Risu
Master Member
City of Death was the first episode of classic Who I watched, and I loved this coat right away. At the time I couldn't even sew and nobody was offering replicas, so I didn't give it too much thought. When the Doctor Who Experience opened in London, there were instantly tons of really high res photos of the coat on display, and that got me thinking about it again. Well, for the last view months, this coat has moved up on my to-do list, and I officially started back in March when I finally found a fabric I liked for the body. It has a different weave, but from all of the various pictures I've seen and screen grabs, it seems to me like it matches the color of the original tweed really well. The important thing is that in person it looks brown, but lights up in photos to sort of an oatmeal color, sometimes very desaturated. Then I picked up some brown velvet from Jo-Anne for the collar and tracked down some screen accurate bias trim. The weave is possibly a bit larger than the original and it might be a little darker than the real stuff, but that could just be because of fading over time. Just yesterday I completed my fabric collection by picking up some lining fabric, also from Jo-Anne. This stuff really takes the cake for color changing. I took a ton of pictures under different lighting and it turned gold, green, grey, pink. Basically every color. In person though, it's a slightly golden brown. It matches the shell fabric pretty well. I do worry though that it will appear too gold in pictures. Anyhow, here are some pics of my fabrics.
Incandescent bulb:
Incandescent with flash:
Fluorescent:
Fluorescent with flash:
And the only picture I got where the lining looks remotely like it does in person:
I'll try to get a daylight picture soon. Most of the time I spend awake when the sun's up I'm at my day job or trying to run errands when businesses are open. The buttons are proving difficult to find. They actually share some traits with the buttons from Sherlock's coat in the new BBC series. My current plan is to sculpt the correct shape on top of one of the close-enough Sherlock buttons I picked up and mold it.
I'm pretty sure the original buttons were real leather, but there's only so much that can be done.
I've been sewing for a few years now, but over the last few months my skills have really started to ramp up dramatically thanks to some much appreciated lessons and advice from a very talented friend. I also just picked up this book that was recommended by Darth_Mule:
I'm about 1/3 through it, and so far it hasn't taught me much that I hadn't already learned, but it's pretty informative. It's also kind of comically dated though, having been published in 1988. Apparently that was the year when all women dressed in men's jackets.
Lastly, I'll be modifying the Laughing Moon #109 double breasted frock coat pattern, as it's pretty near perfect. Just needs some small modifications.
This first post is pretty much just a teaser. I won't be working on my buttons for a little while still, and the actual coat build won't start until I finish another one I'm working on in my free time, which is quite limited right now. I've actually wanted to post about that coat, but since it isn't technically a costume I didn't have a forum, so to speak. I may hijack my own thread for that build until it's complete, then resume the frock build.
Incandescent bulb:
Incandescent with flash:
Fluorescent:
Fluorescent with flash:
And the only picture I got where the lining looks remotely like it does in person:
I'll try to get a daylight picture soon. Most of the time I spend awake when the sun's up I'm at my day job or trying to run errands when businesses are open. The buttons are proving difficult to find. They actually share some traits with the buttons from Sherlock's coat in the new BBC series. My current plan is to sculpt the correct shape on top of one of the close-enough Sherlock buttons I picked up and mold it.
I'm pretty sure the original buttons were real leather, but there's only so much that can be done.
I've been sewing for a few years now, but over the last few months my skills have really started to ramp up dramatically thanks to some much appreciated lessons and advice from a very talented friend. I also just picked up this book that was recommended by Darth_Mule:
I'm about 1/3 through it, and so far it hasn't taught me much that I hadn't already learned, but it's pretty informative. It's also kind of comically dated though, having been published in 1988. Apparently that was the year when all women dressed in men's jackets.
Lastly, I'll be modifying the Laughing Moon #109 double breasted frock coat pattern, as it's pretty near perfect. Just needs some small modifications.
This first post is pretty much just a teaser. I won't be working on my buttons for a little while still, and the actual coat build won't start until I finish another one I'm working on in my free time, which is quite limited right now. I've actually wanted to post about that coat, but since it isn't technically a costume I didn't have a forum, so to speak. I may hijack my own thread for that build until it's complete, then resume the frock build.
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