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Photo credits: Toast and ChibiK3r0

Costume Information

I've always liked Merle, and I made this costume to cosplay with Becky and to celebrate Escaflowne's 20th anniversary.

I made the dress out of a perfect yellow fabric for the dress at a local fabric store. I hand-sewed the facings for the dress to hide the obvious stitching, since in the series, I'm pretty sure her dress is made out of some sort of pelt.

The fur I bought was poofier than I originally intended, but I made it work and I like how it came out. I lined the bottom of the shoulder pads with white felt since the back-side of the fur was a little scratchy. I also hand-sewed the shoulder-pads together to retain their maximum poof.

Once the base dress was done, I made paper versions of the brown designs on her dress and taped them to the dress until I found a pattern and placement I liked that matched her designs in the series. I made the brown patterns on her dress -- and every brown part of this costume -- out of a dark brown felt. I backed the felt in heat-and-bond and cut out the designs I came up with. Then I ironed them onto the dress, which gave the designs a very smooth look.

I hand-sewed the armbands and legbands and carefully hand-sewed white felt to the insides of them so they'd be comfortable against my skin. Each arm-band and leg-band has two snaps sewn into them that hold them closed.

The tail is made of a tube of beige fabric that I stuffed with both stuffing and wire from a hanger. The wire is what keeps the tail from falling straight to the ground. The base of the tail is not stuffed so it doesn't look bulky near my butt when I'm wearing it. The base of the tail is attached to a thick elastic that I wear around my waist. The elastic has a velcro attachment so I can easily take it on and off.

The brown markings on the tail were made and attached the same way as the markings on the dress. I ironed them on after the tail was complete to ensure they all lined up evenly the way I wanted them to. The white fur at the tip of tall was hand-sewed on.

As for the wig, I bought an "Indigo" classic from Arda Wigs in the color "rose pink". It was longer and wavier than I expected it to be (the back flipped out the opposite way than I needed it to), but it was the perfect base wig for Merle and I totally recommend it. I put it on a wig head that I altered using this technique, and then began styling the wig. I trimmed the wig into a bob, curled the ends of the wig inwards using a round-brush, a hairdryer, and five hours of patience, and styled the bangs.

The ears were made out of multiple layers of fabric and felt stuck together using heat-and-bond. I made a few test ears before I found a size of ear I liked.

Merle wears sandals in the anime. I know other cosplayers have managed to find similar sandals in the right colour, but try as I might, I couldn't find any existing sandals that I liked so I decided to try something new and make sandals.

I started with a base pair of cheap black sandals that were similar to what I needed. I cut most of the sandals' straps off leaving just enough of the original straps to sew new straps to. Then I sewed brown felt into four strips and pinned these strips to the sandals while wearing them to figure out where I wanted the new straps to be. Once I figured that out, I hand-sewed the new straps to the bit of original straps I left behind. I then covered the sides of the sandals in tape to make a pattern for covering them in felt too. I cut out a piece of felt backed in head-in-bond of the same shape as the pattern I made from the tape and hand-sewed the felt to the sides of the sandals.

Here are some before and after photos of the sandals that I hope will help explain what I did to make them:

My friend Adrien helped me make the necklace out of super sculpey and came up with the paint combination for the red color. There was lots of sanding and priming involved.

The markings on my face, arms and legs were made out of dark brown felt and heat-and-bond. I patterned the markings with paper first and then cut them out of the felt/heat-and-bond. I stuck them to my body using spirit gum, which worked quite well. I did learn that the body markings are only good for one use, so I bought extra dark brown felt to make extra sets of the markings for future times I wear the costume.

The night before I wore this costume for the first time, I decided to make a matching bag so I didn't have to carry a purse around with me at cons. I made a simply draw-string bag with the same yellow fabric I used for the dress. The bottom of the bag keeps its shape due to a margarine lid, and the cording is actually shoelaces.

I really enjoy making "simple" costumes and taking my time with them so this was a fun project for me. I felt it provided me with many challenges, especially since I decided to make sandals for the first time and make the pendant from scratch.

As for the experience of wearing it at a con, I was pleasantly surprised by how many people recognized Merle. The costume got a lot of love. Additionally, I met a lot of people who were like, "Your costume looks familiar and I should know it but I can't quite identify it!" because they hadn't seen Escaflowne in years. I also ran into many of people who made Merle costumes in the past, which I thought was pretty cool. This costume was very popular in the late 90s and early 2000s. I was just late to the party. LOL.

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