BioWare Offering High-Resolution References for Cosplayers

I’m not sure how many of our readers are interested in cosplay, but BioWare has recently released some high-resolution references for Morrigan’s Dragon Age: Inquisition, and will apparently keep releasing similar “character kits” for other characters from the upcoming Dragon Age threequel. Here’s a snip from their write-up about this initiative, tellingly spearheaded by cosplayer and community manager Jessica Merizan:

When I started working for the company in August 2011, I bled BioWare blue and cosplayed. whatever color that is. For me, cosplay is the closest I can get to jumping right into the game, becoming the character, and giving back to something that has given so much to me. Luckily, I work with about a zillion people in the studios who love and appreciate fan art. After talking to cosplayers at conventions, our concept artists have even started adding more pockets to characters to hide anachronistic things like cellphones and wallets. I don’t know if you creators out there are aware of how much of your work is printed and plastered around the office or on computer/television monitors. During crunch or late nights, it’s a great reminder that video games inspire people which, in turn, inspires our developers.

So it’s with great pleasure that I announce an initiative that has been a long time in development, a project of passion for quite a few departments within BioWare. We want to give fan artists cosplayers, illustrators, painters, writers, cake decorators, everyone access to detailed, descriptive, high resolution character designs before the game is released. These will be distributed so you can have them available online or print them out and keep in your garage, workshop, sewing room, or creative space to reference. Our first Character Kit is Morrigan’s ball gown, a costume that I’m particularly fond of and cosplayed for PAX Prime this past year.