Cosplay, fun and hope
at Soonercon 33
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Ben Fenwick Editor
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Jun 21, 2025
Soonercon 33, Norman’s long-standing science fiction and fantasy “pop culture” convention, returned this year, titled “Gateway to the Galaxy.”
The convention runs through Sunday at Norman’s Embassy Suites Convention Center Hotel, 2501 Conference Dr., featuring game rooms, informational panels, a costume show, an art room, costuming workshops and other things springing from human imagination.
For fans in the metro area, Soonercon has been the go-to place to wear the cloak of Gandalf, carry the sword of Skywalker, burst onto the scene in the colors of one’s favorite anime characters, or don the uniform of the Starship Enterprise.
That last one is where Deborah and Sean Wright came in. Sean, a controller at a manufacturing company, chose the uniform of William T. Riker from Season 3 of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Deborah is an advanced practice nurse at Stephenson Cancer Center and took up the mantle of Nurse Christine Chapel from Star Trek’s “Strange New Worlds” because she wanted to express hope for the future.
“The show holds hope for the future, that science and technology both mean that humanity does have a future,” Deborah Wright said. “And in these times, it is more relevant than ever.”
The long-standing, good-natured feud between Star Trek fans and those of the Star Wars universe is easily explained, Sean Wright said. With Star Trek, the hopeful future has arrived and opened up space to humanity. The characters there are exploring and protecting the galaxy. Star Wars, he said, hasn’t gotten to the hopeful place yet.
“In ‘A New Hope,’ they are having to go fight a revolution to get there,” he said.
For Patrick Yeary, a computer engineer, it was always about Star Wars’ droids. As a kid growing up, he played with a radio-controlled R2D2, but he always longed for the real thing. In more recent years, Yeary built a spot-on R2D2 that rivals the original. He obtained the original blueprints from Lucasfilms and had his R2 unit machined out of aircraft aluminum, polished, painted, added the movie-specific scuff marks, and wired it probably better than the one used for the original movie. And now, his R2 is “old school.”
“I built him before 3D printing,” Yeary said. “I had to commission all the metal stuff, laser cut it and all that. It took two years to get all the parts.”
Yeary pointed to the 7-foot-tall K-2SO Droid from ‘Rogue One’, the Imperial-designed droid who became a fighter for the rebels.
“This guy here, I turned him out of this machine…” he patted a 3D printer on his table, “...in three weeks.”
3D printing has created a renaissance in cosplay. Gone are the days of cardboard cut-out shields or swords, or kitchen colanders turned into space helmets–except for humor, maybe. Instead, someone who decides to rock the Predator outfit from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie of the same name can really, really look like Predator, like Lucas Cochran’s outfit.
Cochran’s Predator took five months to build with his 3D printer, including a helmet and a shoulder-mounted blaster that tracks with the helmet. He and his wife, Laura, both started by building Boba Fett and Mandalorian costumes, but then segued into “Predator”.
“It’s my favorite franchise,” Cochran said. While chatting, a costumed youth walked up and asked to take a picture with the Predator. Cochran’s wife, Laura, said Lucas and her daughter costumed together for “The Mandalorian”.
“They got third place at their first convention,” she said. With that, they got plugged into the scene through Oklahoma City’s Star Wars crowd, including the 501st Stormtroopers. “And, we met costumers with OKC 501st, Jedi OKC, all of them.”
In the SoonerCon scene are those who costume and cosplay together as a family, and those for whom cosplayers are the family. That’s the case with Kenzie Flowers and Hoshie Knight, who are brightly dressed as characters from “Monster High,” a multimedia franchise where the characters are the teenage children of famous monsters or creatures.
Knight’s character is “Rochelle Goyle,” a teen gargoyle. She said that she fell in love with the characters, but also with the people she has met.
“The community is just so nice. They look out for one another, and it’s just amazing,” she said. “If you’re a young adult and into nerdy stuff, go to cons because no matter what you are into, like, anime, Star Wars, you name it, you will find your people. They are your weird family.”
Flowers’ character is “Frankie Stein,” the daughter of the Frankenstien Monster and the Bride.
“This is how I can express myself,” Flowers said. “When I was younger, I was scared to do that. Cosplay has helped me become my own person. This has helped me express who I am.”
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