Cospets Episode 4: A bearded dragon becomes a horned serpent

This might be the most sci-fi edition of Cospets ever, because we're turning a bearded dragon into … a real dragon.

Sort of.

SYFY WIRE's Whitney Moore got up close and personal with Menace the bearded dragon (who is less of a menace than his name suggests). In college, owner Kayra Argabright was a lonely RA who just needed a creature to keep her company, and when she went to the pet store, the lone bearded dragon put a foot up to the glass wall of his tank, almost as if saying "Pick me!" She then became the mother of a dragon.

That is almost unbearably cute. Even cuter is how Kayra watches anime with Menace. Haku anyone? Speaking of Haku, Kayra loves Japanese mythology and feels a serpent-type dragon like the star of Spirited Away would be the ultimate transformation for her scaly friend.

So where did the name come from even though this mini-monster is so adorable? When Kayra was photographing his majestic face — bearded dragons do have something utterly majestic about them — the camera caught a menacing glimmer in his eye. This is why our costume designer Katheryn Renfroe decided to turn him into an actual menace with a cosplay that would morph the lizard into a horned serpent. Yes, a horned serpent.

Reptiles may be cosplays in themselves, considering how so many of them remind us of legendary genre dragons, from Haku to Drogon and even Toothless, but Katheryn decided to level up that resemblance. Menace is no stranger to costumes, having been a pirate and a devil for Halloween, a Thanksgiving turkey and one of Santa's non-humanoid elves, so he was pretty chill throughout the process.

If you want to find out how Katheryn morphed Menace into even more of a menace, you've got to watch the video!

This article was contributed to by Elizabeth Rayne.