Buying or making cosplays or at least parts of them is something that everyone decides on. I personally like to make my own costumes and then buy the wigs (as I haven't had a need for props yet). This really differs for everyone who does cosplay and so I'm just gonna put in some personal preferences and things that I have learned so far.
When it comes to the actual costume part, I generally enjoy making it when it comes to certain things, but I'm not afraid to buy a regular shirt and edit it. It saves me a lot of time and money in terms of the material and saving part, and that way all I have to do is just add on patterns and cut and resew certain parts to make it like the costume. One of my best examples of this is my Vince Heliotrope costume.
However, the only costume that I have fully made (shirt, pants, and all) is my Rey costume. The biggest reason why I ended up making the full costume instead of buying it was because 1) I made in in February 2016, so there wasn't any costumes available that were cheap and 2) the only costumes that I found were ones that others were using for their cosplays and very expensive costumes on Etsy. Because of this I ended up just making the entire costume. Again, since the movie had only been out for about two months when I made the costume, there weren't any patterns or layouts for the costume like there is today, so I had to completely make the costume by myself mostly on guessing. I ended up buying a low neck shirt pattern, and a baggy pant pattern in order to make that part of her outfit. Of course with some pattern tweaking to help make it like her costume, I ended up making a pretty decent costume and what is possibly my best costume. Of course I'm going to be going back and tweak parts of the costume (as well as make the belt) to help fix and finish it, and I'm going to be using the help of an actual pattern for the costume to make it.
Of course you can always throw together some items laying around in your closet that look similar to what a character does/might wear and call it a costume. I basically ended up doing this for my Mettaton Ex, Zacharie, and Finn (Adventure Time) cosplays. Of course, when doing these things it's always a good idea to have at least one thing in your costume that clearly says "hey i'm this character" if your going somewhere and want easy recognition for being said character (I.E.: I did the mettaton make up and hair and boots for the costume, everything else was just random things in the back of my closet).
A lot of costumes can also be easily done this way too. For example, costumes for characters like McCree can just be grabbing some cowboy stuff in your dad's closet (at least for me and a few McCree's I have ran into at a con seeing how we live in the south and just about every southern dad has something cowboy in their closet) and/or grabbing some of your clothes and then just (once again) wearing something that says "hey i'm cosplaying this character".
These kind of cosplaying is what I do the most of, and is honestly my favorite thing. It leaves a lot of room for all sorts of jokes with the costume and the character, inexpensive, and is just a barrel of fun.
And then you can always buy your costume. There are plenty of websites with cosplays available, you just have to pick your character, pick your website, and go. I really only buy wigs when it comes to cosplay, however I did buy a Soldier 76 jacket here. I can't really give much insight to buying costumes online aside from a few things I had learned from other cosplayers.
In my experience with buying wigs however, I've been able to get buy with getting a character's actual wig as 1) I don't cosplay a lot of characters with crazy hair and 2) they're usually short. But it doesn't mean that I didn't improvise. With the Vince Heliotrope costume, I ended up buying some purple anime girl wig and cutting it to the desired cut for the costume (and my hair cutting skills on wigs are not very good, but it was up in a pony tail so I just ignored the sloppy cut in the end). The only wig that I have that I didn't personally buy for myself was the new wig for my Rey costume that my parents got me, into which it was a prestyled wig. While the style was nice when I received it, I went to take it apart to fix some problems to help it appear closer to my head (as the wig stuck out to the side and the hair being pulled back didn't help much). When I did, different parts of the wig had started to fall apart as the buns were separate pieces of hair and the actually wig was very short. Now I have to try my hand at redoing this entire wig. I suggest when it comes to wigs for character's with hair like Rey's, I think it would be better to buy a long haired wig of a similar color and then style it that wig instead of buying a prestyled wig. Of course wigs for characters like L or Sasuke are an easy find easy buy deal.
I'm also not that fully into props, the only prop for a costume that I fully have at the moment is the staff for my Rey costume (which my dad made me for Christmas). I'll probably have something on props after my Amaterasu and Junkenstein cosplays where I'll be having props with those.
But that was my two cents on buying or making cosplays, and again it's just what I like to do. Everyone has different preferences, and everyone does everything differently.
When it comes to the actual costume part, I generally enjoy making it when it comes to certain things, but I'm not afraid to buy a regular shirt and edit it. It saves me a lot of time and money in terms of the material and saving part, and that way all I have to do is just add on patterns and cut and resew certain parts to make it like the costume. One of my best examples of this is my Vince Heliotrope costume.
However, the only costume that I have fully made (shirt, pants, and all) is my Rey costume. The biggest reason why I ended up making the full costume instead of buying it was because 1) I made in in February 2016, so there wasn't any costumes available that were cheap and 2) the only costumes that I found were ones that others were using for their cosplays and very expensive costumes on Etsy. Because of this I ended up just making the entire costume. Again, since the movie had only been out for about two months when I made the costume, there weren't any patterns or layouts for the costume like there is today, so I had to completely make the costume by myself mostly on guessing. I ended up buying a low neck shirt pattern, and a baggy pant pattern in order to make that part of her outfit. Of course with some pattern tweaking to help make it like her costume, I ended up making a pretty decent costume and what is possibly my best costume. Of course I'm going to be going back and tweak parts of the costume (as well as make the belt) to help fix and finish it, and I'm going to be using the help of an actual pattern for the costume to make it.
Of course you can always throw together some items laying around in your closet that look similar to what a character does/might wear and call it a costume. I basically ended up doing this for my Mettaton Ex, Zacharie, and Finn (Adventure Time) cosplays. Of course, when doing these things it's always a good idea to have at least one thing in your costume that clearly says "hey i'm this character" if your going somewhere and want easy recognition for being said character (I.E.: I did the mettaton make up and hair and boots for the costume, everything else was just random things in the back of my closet).
A lot of costumes can also be easily done this way too. For example, costumes for characters like McCree can just be grabbing some cowboy stuff in your dad's closet (at least for me and a few McCree's I have ran into at a con seeing how we live in the south and just about every southern dad has something cowboy in their closet) and/or grabbing some of your clothes and then just (once again) wearing something that says "hey i'm cosplaying this character".
These kind of cosplaying is what I do the most of, and is honestly my favorite thing. It leaves a lot of room for all sorts of jokes with the costume and the character, inexpensive, and is just a barrel of fun.
And then you can always buy your costume. There are plenty of websites with cosplays available, you just have to pick your character, pick your website, and go. I really only buy wigs when it comes to cosplay, however I did buy a Soldier 76 jacket here. I can't really give much insight to buying costumes online aside from a few things I had learned from other cosplayers.
In my experience with buying wigs however, I've been able to get buy with getting a character's actual wig as 1) I don't cosplay a lot of characters with crazy hair and 2) they're usually short. But it doesn't mean that I didn't improvise. With the Vince Heliotrope costume, I ended up buying some purple anime girl wig and cutting it to the desired cut for the costume (and my hair cutting skills on wigs are not very good, but it was up in a pony tail so I just ignored the sloppy cut in the end). The only wig that I have that I didn't personally buy for myself was the new wig for my Rey costume that my parents got me, into which it was a prestyled wig. While the style was nice when I received it, I went to take it apart to fix some problems to help it appear closer to my head (as the wig stuck out to the side and the hair being pulled back didn't help much). When I did, different parts of the wig had started to fall apart as the buns were separate pieces of hair and the actually wig was very short. Now I have to try my hand at redoing this entire wig. I suggest when it comes to wigs for character's with hair like Rey's, I think it would be better to buy a long haired wig of a similar color and then style it that wig instead of buying a prestyled wig. Of course wigs for characters like L or Sasuke are an easy find easy buy deal.
I'm also not that fully into props, the only prop for a costume that I fully have at the moment is the staff for my Rey costume (which my dad made me for Christmas). I'll probably have something on props after my Amaterasu and Junkenstein cosplays where I'll be having props with those.
But that was my two cents on buying or making cosplays, and again it's just what I like to do. Everyone has different preferences, and everyone does everything differently.
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