So I know I'm almost 5 years late to the party, but just wanted to share a few pics of my finished
markpoon jacket with the people that would appreciate it the most!
While I wasn't around when markpoon did his run, I was lucky enough to find someone on this forum that was willing to sell me their unassembled jacket with all accessories still in perfect condition. After receiving the jacket and trim pieces I realized why they hadn't been put together.... it is SCARY to think of messing up such an amazing piece of BTTF memorabilia! While it was an especially daunting task for someone like me who has 0 experience with cosplaying or sewing, I spent days reading through this thread for ideas on how to best attach the belt, cuffs, and other trim pieces. Thank you all for going through all the trouble before I did! :-D
For starters, I settled on the expanding foam option to give the belt and cuffs a little more support against bending and caving in which I noticed is the biggest risk, and one of the most delicate parts on the jacket. While the foam expanded WAY more than I expected which led to some unexpected twisting and bending, once I shaved down the excess foam the belt and cuffs returned to their original shape. PHEW!
Thanks to
HanSewLow, I decided to use the sew on snaps method to attach both the belt and cuffs and since I had the liberty of choosing where to place the snaps, I took advantage and placed the male ends (on the black fabric) at shorter intervals than on the belt to give the jacket some pleating. It wasn't perfect as it created some separation between the belt and the jacket where the snaps aren't holding them together, but some velcro in between the sew on snaps helps to reduce this separation. To give the sleeves a bit of pleating, I simply flipped the black wrist fabric up onto the gray leathery(?) sleeve fabric and that instantly gave the sleeves some pleating while making their length perfect for me. I attached the sew on snaps to the flipped up black cuff fabric, and while I couldn't manage to wrap the plastic cuffs all the way around, I got the ends pretty close to each other and this still allows me to fit my hand through the sleeves even with the plastic cuffs installed.
Since I didn't want to deal with making my own sound board with working LEDs and dealing with soldering or wiring, I basically used the belt trim from an HC Authentic Jacket which comes with a working sound chip and a yellow LED that flashes while the audio is playing. While they are made of cheap plastic (nowhere near the quality of markpoon's trim pieces) and the red doesn't match the other trim, when it is up against the belt it actually looks pretty good because the height/thickness is almost exactly the same as the plastic belt.
I know it isn't perfect by any means, but for my first movie prop project I'm pretty happy with my results!
Now to figure out the best place to display this beauty and build a BTTF shrine around it! :-D
