This Engineer's Cosplays Are So Legit She's Represented Malaysia Internationally
She loves to bring 2D characters to life!
During the day, Lynn works as an application engineer. After work, she puts in effort to create amazing cosplay outfits.
To make the outfits, Lynn uses different materials such as EVA foam, paint, fabrics, and recycled items
"I love to incorporate recycled materials such as water bottles, left over Styrofoam, cardboxes, etc to save cost and environment."
"My favourite thing to build is weapons, usually materials used are PVC pipes, paper, ice cream sticks – anything you can imagine technically can be used if the material manipulation is good enough," she told SAYS.
"Costumes for competitions are generally more intricate and complicated, and it has to be self-made. Preparation time is much longer and needs loads of patience, time, and money," she added.
Check out a step-by-step tutorial of how she created one of her weapons here.
Aside from taking part in competitions, Lynn shared that she also cosplays for other occasions
"There are some game or event organisers that look for cosplayers to work for their events. For example, Garena Malaysia invited me to cosplay a League of Legends character for their E-sport tournament," she said.
Lynn added that she also dresses up for casual events to hang out with friends.
"For larger events like Animagaki, Anime Festival Asia, and Comic Fiesta, I will dress up as a certain anime character to attend the event."
Lynn, who goes by her cosplayer name Shinku, has even represented Malaysia at various international competitions
In order to qualify as a Malaysian representative in competitions, one would need to get through local preliminary rounds first, she explained.
Here are two competition outfits Lynn wore when she represented Malaysia for the World Cosplay Summit and Clara Cow Cup, together with her cosplay partner Dovah:
She admitted that it's not easy to maintain the hobby, especially when people look down on her but Lynn is grateful for the support from her friends and family
"It's not easy to maintain a hobby as when things get serious, more money, time, and effort is needed," she shared.
"And not to mention there will always be people who doubt or judge you... also the support of your friends and family does matter a lot!"
Cosplaying has been a great journey for me because I love what I do so much and I've met so many amazing people along the way!