Double Stomp Profile: Beagle K Cosplay as Alex Mercer!

Guest Writer: Willie Brown, Double Stomp Productions

As a cosplay photographer, I run into a lot of great cosplayers, who I not only get the opportunity to do a photo shoot with, but also — my favorite thing — get to build a relationship with and become great friends! One of those people is one who is not only a friend, but I consider a brother, and that’s my good friend Jordon Schnader, AKA Beagle K Cosplay. So with that, I give you my very first cosplayer feature, Beagle K Cosplay.

One of the best cosplays I’ve seen him do thus far is the one he did for Alex Mercer. Needless to say, there is a story behind that cosplay. So without any further ado, here is the birth and rebirth of Alex Mercer, by Beagle K Cosplay in his words and my pictures.

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The allure of a personal escape, an imaginary world where things I had seen in videogames and movies in front of me, roaming the halls lost like the first time I wondered through Silent Hill. This new world was an escape for me as the monsters and heroes of my favorite tales wandered past me, with smiles and laughs filling all the available air space and you can’t help but to feel happy as you are taken back by the thought of playing pretend and how amazing it actually it is. This is why I do what I do, this is why I am Beagle K Cosplay.

It has been almost two years since my first con and my first cosplay, which my first major cosplay was Alex Mercer of the game Prototype, mainly because he is such a bad ass, I remember making his blade arm and trying so many materials, starting with Styrofoam and paining it with gesso which in turn then made it to heavy eventual snapping it to pieces, but I was determined prepping up with less then a month before dragon con. Finally settling on a tri-fold of cardboard because I didn’t want to spend all of my con money on the blade arm.

I found the niche and kept going creating the arm then coating it in papier-mâché before painting it, and using coils of yarn for the tendrils. It was my first prop, and I knew for a fact it was not the best, but didn’t change the fact that I was proud, nor did it stop me from running around the con trashed swinging it at everything. For those four days I was Alex Mercer; I was the virus. This formed a love for cosplay but even more for props and armor — turning household materials into something straight from fantasy gave me a feeling that nothing else could. It was the beginning and I knew that I would revisit it.

A year and half, 20 more cons and cosplays, and several gallons of liquor later I find myself prepping for IchibanCon, not knowing what costume I wanted do, scouring through my Xbox games I pass by Prototype again, and Mercer wears a ton of layers and it was January, that’s all the motivation I need to jump back in to it.

I immediately started thinking about how I was going to do the blade arm this time around cycling through a lot of ideas before landing on expansion foam. The problem was I had no experience with it but didn’t really have any time to panic. I craft the sleeve from EVA foam and drive a small wooden handle through it as the base and handle.

Next I cut a skeleton for the blade and bracers from foam core board and attached it to the sleeve via hot glue.

Now it was time to go through with the expansion foam, I was nervous and I did not want to screw up because time was running low. First experience was pretty easy and I did not really run into any trouble getting on to the blade skeleton but the waiting period on it was a bitch.

Once dried it looked pretty neat but the thing that stuck out the most is how much the coils of foam looked like Mercer’s tendrils. I decided that I would work with that notion and flipped it over and tried to overlap the foam several times in the center to create the tendril-filled mass where his arm meets the blade.

After running around the house wearing it and swinging it at stuff it was time to carve it down, and it begins with a small bottle of fireball and a pack of razor blades. After several hours and no progress I had decided that razor blades where not so good for this and found myself intoxicated in Walmart staring at all the tools settling on a handle that allowed for hack saw blades to be used. The foam still managed to dull two of my hack saw blades but it was so much easier to work with and I was able to get the basic shapes down. Standing back and looking at it got me more and more excited, but even through the liquor my thumb was killing me from gripping the saw for so long. I felt accomplished but the worst was yet to come.

As cool as the arm looked it was super fragile and was way to porous to paint, so I had to seal it. The only thing I could think of was to go back to my roots and papier-mâché it, which actually turned out pretty awesome, it just took a billion years. On a lighter note I actually applied two fortunes from fortune cookies into the arm as well *fun fact*.

The papier-mâché went well but still did not give it the texture I was looking for not to mention I could only seal the portions that I had carved but not the tendrils in the middle, so I coated this section with several layers of gesso so it could take a bit of hit, the rest I used paper pulp which is pretty much just powdered paper, I mixed this with glue and the smallest bit of water then stirred the hell out of it. Eventually it turned in to a goop which I spread over the all the parts of the blade arm made from papier-mâché. The fun part it is, even with the heat gun that stuff takes like three days to dry.

Finally with only two nights before the con and a shit ton of procrastination I was ready to paint it. I had to rush a bit but I ran through my techniques and I was finally able to wear the finished product.

This was the rush I looked for and the thought of my original blade arm bounced around in my head as I looked at it in the mirror. It had let me see how far I had come as a prop maker and a cosplayer and I will always love this craft because nothing can match this Tony Stark-esque mirage that washes over me when I finish. My goals as a cosplayer are not to be the best but just to keep pushing myself and everyday materials to there limits to continue to turn fiction into reality and living in a dream world that is created by me and the people who live this way with me.

Total cost of the arm: about 50 bucks, worth every penny…

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To learn more about Beagle K Cosplay, as well as see what conventions he’ll be at feel free to visit his Facebook page.

For more photos like the ones you saw on the redo of the Alex Mercer cosplay, visit the Double Stomp Productions Facebook page.