting.
11. Kassandra Leigh as rule 63 Scorpius, Nana Valtiel as Liara T’Soni and Ch3xy as Rei Ayanami
Everything can be used in a way unlike it’s original purpose. I was contacted by GeekChic Cosmetics to create some portraits using their products, we were often faced with the fact that we didn’t have a cosplay ready for the themes. So we would pile all sorts of things together to create a look.
12. Pixie Belle Cosplay as Cherry Blossom Princess
Nothing like peer pressuring models into public fountains! At the Sakura Matsuri: Cherry Blossom Festival.
13. Lady of The Lake
Here I actually had the model standing on the water’s surface. I had her a few feet out at our local peer standing on a ladder that kept shifting in the sand. It was pretty amusing to orchestrate but I wanted her actually there on that water’s surface so the way the fabric would float and interact would be believable. In fact the entire thing was rather modge podged together as I styled her using safety pins, bits of fabric, glitter and an old prom dress. Since I style many of the shoots we do as a I’m a bit of pack rat and for good reason!
14. Kia Strider as a Lolita doll
The forced Indian in the cupboard look for this one was achieved by holding a cabinet door up close to the camera while cramming the model into my armoire.
15. Lydia Vengeance as Daenerys Targaryen
Both of these shots of Lydia were taken on location at Anime Next. There is a rather dirty lake at it’s main lawn and once again my love of water calls!
Behind the scenes video:
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