Reddit mentions of Siddartha Mens Tunic Handloomed Cotton 3-Wooden Button Loop Closure, Mandarin Collar (Large/XL, Brown)

Ok, let me break it down for you.

The tunic could be made out of a cost effective, medium quality cotton - let’s say it’s $10/yard, and you need 2.5 yards. That’s $25. Now it has some yellow accent or embroidery. You could either use trim, paint it on, or embroider it. There’s no way your budget allows for embroidery, so let’s say you paint/trim it. $10 for those materials. No pattern will exist for that cut on the tunic, so that’s 2 hours to pattern that, plus another 1-3 hours for the detail work. Then another 4 hours to make it more if you want the exact design painted on, rather than a standard gold trim used). So for the tunic alone, we are looking at $35 for materials and $80 for labor. That’s $115 for that piece alone.

Now we have the pants. Those need to be made out of a thicker twill, $13/yard. You need a lot of yardage for pants, I’d guess 3.5 yards. That’s $40 dollars. Notions for things like a zipper is another $5. They could be made from a standard pattern, but would need about 5 hours to construct. Materials $40, Labor $50. Total = $90.

Now let’s get to the pauldron. Faux leather is average $13/yard. You need at least four yards to make a large tailored jacket like that. Plus four yards of lining, let’s say $4/yard. That’s $60 in material to start. Now it needs to be patterned. That’s a tailored jacket, so it needs to be patterned well. Let’s say four hours. Now another 6 hours to cut and sew the jacket. That’s ten hours, so $100 dollars. Again, this is all what a novice is going to price this at. Labor and materials brings us to a break even of $160. Again, craftsmen must make a profit, so $200 for this item is totally reasonable.

The boot covers could be made from a pattern, would need about 2 yards of the faux leather at $13/yard. Four hours to make them for $40. That’s $66 break even for the boot cover.

All in, just to cover the bare minimum costs of making this costume, you are looking at $431 - that’s only labor and materials. Again, nothing but a novice craftsmen would charge this price. It barely covers the cost of making the costume, I didn’t even account for things like business expenses, taxes, listing fees, shipping costs, maintenance cost on tools, and actually making a profit.

At the end of the day, it does not matter how simple you think this costume is. If it were that simple, you would make it yourself! In fact, you could easily make the tunic, boot covers, and pants by adding the designs to store bought items, then spend your money on the pauldron. This is what the majority of most cosplayers who don’t wish to spend a lot of money do. They alter existing pieces. You could buy a tunic on Amazon for a very affordable price, cut the buttons off, and glue some gold trim on the edges. Then just find some pants at a thrift store, and allocate your budget to the pauldron. You can always add custom made items for the tunic and pants later.

If you are searching, “varic from dragon age cosplay”, the costumes you are seeing would (almost all) cost over $1000 to have someone make it for you. Just as a reference.