[#sdcc] A #browncoat cosplay…
All the way back at Emerald City Con I decided I was going to cosplay.
Cosplay meaning to dress up as a character. It’s like Halloween without the candy.
This brings up several questions: 1. Who? 2. How much is this going to cost? 3. Exactly how hot are you going to get?
I decided on Captain Malcolm Reynolds played by Nathan Fillion from Firefly/Serenity because of simplicity and because I liked the character.
I did some homework first and found a great post at Firefly Fans.net. Most of what’s in that four year old post is what’s below.
The cost was low since you can pick up up a pair of pants, suspenders and shirt at Historical Emporium. The boots had several options and I decided to go with Ariat.
There are cheaper options for boots. Originally, I had gone with the Captains Mid-Calf Boot and found them too constricting.
The coat is optional unless you’re going to a convention in the middle of winter. If you are looking for the coat then Wild West Merchantile is another option.
For those who playing at home the cost is now: $342 (rounded).
The final accessories was the gun and the belt.
The gun was easy to find since Quantum Mechanix (QMX) had a prop gun for $80.00.
The belt was a little harder to find since the original through QMX was sold out and eBay was proving fruitless.
So I turned to Esty and found Timelord Leatherworks. After several conversations about waist size and adding on a iPhone pouch the total for the entire costume came to: $800.
The gun belt was worth the wait and survived walking around the dealer’s room for three hours. Highly recommend Time Lord Leatherworks.
Add $25 if you include the Reynold’s dogtags. The chains will need to be replaced with something stronger.
I’ve rounded the numbers up obviously.
The reasoning behind including the prices is because for those who haven’t thought of cosplaying and wonder what they could do on a budget then this is what you’re looking at just for Malcolm Reynolds. Take out of the boots/coat and you save $200 so it’s doable.
I haven’t costed Jayne out but it’d be cheaper depending on how far you’re willing to go with the weapons. I think Vera would be the most expensive piece of the entire outfit.
I passed one Jayne cosplayer with several weapons. He had no grenades which after a moment we agreed we could blame on Con Security. The lovely blue tags were a dead giveaway around the trigger guards to make sure his weapons were con safe.
I should note there are several prop people on Etsy that are making props like Mal’s gun, Jayne’s gun and Vera. Translation: The price could have gone higher but QMX does good work.
The good news is Ariat’s boots were comfortable on my size 14ee feet. I point this out only because they had good selection of sizes and walking around for three hours straight was doable.
So what did it look like finalized?
Yeh, I know, I went to a convention and didn’t flag down a stranger to get a better picture of me, next time I’ll do better, promise.
Originally published at RKB Writes. You can comment here or there.