Bit of a two part update today.

First, on news of my desktop (and therefor my captioning ability).  I have gotten my new video card in, but I have not yet had a chance to install it.  For outside reasons, I was feeling frustrated today and decided it would not be a good time to try.  Hopefully it will go easily and fix the trouble, but only time will tell.

Second, I have gotten a new formspring question, which I will answer now.

so i see you go to otakon i went back in 08 and been trying to get back ever since good times i wanna do a crossplay but cant think of anything any ideas
A favorite topic of mine, cosplay and conventions.  Prepare for a long winded response.  To start off with, I do hope you manage to get back to Otakon eventually.  Perhaps even next year, where I will be debuting a new costume of my own.  To answer your question, however, is going to be a bit more tricky.  Since I don't know anything about you, not even if you are doing a male to female crossplay or a female to male, I can't offer you any specific ideas.  I can, however, offer you some basic thoughts that will hopefully help you find something.

Choosing a costume is, of course, a matter of personal preference.  You have to like the character, like their style, and be able to make (or buy it, if you prefer).  I, also, always try to suit body type.  Don't get me wrong, I don't feel that people of certain body types shouldn't be allowed to cosplay.  But I'm OCD about details for my cosplays, and it bothers me when something is obviously wrong.  It's the same as if someone wore the wrong shoes.  But that is just me.

As for actually making the costume and the gender alteration, I can offer you some very good websites for supplies, depending on what you are making.  I have helped friends with both male to female and female to male costumes, so I have resources for each.

Another possibility you may want to look into is a subtype of cosplay called Kigurumi.  In Kigurumi, the player wears a special mask and a skin tone body suit to completely become the character.  The advantages of Kigurumi is that 1. it offers complete annonominity.  You don't speak, you don't take off your mask, so know one ever knows who you really are.  2. it provides a great many more options.  You can wear street clothes and still be recognized as cosplaying.  You can do non-human characters easily.  You can even do original designed characters, you need not stick to existing ones.  The downside, though, is that Kigurumi can be very expensive to get in to.  A fully custom made mask can easily run up to a thousand dollars or more.  You can reduce the cost by doing some or all of the work yourself, but it can be very labor intensive.  When I helped my friend make a mask from a blank (this is a mask that is sold directly from the mold, no finishing work done), it took well over 50 hours of work to finish.  The other issue is that, while in Kigurumi, your sight and communication ability is very limited, so it generally requires that you have someone you trust with you to help.  However, it can be quite fun, and it is a good chance to really lose yourself in the character.

I hope that this helped.  If anyone has any specific questions or would like more information, don't hesitate to ask.  I'm always willing to help out with costume making.