PAX East 2026 Sunday Gallery Part 3

We’ve finally reached the end of the Room 207 Cosplay Studio galleries from PAX East 2026. All told, after four days, we took just under 2,500 photos — useable photos, after the mistakes and duplications were removed.

David has a handful of photos at the beginning of this gallery, then the rest of them were taken by me from the end of his shift at 3 p.m. to the convention closing at 5 p.m. In between bites of chicken and rice that David got for us both from the Chicken and Rice Guys truck on the show floor.

Time to sum up my experience running the third cosplay studio for a PAX event. Since this was the third go-round, it was mostly smoother and easier than the previous two (the missing strobes box at the beginning notwithstanding). Despite wildly blowing out the numbers from last PAX East, having David as a second photographer was a godsend and made what would have otherwise been an impossible situation relatively problem-free.

Having enough help at the table and on the queue lines was also key to making 2026 work. Cailin, Clever and Victoria were troopers, and having so many helpers meant they could all also do other work or enjoy panels and the show floor. And once again Jibrii pulled off shooting the busy and packed Cosplay Meetups with aplomb. Using my backup lens means that the photos he got this year will bump the quality up from great in 2025 to excellent.

Speaking of the Cosplay Meetup galleries, those will go up after I post the galleries of photos from Anime Boston that took place over the weekend after PAX East this year. And, planning people, please don’t put your cons back-to-back like that again. My old man legs (and retiree bank account) can’t take it again.

Finally, once again a shoutout to the best roommates we could have had, the Cosplay Repair team from GiveWave Studios. Castro and his team were so helpful to not only the cosplayers but to us as well. After seeing Elisa work her magic on a cosplayer’s wig early on in the convention, I asked her four or five times if she would help with the frizzy wig of a cosplayer I was about to photograph, and if she was working on something else, another team member gladly jumped in to help.

Nerd Caliber founder Manny and I will be having a meeting with our ReedPop contact soon, so if you have any ideas or suggestions for next year’s studio, put them in the comments section below. Or message us on any social media. We hope to see you all (and even more) next year.

Cosplayers in this final studio gallery include tinkleshit87, alexandergerrymander, pinky_the_valkyrie, liambhoy8, claraidlebrook, g33kyglam0ur, itzbrianmuscles, shirupii, animeemma14, elijah_hupe_, luminyaria, aeylia.oleander, level_6_cleric, dimethylsulfoxide, fantasykat, thecrinklefartman, 54_frogs, chameleighontv, jacky.ha.313, scoundrel_stray, lilithblack333, lonesome_wednesday, rosen.queen, uju_cosplay, shericosplays, neocoolstar, and many more.

We use Smugmug to present cosplay photo galleries. To view the entire gallery, just click on the image below. If you are pictured in any of our galleries, feel free to download the images and use them non-commercially on social media, with appropriate credit.

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Also, High-res images for sale is back!

If you are pictured in any of our galleries and want the high-resolution (3200 pixels at its widest by 300dpi) download for yourself, we can make it available via a private Smugmug link, for $10 per image. Just send an email to editor AT nerdcaliber.com. Currently limited to only photos taken by FirstPerson Shooter (aka Rodney Brown).