Advice for weathering a costume

I am working on the outfit Harry Potter wears in the battle of Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows, and I already have all the pieces I'm going to be using. Right now I am working on weathering the outfit to match the look at the end of the movie. I have some reference material, and I was wondering what are some good ways to dirty up the outfit. I tried to order the product in the picture but there is some problem with the shipping and I wont have it by the time I need the costume. I'm specifically looking for ways to add the dirt and grime to the outfit without making the costume actually dirty. I'll attach my reference photos, they are the hero costume and the set references. I'm excited to here some of your suggestions!

Looks like a fun project. Here's a great video that may assist:


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2ErLOmGZQMA




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Check it out at around the 3 minute mark - some great weathering techniques.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm glad you shared this. I'm a big fan of the tested channel, and it's how I found this forum. I hadn't seen this video before. It helps, but I'm still looking for how to make my own fake dirt.

A couple of things I've tried that have worked:

1. Flocking - with some spray glue to attach it.

2. I've used powdered graphite. It's a dry powder but gets everywhere. It can be ground into a piece of cloth to give some character.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I heard that for the Lord of The Rings films they would dig up dirt and mix it with wallpaper paste and put that mixture on the actors and their clothing, it apparently gave a rather muted look so maybe you want a more colorful palette than this technique would provide. I've never made a costume before and I've never tried this technique, so I'd test it on a small (and cheap) scale before going all out. Hope that helps!

I have finished the costume, although I may revisit some of the weathering to change some of the look or dirty it up a little more. What I ended up doing was first sanding down the whole jacket and going over the elbows, corners and other areas with more times to get more wear. I then used a razor blade and some dental tool to make the holes in the jacket. I used the razor blade to make a cut a little smaller than I wanted the holes to be, and used the dental tools to pick at the threads to get the shape and size where I wanted it. To get the dirt and grime I started by using a bit of texture spray paint that they sell at retail stores and lightly hitting certain areas with earth tones. After I had a base of dirt color for those areas I would go back over with a different shade of the textured spray paint (stone, etc), and I used some cheap paint sponges that I got at a hobby store to blend the colors together. Interestingly, what I found was that the globs of paint that make up the "Texture" in the spray paint would smear in really cool looking ways, and with a bit of control I could make spots that looks more grimey than others.

After that I went in to do some detailing with graphite powder. I found that sprinkling it over a small area and then rubbing it into the fabric with my finger made a really convincing look. I made sure to focus on corners, and did my best to randomize my weathering, while still following the reference pictures I had. After I was satisfied with the graphite powder, I went back to some of the areas with a small amount of baking cocoa to blend a different color with it. I'm very satisfied with the final result.

I wore it to the Harry Potter celebration at Universal Studios in January, and had the privilege of meeting Jason Isaacs (Lucious Malfoy), Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), Mathew Lewis (Nevile), and the legendary Warwick Davis, who I absolutely adore. They were all wonderful and had great things to say about the outfit and the make up.

Thank you all for the responses. I went into this expecting not to get any information, but what I received was very helpful.

Here are some pictures of the outfit itself. I apologize for the rotated images. I'm new to the RPF and I'm not familiar with the UI yet.