Lynx was my first real attempt at Cosplay. The previous year, a friend of mine asked me to go with him to the Halloween costume contest at my school’s Anime Club. We wanted to make our costumes a pair so we chose Ushio and Tora. They were thrown together at the last minute but were fun to do and netted us 2nd place.

The following year, I approached Halloween with the idea that whatever costume I made, I wanted it to be great as I had just heard of Otakon and made plans to go. We decided on Lynx and Serge from Chrono Cross. I had never played the game but Sean got me screen captures of some cut scenes. I found a few more images on the internet and set about sketching out the character, trying to figure out how any creature could ever get into an outfit like his.

After much planning, I decided to make the main outfit in 3 pieces. I designed a robe piece that would go on first. Then there is a second sleeveless trench coat piece. Since it doesn’t have sleeves or even have a full armhole, I put black braided cord from the back top seam to the front pieces.

I purchased about 6 yards of black vinyl and began sewing. I made the robe first. It had a fuzzy white back to it so I lined it all with black cotton broadcloth. The sleeves have gold maxi piping sewn into them and the neck is trimmed with black maxi piping. I bought some 2” wide gold ribbon and folded it over the sides of the center slit and sewed it into place. I marked the vinyl with chalk where the small gold accents and gold cord would be. Thin gold cord was hot glued in place and later sewn on. I hot glued round purple buttons that I had cut the back off of so they would lay flat in place. I wrapped thicker gold cord around them and glued that down. The cord was later glued in place. Though the glue would not hold the buttons to the vinyl, it did keep them securely attached to the gold cord. Finally, I created the marching band like designs on the upper arms. The shape was trimmed in black maxi piping and the buttons and cord applied with the same glue then sew method.

Next was the “overcoat” piece. Some of the rendered shots and images I found made it look like this was 2 layers and so I created patterns for the top and bottom. Again, I needed to back it all in black cotton cloth. The top part was all trimmed in gold maxi piping. I sewed in the black cord to create an armhole to ensure the back would stay up and in place. I put in 6 snaps, 3 per side, to hold the jacket tight to the robe part. Again, buttons were applied which hid the snaps. Then I made the bottom part of the coat, adding in the gold trim and finally hand sewing it to the top part, being careful to only sew into the lining so the stitching would not show on the outside.

To complete the ensemble, I made the cape part, backing the vinyl this time with shiny gold material. The whole cape got trimmed in piping. I added a small frog clasp at the neck to keep it closed. I should have used the same snap technique in retrospect, so it would sit lower. I also quickly made a purple sash to tie it all together.

As if wearing all vinyl wasn't hot enough, I made the mask out of latex and covered it in fur. It stays tight on your head with some elastic, which also allows the jaw to move when you speak. I colored the nose black by coating it in Plasti-dip, or tool dip, as I’ve found paint and marker tend to rub off of latex easily. For the paws, I just held my fingers out wide on the back of a piece of fur (making sure the nap is in the right direction) and traced my hand. I just gave it some extra space between the fingers and sewed it together. The claws were fashioned out of friendly plastic and attached to a white craft glove that I cut the fingertips off of. I then just slide the furry glove over the white glove and trim off the extra fur at the finger tips and hot glue it down around the claw. I finished off the claws with a little coloring with a light gray marker.

Finally, The hat was created out of a big piece of foam I carved and covered in vinyl. I first glued it with super 77 and then hot glued it at the seams. I cut a small lock of brown hair from an old wig I had and glued it up under the front. I glued a bit of the same gold from the cloak on the front and of course added the buttons and cord. After all this work, I decided to just use khakis and boots to finish off the outfit.

Lynx took about 2 months of work and somewhere between $300-$400 to create. Much of this cost stems from the insane amount of gold cord I had to buy and the 56 buttons that adorn the outfit. I bought out every JoAnn’s around me in a 30 mile radius or so and ended up having to hand paint some to the right color.