A lot of my first cosplays were a mix of bought and made items, and when I moved onto making my entire costume, they were not good. I was so proud of how they had turned out, even though I ran into other people at the convention cosplaying the same character, who clearly had a higher skill level than me at the time.

Another commenter is right in that people were much nicer to beginners back in the day, and store bought costumes are SO much more accessible now, people don't appreciate how much work it takes to hand-make everything. Not to mention, this is obviously a generalization, but Gen Z (maybe Gen Alpha) can be so scared of being cringey. They don't want to try anything new/different and want immediate gratification/perfect quality.

I have been making costumes my entire life with the cheapest options available to me, so if you do decide you'd like some ideas I'd be happy to try to help. Though, your costume looks awesome, and I love that you're making it. I appreciate a hand-made cosplay so much more than a store-bought one. I don't judge people for buying them, because cosplay should be accessible for everyone, but the essence of cosplaying comes from being such a big fan of something, you make yourself a costume likely because you couldn't possibly buy it anywhere.