Why wait for Halloween?

Candice Augilera started cosplaying seven years ago, but it wasn’t until two years ago that she dedicated more time to her hobby.

Augilera, 19, an undecided major, is vice president of the Anime Manga Cosplay Club at Orange Coast College and president of the SoCal Anime Manga Cosplay Club.

“I used to work for a website as a convention reporter but they moved their bases to San Francisco,” Aguilera said.

She started off as a photographer taking photos of cosplayers and discovered a bigger interest in cosplay, so she decided to participate in one of the events.

Cosplay is a type of performance art where people dress up like characters from anime, movies, comic books, video games or even original characters. This usually involves making replicas of the costumes, styling wigs and basing the accessories all off the character’s look.

Augilera attends 11 to 12 conventions held per year and participates in the events and takes pictures of other cosplayers. She runs a Facebook page that has a gallery of all the interesting characters she has met at the conventions and anime expos.

“I’m a regular person that enjoys a hobby and wants to share it with people,” Augilera said.

As of now, Augilera is mostly working on perfecting her main costume, Link from ‘Legend of Zelda.’”

“I’m a perfectionist, and it’s hard to be a perfectionist in this hobby because every little [inaccurate] thing bothers you,” Augilera said.

The costumes she wears mostly consist of materials she finds and puts together.

She said she takes apart the fabric from recycled old clothes, the clothes sold at OCC’s swap meet, or fabrics from JoAnn’s Fabrics and creates a costume based off a specific character.

She has various costumes such as Link from “Legend of Zelda,” Morrigan from “Darkstalkers,” and Pit from “Kid Icarus.”

“Other cosplayers usually base [their costumes] off another cosplayer, but I base mine directly off the character,” Aguilera said. “Even if it looks ridiculous I’ll try to make it look that ridiculous.”

The SoCal AMCC holds events such as social gatherings at Miles Square Park or the Tokyo District.

They are partnered with Pacific Media Expo, an annual convention held in Los Angeles, and a lot more people come because of the prizes and various activities that are involved.

Aguilera said she started the club because she wanted to meet more friends.

“That’s what I like about my club,” she said. “We’re welcoming to people new here. Even if you’re not in the hobby, but show an interest [in cosplay] you can come [to the gatherings].”

With the ideal goal of bringing people with common interests together, Aguilera hopes to promote OCC’s AMCC, which recently became an official club.

“[Dressing up as a character] should be a fun experience. It’s cosplay — it has ‘play’ in it,” Aguilera said.