Colorado cosplay community comes together at Aurora Mini-Con
Aurora Mini-Con is a chance to be your favorite comic, movie or pop culture character. It's a free, family friendly comic conference that celebrates sci-fi and pop culture. There will be video game tournaments, trivia contests, and a scavenger hunt. But the best part of Aurora Mini-Con is the costumes, and the costume contest.
"It provides something to the community that says, 'It's okay to be who you are. It's okay to maybe be a little different,'" Jennifer Losty said of Aurora Mini-Con.
Losty is the founder of Colorado Academy of Cosplay, a group of dedicated cosplay enthusiasts.
"It originally started as an online costume contest that spawned into education and safe spaces and making sure that people are accepted for who they are," Losty explained.
Losty said she was seeing some elitism and gatekeeping in the Denver cosplay community; and she wanted to start a group where anybody can play any character.
"One of the hallmarks of the Colorado Academy of Cosplay is if you're in costume and you're having fun then you're doing it right," she said.
Most recently, Losty played Winona Ryder's character from the 1992 film "Bram Stoker's Dracula," complete with red dress and blood. Her husband wore Dracula's blood armor. It was a tableau set up as part of the Winona Ryder theme at Summer Scream put on by Denver Film.
"I'm also not a social person by nature; but once I have a costume on, I'll talk to anyone," Losty added.
Losty makes all her cosplay costumes from scratch. She loves the challenge of dreaming up a costume and then figuring out how to build it.
"This is definitely engineering."
Losty is passionate about cosplay; and she wanted to make sure that everyone feels comfortable participating. At Aurora Mini-Con, she'll be a part of a panel on inclusion; and she'll be busting some myths, like can you be too old to cosplay?
"I'm 40.. almost 40. I'm not too old to cosplay. I'm going to be doing this until I die," she said with a laugh. "I mean the sky's the limit with cosplay. Anyone can cosplay."
Aurora Mini-Con is Saturday, September 21, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Aurora Municipal Campus. It's free and open to the public.
