'It feels like I'm in a dream': Sheboygan native receives underrepresented communities grant to attend 'Magic 30' in Las Vegas, wins cosplay contest

SHEBOYGAN – Evan Braun said he’s always been a “Halloween kid.”

“I remember from a very young age whenever October 1st would come around, I'd be begging my parents to take me to the costume shop to pick up something,” he said. “I always was very into it and never stopped wearing costumes.”

That interest grew to wearing costumes outside of the holiday, leading him in around 2016 to cosplay, a performance art where people dress up as characters from movies, book or games.

“Ever since then, I've been absolutely hooked on it," Braun said. "I've been going to costuming conventions all across the Midwest and have done one out East and in Indiana as well, too.”

This past weekend, the Sheboygan native took first place and won $3,000 in the cosplay contest at Magic 30, a three-day event celebrating 30 years of the trading card game Magic: The Gathering, in Las Vegas for his cosplay of the character Ashiok, a Nightmare Weaver.

“He (Ashiok) is a living nightmare and half of his head actually disappears into a cloud of smoke. He has these big, black horns, too. It was really fun to build,” Braun said. “I put a smoke machine actually that goes up my neck, spewing smoke outside of this like fabric cowl that I made."

Winning the contest was “absolutely wild” for Braun.

“This is the first Magic convention I've ever been to," he said. "I had no expectations on how I would do in the contest. MTG (Magic: The Gathering) cosplayers are some of the best costumers around. To win something this big is truly life-changing. There are creators in the Magic community I've looked up to for years reaching out to me and sharing my art. It feels like I'm in a dream.”

Braun was one of 10 recipients of the Magic 30’s New Perspectives Grant, which “aims to support the inclusion of Magic enthusiasts who belong to historically underrepresented groups,” particularly people from marginalized communities based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and/or veteran or military enrollment status, according to the webpage.

Recipients received a three-day VIP package and a $2,000 stipend for travel and related expenses to attend the event.

In his application, Braun shared his experiences of being a queer Black person and how he organized game nights in Milwaukee for those working in the service industry who were time-strained and couldn’t participate in scheduled Magic game events.

“I've never really won anything like this before in my life, and I've never been able to travel by myself, either. This is a lot of firsts for me,” he said.

Braun's passion, attention to detail helps his cosplay stand out.

Ben Busald, Braun’s friend, has seen Braun’s techniques improve and his passion grow over the four years they’ve been friends.

“This is the guy who will spend hours sitting down just to get the right shade of something, making sure it looks a very specific way in certain light,” Busald said.

He thinks a lot of Braun’s success comes from experimentation, trying different resources and tools to make his costumes.

Busald has also seen Braun’s sewing technique improve, which he first learned while working for his grandmother at Arnst Zipper Studio in Sheboygan.

“He's really challenged himself for the sewing technique to the point where he did Rocky Horror Picture Show cosplay, and he made it screen accurate to the film,” Busald said. “He had to hand stitch everything on the jacket.”

With cosplay being a large accessible art form, Busald said it’s fascinating how many cosplayers are able to have great attention to detail maybe without having a background in it.

“A lot of these people are traditional artists, engineers, but a lot of the things they need to do require really artisan work and eye for detail and actually even the whole like basic engineering for some moving parts for larger props or designs,” he said.

Braun said it took about six months to make the Ashiok costume, but it may take longer to make others, like his Darth Vader costume.

“That was probably one of the longest projects I did," he said. "That was two-and-a-half years, like half a year worth of research because there’s so many different iterations of that costume. I had to go through and handpick what designs from throughout its conception that I liked because I don't necessarily like going for one movie's version of Darth Vader. I want to make something that spoke to me."

Braun also won best craftsmanship at Gen Con, an Indiana-based boardgame convention that was originally founded by Wisconsin native and Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax, for his Darth Vader costume this year and best fantasy costume for a "Lord of the Rings" costume last year.

“There were a lot of super amazing costumes up there, too, so I was just very moved that the judges recognized the amount of work that I put into that,” Braun said about his Darth Vader costume.

“It is a crazy, crazy costume. The helmet comes apart in three pieces like it does in Return of the Jedi,” he continued. “(It) has all the internals inside of it like lights and I have a voice changer and a breathing reverting apparatus, too."

Cosplay’s popularity has risen dramatically since the 1990s, and Braun said he thinks people are drawn to it because it “lifts the veil between pretending and just wearing a costume.”

“Like the people around you understand what you're wearing and will react with you and it's almost like a form of acting,” he said. “Especially around the kids, too. That's a really big part of it, too. When I'm wearing Darth Vader and you have a little kid just beaming up at you and loving that. It's just a very rewarding experience to share that and to have such an interactive experience with your art. I think that's the big pull for me.”

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Contact Alex Garner at 224-374-2332 or agarner@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @alexx_garner.

This article originally appeared on Sheboygan Press: Sheboygan native Evan Braun won Magic 30 cosplay contest in Las Vegas