April Fools 2019: The Shy Gal Gang!

Happy April Fools Day!

Photo collage by @gaiuscosplay

This year, cosplayers everywhere teamed to make sure King Koopa won the big race -- by dressing up as Shy Gals and distracting the rest of the competition. You may have seen your various social media feeds inundated with the #shygalgang, and I was so fortunate to be able to join in!

My lovely roommate Kelley and I teamed up to make one costume that we took turns wearing for the photoshoot! Kelley bought the dress and made the mask, and I supplied the belts and photo edits. I wasn't expecting the photos to turn out as well as they did, especially for such a quick and easy costume!

Which ones are me, and which are Kelley?? I'll never tell, muahahaha

I used a very natural editing style for this set; I relied almost entirely on Lightroom, only pulling one picture into Photoshop to smooth out some bumps on the mask.

Here's a quick list of some of the edits I made:

• Basic beauty retouching with the healing brush and soften skin filter
• Pushed the picture's white balance a little warmer
• Messed with the tone curve
• Clarity brush with a darker exposure applied to the hair to bring out the detail
• Played with the orange and green saturation/luminance levels
• Dodge & burn to bring out details
• Iris enhance filter to make the eyes P O P!
• I also threw a vignette onto a few of the photos!

Even though we shot these at 8AM in the morning, it looks like these shots were taken at golden hour and I LOVE THEM!

All in all, it was a hugely successful prank and I hope to be involved next year, too!

Don't forget to check out all the coverage of the Shy Gals prank! Here are some places to look:

• Momo Kurumi's Recap​
• The Kotaku Article
• Browse the #shygalgang hashtag on Instagram and Twitter

Plus an extra big shoutout to @gaius.cosplay for organizing the entire prank!

Missed out on the fun? If you would like to be included on next year's prank, send me an e-mail or a message on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, before April 8 and I'll send you a link to the group!