Got the first piece of my Merchant cosplay outfit.

[LVL100 Merchant]

This April I'm attending Sakura Con in Seattle; it's this huge game/amine convention (mostly anime) I went to in the past couple years. Anime and cosplaying were never really my forte, but I went because my friends were into it and I had a blast. Last year one of my really good friends bought/made me a a really cool costume I wore. However, one of my big gripes about cosplay is that 99.9% of cosplayers don't physically look like (or even have the basic physique of) the character they're representing. This year, I got the idea of dressing up as the Merchant, which is great because you don't see most of his face (and I adore Resident Evil). Today I stopped by a fabric store with some friends and we found the perfect purple cloth to act as the Merchant's balaclava/scarf. I'll just have to have the white designs sewn into it (shouldn't be too tough considering it's just a bunch of white crisscrossing lines). One small step down, a thousand more to go; I need to get a huge black weathered coat, a pair of baggy black pants, some tattered tan/light brown boots, a bunch of ammo and magazine pouches/holsters, a pair of orange fabric gloves (or just lighter fabric gloves and dye them orange) and like, the biggest sack ever to carry around on my back. And a LOT of toilet paper to fill everything with to make it all look full and heavy without actually being heavy.

[Vector]

Lol. You should try stuffing some of your clothing with cotton to make it look like you're carrying all kinds of crap.

[LVL100 Merchant]

That's part of my plan. Some of the Merchant cosplays I've seen seem so... scrawny. The Merchant is pretty bulky in terms of his clothing.

[Helegad]

Or you could go to a toy shop and buy cap guns/plastic guns to put in the jacket. Plastic guns are very very light usually

[LVL100 Merchant]

I already have some model airsoft guns left over by my brother. However, if you look into the Merchant's coat, he's only got one gun (a handgun) visible. The rest are all pouches and he has some shells located on his belt. This is nice because the "guts" won't need to be too gratuitous; just pouches for the most part.

[nemesis_lover]

looking forward to the end result, you know that picture takers will be expecting a Merchant voice lol

[LVL100 Merchant]

Update: Found the perfect coat! Except it's polyester... >_> I'll have to do something about that (rough it up a bit of course). I also ordered an apron to sew the pouches and supplies onto.