ETSU alumni and adjunct professor Angelique Lynch has been making costumes for as long as she can remember. She was particularly inspired to create cosplay for Mother Aughra, a character she discovered in the 1982 movie “The Dark Crystal.”
“It has always been my dream costume,” Lynch said. “I have wanted to be this character since I saw the movie when I was 12 years old. I just found [the character] intriguing and magical in a sense. Being able to have skills to be able to make a costume this complex has been a real treat, too.”
At the end of August, Lynch brought her cosplay to Atlanta as an attendant of DragonCon. DragonCon is an annual convention that attracted 85,000 people this year. Lynch said that her costume received high praise from convention-goers and even attracted the attention of Brian Henson, chairman of the Jim Henson Company.
“I had been in the mask for three hours by the time I actually got to meet him,” Lynch said. “It was exhilarating. It was a true honor just to see his excitement on his face. He was really impressed with the sculpture and with the whole costume. Getting a personal photograph, it was really exciting, a real treat. I was not expecting it.”
Leading up to the debut of her “Dark Crystals” cosplay, Lynch devoted months of work to complete the piece. It came together with the help of her partner, Chad Fraley.
“We started working on [the ‘Dark Crystals’ cosplay] last February,” Lynch said. “My partner sculpted the mask. … I spent about 11 hours working the wig; that was hand-sewn onto the mask itself. The robe: I found the body form, made my own custom pattern, dyed my own fabric and sewed all of it together via sewing machine. I would say I spent a good month on that alone.”
Lynch plans to rebuild the costume to make it more film accurate and will continue to travel to more conventions in costume. She hopes to enter her costume in TwitchCon’s cosplay contest in 2020.
“I have been researching fabrics with one of the teachers in the art department,” Lynch said. “I just made contact on Instagram with one of the ladies who created the outfits for the actual show. I am going to be asking her about fabric samples and stuff real soon.”
Lynch will sport her cosplay from Oct. 11-13 at Conapalooza at the MeadowView Convention Center in Kingsport. She will also be the subject of one of ETSU’s still life art classes in October.
“I love making things and just the whole process of the creation,” Lynch said. “It was just a lot of fun from start to finish. Now I get to run around [in the costume] and have a good time.”
