Judeau from Berserk -1-

There are some costumes that really mean a lot to me. This is definitely one of them. Berserk is absolutely without a doubt my favorite manga. The story, the artwork, and the characters are all absolutely mindblowingly wonderful. Judeau is my favorite of the Band of the Hawk mercenaries, the group who the first plot arc focuses on. He's kind and selfless and optimistic and funny. He's loyal to an absolute fault and is somebody you could trust with your life. I absolutely love him, and admire him, and count him among one of my very favorite fictional characters of all time.

In order to cosplay as him, I first did research. Trying to reverse-engineer Kentarou Miura's research isn't very easy; while Berserk is very extensively researched, the clothing draws influence from centuries and multiple countries. I decided on using a slightly more modern cut of pants to match the art, and drafted them myself, adding pockets. The scarf was a simple hemmed rectangle. I drafted and sewed the shirt myself from scratch, with all edges hemmed and the eyelets overcast since there were no metal eyelets back in the time Berserk would take place. The shirt and scarf were both dyed after having been sewn to get the look of older clothing that has been re-dyed. Medieval mercenaries, even the Hawks, weren't extremely rich, and everything would have been slightly worn. The clothing is linen, the lace in the shirt and in my hair is leather, and my boots (which you can't see here) are leather riding boots with synthetic leather topper cuff things. The colors were taken from some manga color pictures I found, and I didn't wear brown contacts because unlike the anime, manga Judeau's eyes are blue like mine.

Picture by Hitori, and is part of a photoshoot we did of this costume in the outdoors.