Newlyn

Newlyn, formerly known as Spikester, real name Justin Crossno, (born January 31, 1981, in San Antonio, Texas, USA.) is a fursuiter from Durango, Colorado, but currently lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado. .

Fandom involvement
Newlyn entered the furry fandom in 2001 after doing some volunteer mascot work for the First National Bank of Durango and as an evolution from being a fan of the musical Cats. After having a lot of fun portraying a character, he started browsing furry art and acquainting himself with new friends in the fandom. While serving in the United States Army from 2003 to 2012, he had many opportunities to meet furs from all over the world. The name "Spikester" originated from being a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, his favorite character from the show being Spike.

Characters
Newlyn has two fursonas as well as a made-up character based on Cats:
 * Spike is his created character based on Cats. The markings resemble the Broadway version of "Alonzo", but uses a lot of tan and brown instead of Alonzo's black markings. The costume for Spike was built by MsJellicle.
 * Altrus is his first fursona and is based on his first Second Life avatar and his passion for foxes. Altrus is a red fox and was built by Arito Cotton and Liam Roark of Luskwood Creatures, and made its debut at Eurofurence 14. Altrus has been unofficially "retired" since 2013, but Newlyn still owns the suit.
 * Newlyn, a snow leopard, is his second fursona and represents his more playful and spontaneous side. Spikester created this fursona because he wanted to have a character built from the ground up and not based on anyone or anything. His fursuit was built by Snap E Tiger of ByCats4Cats.com and made his convention debut at Rocky Mountain Fur Con 2013.

Convention attendance

 * Eurofurence: 2008
 * Rocky Mountain Fur Con: 2009; 2012-2016
 * Biggest Little Fur Con: 2017
 * Midwest FurFest: 2015-2017

When at conventions, he usually likes to relax, take in a panel or two, and reconnect with old friends.

Occupation and hobbies
Newlyn resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado where he works for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS). Other than fursuiting, he enjoys bowling, computer games, bicycling, swimming and loves movies. Newlyn also has a penchant for foreign languages and, other than English, can speak French and Japanese (conversationally), and Italian (beginner).

Newlyn can be found in Second Life as Spike McDowwll, where he previously served as a Staff member for the Rocket City FurMeet sim and as a DJ for GYC. He previously DJed on a freelance basis for most any genre of music, but specializes in Trance and Psy-Trance.

Newlyn served as the Social Media Manager for Rocky Mountain Fur Con, where he maintained the convention's presence on Facebook, Twitter, FurAffinity, Google+ and many other social media outlets until the convention's cancellation in April 2017. He went on to serve as the Assistant Director of Operations for DenFur along with BryantFox.