Have you ever been to a con that had a costume show? (AKA Masquerade). The costumer's guild is pretty good out in your part of the world, and they make the kind of high quality replica stuff you're thinking about.
I don't know if I've ever mentioned it to you, but I've done a Count Piotr Vorkosigan uniform which won Best In Show the first time I entered it in competition. I think it'd be a fairly straightforward thing to make the Talia costume you mention, as an initial effort. (Then you'll discover that the true miracle of Heralds is that they can wear white without it becoming filthy in a matter of hours.) Boiled leather armor is do-able too. Check around the various SCA websites for instructions. You'll want to find a source of heavy harness leather to begin, and you'll need to make a mold of your body, but it's all a pretty well defined process. It's just time consuming.
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I don't know if I've ever mentioned it to you, but I've done a Count Piotr Vorkosigan uniform which won Best In Show the first time I entered it in competition. I think it'd be a fairly straightforward thing to make the Talia costume you mention, as an initial effort. (Then you'll discover that the true miracle of Heralds is that they can wear white without it becoming filthy in a matter of hours.) Boiled leather armor is do-able too. Check around the various SCA websites for instructions. You'll want to find a source of heavy harness leather to begin, and you'll need to make a mold of your body, but it's all a pretty well defined process. It's just time consuming.