First of all, everyone can cosplay in my opinion, and I don't care seeing any character being modified. From the first place, since characters are art, there are different ways people can interpret a charcter. Speaking from my own experience, there was this time where I changed the whole outfit of Vita from Nanoha to be modern and less expensive (and hard to make), obviously keeping the personality of the character and the general feeling it's giving away. Hateful comments about this matter are useless and only show how stupid people are. I'm sorry, but I think everyone have the right to represent a character whatever they like. If you think they don't look like the character, pretend they created some other character.
Now, the second thing that bothered me was this talk about people making cosplays of bad material. Sure, so a person with a part time job that should pay for an apartment and food should go and spend 6 month salary on buying good material -- not. I mean, I do think that cosplays look better with good material... but hell no, I wont ever bother buying something I can't effort. And don't go telling me not to make a cosplay, because a cosplay is not about looking like a character but acting like one.
NOW LET ME COMPLAIN ABOUT NOWADAYS COSPLAYERS -- you know, before getting on my nerves and telling people they don't look good... go look at yourself. I don't see Shinku from Rozen Maiden standing with some random guy and drinking beer at the bar because it is a hell OOC! Cosplay, dumb people, is not about looking like the character and looking good... but mainly about acting like him. Like a play, you know -- even if you look like the character from the script and put him in a complete OOC from what it is... than you WONT be this character. You can die, you can pay thousand of dollars on materials and people to make it... you simply wont be the character.I admire cosplayers that come with a simple outfit that looks like the character and act like it rather than idiots who ruin the character not by their looks... but more with their attitude.
Aha, so I'm not saying I support 5$ cosplay, because a person will look way better in normal clothes... but I'm also saying that you should look at the effort the person put into the cosplay.Now, another really bothersome aspect is this dilemma between asian and non asian cosplayers. Obviously, photoshop and good photographer (and camera!) can make both really really beautiful, but take things with proportion. I mean, I want to kick any idiot who says asians make better cosplayers. Why is that? because you are freaking japanfans -- that's why. That's not that asians put more effort into their cosplays, it's just that you don't really look on anything else, and I really mean it. I was on so many cons and saw so many wonderful and terrible cosplayers, both asian and non asian. There is no difference, believe me.
Fat cosplayers -- they can be really pretty. Stop trolling fat cosplayers. They should not go and lose weight, because it is hell natural to have weight. I mean, I don't mind either of them... but there are people who can not lose weight no matter how much sport they will do or whatever they'll drink. Fat is part of your body... even if you're thin you have fat. You live from some sort of fats. Stop being afraid of fat... that's like being afraid of people who don't look, talk or act like you do. Let's call all people who mock fat people 'racists' and it'll solve it. Stupid.I must say that it's extremely hard to make a good looking cosplay for fat people because most of the anima characters are way thinner than any human being. In fact, some of them never even heard of 'bones' (good example: code geass). This puts fat people in a very very strange position: how the hell should they cosplay into... that.
That's when 'ugly cosplayers' come to the picture. They are not even ugly most of the times, it's just your idiotic phobia of fat. Stop killing yourself over it and keep an open mind.
I recommend, for fat people, to modify their cosplays a bit not only to fit the figure but to fit the whole image, because even though it is important to put the character as it is, but it's also important to make it 1. comfortable to wear 2. look good on you 3. reflect the way you see the character.
Fat people have the full right to cosplay and not pay attention to any idiots who will think their cosplay is not good enough. The fact they think so means they are immature and have no idea that 'big size' cosplay is really hard to make (as well as clothes).
Last thing before I sum stuff are the parody cosplayers. They are there to make fun of the characters, don't be harsh on them. They are not 'fail' they are consciously trying to make you mad. I'm actually pretty positive about them. They are sometimes pretty funny (but at other times not :P). They tend to go too over border even for me sometimes. There is no age, no gender and nothing that should stop anyone from making a cosplay. Though, the person should think reasonably of their own figure, face, skin color, eye color, personality etc etc. You can modify the character into your needs, as long as it stays the same character with the same mood and behavior.