Lara Croft is the female Indiana Jones. She’s smart, attractive, brave, adventurous, and really knows her way around weapons and has the skill to fight off any of the worst enemies that the villains can throw at her. She has been the subject of many games, a few movies, and numerous parodies, both adult-oriented, and more general audience. The biggest joke to have ever been said is how her love of explosions and firearms completely renders all of the ruins even more ruined than they actually are, and how foreign governments condemn her for not even retrieving or looking after any artifacts, but just blowing them up and destroying any chance of any historical knowledge being found. It’s like that scene from Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, except it oddly isn’t mentioned in any of the actual games or movies. Seems like people are quite ho-hum about explosions happening in national treasure sites.

That being said, Lara’s legendary reputation in nerddom not only stems from her badassery, but also her stunning beauty. While the first few games had her with some unrealistic breasts, this was originally done as a mistake. The artist on the first model had entered an incorrect number into the polygons where he breasts would be, and they ended up looking huge. He found this hilarious and after showing it to the development team, they thought it was so funny they decided to keep it in. What made her breast seem so wasn’t just that they’re big, but also her waist was rather unrealistically small, which only made her breasts seem bigger.

So with that bit of trivia out of the way, the progressive depictions of Lara Croft have made her look more and more realistic, and as such a lot of very real ladies could, without too much effort, make themselves look like our valiant explorer heroine. The most recent game also did away with the unrealistic breasts and waist size, and made her far, far more human, which renewed interest in our tomb raiding lady.

So now without further ado, we shall explore the 20 best Lara Croft cosplays that the internet has to offer.

20. Lara Croft and the Bear

To start off, there’s this remarkable photo of famed model Captain Irachka, who has made a name for herself by posing with dangerous carnivores like bears, wolves, and foxes. While she is no real dangerous of being killed, since this an extremely carefully staged shot. The expression on her face just scream of plain danger and combat. The bear seems calm, but you can’t expect a bear to fake a dangerous expression for no reason.

If you are looking for another further bunch of action with Lara Croft and the rather friendly Winnie the Poohesque bear that she’s working with. Here’s a link to the video of her just having fun with the big bear and feeding him. She also poses to shoot him with arrows and guns and hitting with a stick, but Mr. Bear just does not care. He just wants to play like he’s a giant puppy dog, except weighing many hundreds of kilos and not actually being a puppy dog at all.

19. Gritty Lara

Being an acrobatic archeologist often means having to get down and dirty and have her clothing be torn and looking like it spent time through a dirt-inducing washing machine. This cosplayer and her costume has dirt, tears, and blood to show action, with a look in her eyes that screams ‘get out of my way’, if the H&K USP pistols in her hands was not a good enough warning.

In addition to just the perfection of the strategic tears and dirt that really does make it look like she’s been through something, her expression is just fantastic. I don’t see acting here, I see sincerity. It’s like the model was doing some serious method acting and probably ran around and rolled in gravel before the photo-shoot to make that expression just look both demented and determined. I don’t know if it’s makeup around the eyes that accentuates that, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

18. The Actual Lara Croft?

The model here is Allison Carrol, for those who wish to know. One aspect that many cosplayers might find hard to get about Lara is her acrobatic ability. She can not only run, but can leap, flip, and roll like the best circus acrobat. Except she’s doing it on high uneven and extremely hard surfaces that require absolute precision in order to avoid injury. Many cosplayers might look the part, but can they DO the part?

Allison has the flexibility and physical prowess to really do it. Most of her photos of Lara Croft show a variety of action poses that are not easy to pull off, especially for the purposes of getting these high quality images. The only fault I can find on any of these photos is the gun handling. When not ready to shoot, kindly keep your finger off the trigger. For someone who fires their gun in self-defence so frequently, I think the term gun safety and bullet placement would be so ingrained her psyche that they become indelible parts of her routine.

17. Survivalist Lara

Another Lara Croft cosplayer taking cues from the reboot of the series, and this time it seems that they’re really playing up the survivalist angle. She’s not just carrying her makeshift bow and arrows, but she’s also has her rope, hooks, and glow sticks for exploring those dark caves. She also has what appears to be a climbing hook of some kind, one that allows mountaineers to be able to pick and claw their way to the top of hard to reach places.

The coplayer in the photo goes by the name LiliDin, and she definitely has a very strong knack for capturing the essence of Lara Croft with her determined, no nonsense look on her face.

16. Lara Croft And Her Epic Leap

Lara is a very athletic, acrobatic character, and so is his cosplayer. She’s here leaping through the air in a perfectly timed shot. I’m guessing they were using a trampoline, unless somehow she is an anomaly and can actually jump like Lara Croft in the game, which would be very silly.

Her expression has a calm sense of focus and determination, like she has done this a million times over. I’m not sure if she’s doing it because she has done this professionally, or because she she’s trying to maintain that stoic look on her face that Lara Croft is so famous for in the earlier games in the series. Well I don’t recall seeing Lara smile much during the game, but then again. I only played the first four games and the polygons of that era had her only had one unmoving expression so… yeah, primitive graphics make for unemotional characters.

15. Gritty Lara, Part 2

Another picture of Lara after she’s been through a lot of tough terrain. Much like how in the first, third, and latest games she constantly trekking through jungle terrain to reach whatever ruins that lie there. Even though jungles are positively loaded with armies of deadly creatures that just gnashing their teeth at the very idea of meeting Lara so they can kill her… this is the opposite of reality where most jungle creatures really do their damn best to make sure that they’re unseen. To be seen is to be hunted and eaten.

So this cosplayer still managed to keep that dirt and grit, but while still staying super sexy and awesome. It’s like she just spotted her next target to be blasted to clear her path towards her destination. The really interesting thing about this cosplay, like the first, is that they must have painted on the dirt lines on her arms and legs before the straps and accessories were added.

14. Down But Not Out

So the reboot in 2013 really brought about one factor that was never seen before in Lara Croft. The other games already started her off as a determined and highly experienced character who has already seen it all and isn’t worried about anything. The fourth game even has us play as a little girl who’s still amazingly fit and tough. This is a tad unrealistic.

The 2013 version showed us a more vulnerable version. She was learning what it meant to be a tough fighter and a survivor. She even cries in the game at one point (which irked some gamer to think that Lara Croft has been turned into a cry baby for some reason) after she faces some of the early hardships in the game and has to learn the skills needed. This cosplay in that pose with the bandages on the beach shows the exact theme that the game was trying to pull off effortlessly.

13. Gritty Lara, Part 3

Another badass pose taken with the 2013 video game in time. Lara is shown with more jungle and forest dirt than ever before. She has the scraps to show that she’s been crawling through mud and grime and ash. The fires behind her (which I’m not sure are real or not) really give the scene a feeling of danger, and the debris and ash all over her skin really make me think that they paid particular attention to just what someone who has been through fire dust and ash really looks like.

The bow also really looks like they worked hard to produce a jury rigged composite bow that could actually fire arrows with enough force to do damage. The look on her eyes seems to be fixated on something she might have already shot and is seeing if another follow up is needed. She doesn’t seem too concerned with the wild fire behind her, even though that would be extremely hot if it was real.

12. Heavy Firepower Lara

Lara’s iconic pistols, in game at least (most of the time) are a pair of nickel-plated Browning Hi-Power pistols in 9x19mm parabellum. But throughout the series she acquired a whole lot of weaponry that just make you wonder just what her real purpose is. I know that being an archeologist CAN entail danger (In some very remote parts of the world, even today, some archeologists DO hire guards armed with military weapons. In the early 20^th century, there really were explorers who did stuff that Indiana Jones would find excessive.

In this photo, we see her with a Mossberg 500 shotgun with no stock and an M4 with an M203 grenade launcher attached. This seems a little much for going on a trip that would need more brushes than bullets. But at least any artifact thieves would be well warned to stay as far away from her as possible. If there’s anyone who can fire these guns off hand, it’s Lara.

11. Out of the water

So often times in the games, Lara needs to dig a little deeper to find what she is looking for. In some cases she needs to swim a little deeper. For this, she ditches her shorts and top in exchange for a more practical bikini. Looking all the hotter for it, while still being cool due to the cool waters around her bringing her temperature down.

Silliness aside, I hope she managed to cover the guns with something waterproofed in order to protect the mechanism of her guns from becoming water clogged. Firearms are mechanical devices that operate under extremely tight tolerances to work correctly. Much tighter than the bikini she’s wearing could ever be. But that’s just being silly. It seems in this picture the cosplayer is obviously just having a fun day at the beach and not exploring some partially submerged ruin somewhere, which is a shame. She looks like she’s equipped to make that trip.

10. Close Call

This Lara Croft appears to have gone through a major gun fight with one of adversary’s goons, and as usual, she has escaped without a single scratch on her. The really interesting thing about this photograph is that the cosplayer is wielding Lara’s trust dual pistols, but the shell cases on the ground are all clearly rifle rounds. Either she’s standing over where the goons were, or her handguns are far more powerful than previously thought.

The cosplayer here is called Christine, and she was the winner of the cosplayer competition where she entered this one as her Lara Croft entry. She has done over 30 costumes and all of them were made almost completely from scratch by her. Her skill in making these costumes, as well as assuming the character wearing them, comes from the fact that she only cosplays as characters that she likes and finds to be great to play as.

9. Steampunk Lara

So now for something completely different. We all know that Lara is a character of the late 90s, and all her adventures take place in the modern day, but fans of Steampunk were not to be let down. The 19^th century had its fair share of explorers and archeologists… including a few female ones that were quite badass in their own respect.

The cosplayer here did a fantastic job in marrying steampunk aesthetics to the well-established Lara Croft character. The guns are obviously more gears than sears (it’s a gun joke, trust me), and her clothes are a little more conservative, but still very practical for the types of environment that she would frequently venture into. The added layer of clothing on the vest would give her more protection against rips and tears from the foliage that she frequently encounters in the rough terrain that she goes through on all of her adventures.

8. Zombie Lara

Steampunk is cool, but zombies are cooler. Ever wandered what Lara Croft would have looked like if she was in the walking dead universe? Instead of fighting zombies or monsters in the tombs she raids, she actually got bored of the whole thing and decided to join them? Well in this Halloween themed zombie cosplay, it seems that the cosplayer decided to go with the classic Lara look, except adding that she has clearly been infected by the G-virus from Resident Evil.

The cosplayer did a fantastic job with the fake blood, the fake damage, and in this pose I am convinced that something very wrong has been happening there. If I was to see something like this come up to me in a corridor somewhere, I’d be very concerned… well, I’m not really worried about zombies, since I think a zombie apocalypse has some merits… noticeably a change from my current lifestyle of planting my derriere down and writing clickbait articles, but hey… change is good, amirite?

7. Dieselpunk Lara

So we’ve seen Steampunk Lara, which harkens back to the days of 19^th century adventurers, and we’ve seen zombie Lara, which harkens back to… well it doesn’t harken back to anything, it just shows how different variations can be.

Now we have another unique Lara Croft. What would happen if Lara Croft and Indiana Jones lived around the same time, doing their adventures from the 1920s to the 1940s and meeting Nazis along the way? Well this creative cosplayer shows the possibly with that. She has the goggles and what appears to be a long-sleeved half-shirt. The pants are also longer and look like adventurers pants. This attire might not have technically existed during this time period, but it definitely stinks of what pulp-comic heroes would have worn, and so it stands to reason that heroines of the era would have a similar outfit. The only issue is that while the pose is awesome, the gun in her left hand is going to give her quite the wallop if she fires it in that position.

6. Clothes Shrunk Raider

Lara Croft’s outfit is pretty sexy. That’s the whole point. But in this situation it seems like her regular outfit has just shrunk in the wash. Her shorts have gone down to panties, and instead of a midriff, it seems that after a few more washes, her top is well on its way to becoming a bikini top.

While it’s just too easy to say that the cosplayer was going for a simple sexy look, I’m going to toy around with the idea that it’s a whole lot deeper than that. Or a lot sillier anyway. In the background we see Ancient Egyptian artifacts, and in many Ancient Egyptian wall paintings depicting life in those days, female attire was often minimal, but still conservative, but the Ancient Egyptians were not against nudity in many parts of life, and even having breasts be exposed was seen as normal in many eras of Old Egypt. Is this cosplayer playing a tribute to that? Or am I just overanalysing this again…

5. Actual Size Lara

So I mentioned before that the makers of <em>Tomb Raider</em> often made a big deal out of Lara Croft’s breast size, and as I mentioned, her breast size wasn’t unrealistic per se, it’s just that her waist size was too small in comparison, which made them seem unrealistic. To reiterate, it was her waist size that was unrealistic.

This very well endowed cosplayer shows that it is possible to faithful to the character without any special effort. She was just born that way, after all. A simple pose in a way to make that very specific part well focused on, too. Her guns are not the Browning Hi-Powers that Lara uses, but are Desert Eagles, which are also massive guns, weighing in at 5 lbs and having enough recoil to knock a lot of people down. At least she has some more weight on the front to help her maintain her aim as she dual wields them. OK that’s enough big boobie jokes for now.

4. Shooting For The First Time

So we have a Lara Croft cosplayer in another 2013 version costume. Here the model really shows the early emotional moments that Lara was going through in the game where she is still learning how to survive, and this is probably the first time she’s fired that bow at anything. The tension and worry on her face definitely show this. Is it the fact that she hasn’t fired the bow before, or this is the first time she has to fire it at something that might actually harm her if she misses?

The model in this photo is called Beethy and she is a major league Lara Croft fan, which is why she put such attention to detail on everything that Lara Croft had from the games into this. When fans make photos, the results could be spectacular. She also has done cosplay on other characters such as Misty from Pokemon and Tharja from Fire Emblem. Check her out, it’s well worth your time.

3. Jungle Exploring Lara

In this imagine, we see Lara Croft doing what she does best. Exploring exotic locations all over the world. This is a time where we see her physical prowess in action since she’s holding onto a large tree branch to get from one end of the jungle to another. If this was in the actual game, it would need to be done over a hundred foot drop leading right into a giant lake filled with crocodiles. Hey, whoever said jungle exploration was safe.

The model in this photo is Lena Lara who is not only a very beautiful lady, but also extremely talented with makeup and costumes. The photographer is Christoph Gerlach, who specializes in making photographs of people with emotion invoking backgrounds. This one is a little different than his usual work, but it does do a lot to really give the impression of a decent level of physical action, even if Lara here is a little too clean and dry to have been adventuring in the jungle.

2. Low-Resolution Pixelated Lara Croft

So this one is a very unique and interesting piece. Most cosplayers normally try to portray how characters would look like in real life if they were real people. Nowadays in the age of hyper-realistic graphics, this isn’t too difficult to do (some of the time anyway), but in the 90s, especially with late 90s early 3D graphics that were clearly having massive growing pains.

But there are some people who managed to take this not as a limitation of possibility, but a challenge to be overcome. Mario cosplayers have built entire costumes out of cardboard boxes to mimic the early 8-bit Mario from the NES, and this lady has done an equally great job with that concept and managed to turn the early 1996 game, as well as her blocky guns and turned it into a fully functional outfit. The painting on the shift to mimic the early polygons, as well as the bra that she had to create the pointed breasts also really adds to the flair.

1. Lara Croft Is Going To Shoot You

So in this picture, Cosplayer Yukile Fay (photographed by Karim Sama) is posing directly at the viewer, holding both pistols at the ready and with a very serious, determined look on her face. The pose of the guns is obviously more badass than realistic (realistically, dual wielding pistols is generally not a good idea. Human brains and eyes don’t work at a level that allows the use of two sights and two aiming points, but that’s beyond the discussion of this article).

The makeup is, once again, great on this, and the dynamic pose that she has on is very fitting of Lara who’s probably jumping through a major city being chased by the thugs of one of her rivals who’s trying to take her out before she can advance to the next level… or gather whatever information she wants on her next destination by… jumping around in the rooftops of London. I don’t know. I haven’t the game that has had that part in years.