TOMB RAIDER WEB

We’re very proud to present and feature another amazing cosplayer today. This time, from beautiful Langenfeld in Germany.

As you may know from our previous features, most of the time we’ve written up info given by the cosplayers ourselves. But Julia has sent us such a lovely bio of hers, that we decided to just copy it in here so you can read Julia’s story summed up in her very own words. Learn more about her below, see her amazing Tomb Raider reboot cosplay and make sure to follow her on Instagram!

“My name is Julia Bister, I was born and still live in Langenfeld (Rhld.), Germany.

I am 32 years old and apart from designing cosplay costumes I like to go for a run, go to the cinema and the fitness studio, and doing Krav Maga. I love Rock and Metal concerts and festivals, baking and cooking, and of course I love travelling but unfortunatly I have so many hobbies and travelling is the most expensive, so I cannot travel as much as I’d like to.

The first cosplay I’ve ever made was “Lulu” from Final Fantasy X. I was 16 years old and it was officially a carnival’s costume. It was a complete success. Yuna from FF XII, Rikku, Anna and Nina Williams, Jun kazama and Ling Xiayou from Tekken were the next cosplay projects. I then had to take a long break from cosplaying after four close relatives died in 2005. I got back to it in 2014 with some halloween costumes: Slipknot-Maggot, Witchblade and Harley Quinn. I finally started cosplaying Lara Croft on the occassion of the “20 year of Tomb Raider” celebration at Gamescom in Germany. I’ve actually never wanted to do this cosplay. Why?

Well, I was eleven years old when Tomb Raider was released and I was caught the moment I first saw Lara Croft’s commercial on TV. She was tough, beautiful and strong. And she wasn’t blond and blue-eyed. I’ve  never wanted to cosplay her, because I wanted to BE like her… See the world, conquer beautiful places, meet diferent people and cultures – OUTGROWING YOURSELF. That’s Tomb Raider for me!
And Lara was the powerful woman I wanted to be after the divorce of my parents and some other problems I had back then.

Sure, all of this may sound crazy, but I was a kid and Lara was my heroine.
I was born in 1985 and grew up with Space Invaders, Super Mario and the cartoon Saturday. Wolverine and Hulk were my first heroes. Later, I came home from school and read mangas and watched Sailormoon and Dragonball on TV.
Now I am 32 and also love the “new Lara” and it was a lot of fun to do the Make-up and ripp the clothes. 

And this is how I actually did my reboot cosplay:
I took normal pants, shirt, shoes, socks and bandages and made them look dirty and ripped with black, brown and red colour. The necklace is made out of clay. The arrows and the bow are just tree banches fixed together with a piece of cord. The arrow quiver is made of an old belt and two chips cans sticked together. For the Make-up I used (a lot) normal make up and took black and red lipsticks, fake blood and aquacolour Make-up for the wounds.”

It was a pleasure to meet Julia and being able to publish her cosplay story. She’s a really lovely woman and fantastic cosplayer. Don’t forget to check out her Instagram!

Photo credits:
Model: Julia Bister
Costume: Julia Bister
Make up: Julia Bister
Photograf: Janina Photography, Janina Schulte, Leverkusen GER