Indy on a budget

[phillbarron]

For a local con this year I wanted to put together an Indy costume. My rules are:

1) Reasonably even accurate. Ish. Enough detail that people who don't know what the costume looks like will think it's a replica.

2) Make as much as I can (because that's more fun for me than buying it ready made).

3) Take no more than a month (to keep the obsession to a minimum for my wife's sanity)

4) Total budget of about £100

Very quickly I realised Number 4 was going to be tricky.

First stop eBay and the cheapest (ish) of everything I can't build/repurpose.

Compromises already.

The whip's the wrong colour (and, according to a whip maker I bumped into, terrible) but it makes a nice noise and was only £29.45.

It annoys me that I didn't make my own whip ... but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have time to teach myself to make one.

The bag ... I went back and forth between this and a vintage original for ages until I settled on this one for £31.93. The real MKVII bag is about the same price ... but then I'd have to add a strap for another £10. And pay for delivery.

The colour's wrong, the buckle's wrong (but maybe I can grind it down) the poppers and drain holes are too small and (as I found out later) the bag is too big ... but it's (sort of) recognisably an Indy bag so it'll do.

£61.38 - that's 60% of my budget already gone!

The gun STL I downloaded from thingiverse, painted it and added weight to the handle:

That'll do ... although later on I painted it black. Not sure why I thought anthracite was a good choice?

The gunbelt was tricky. I just couldn't find anything similar for less than £18 ... so I went for this one for £8 and made the holster from scrap leather I had lying around:

£69.38 ... not much left for the hat, jacket, web belt, boots, shirt and trousers.

The cheapest fedora I could find was £35 ... which didn't look great.

And then I found this:

For £10. It also doesn't look great, but it'll have to do.

£79.38

For the shirt I found this army shirt for £5:

So I bought 2 and cannibalised one to make the stripes:

Although I now realise I should have added a pen holder to the left pocket. Little bit yellow, but ... cheap.

£89.38

I found a pair of Dockers in a vintage clothes shop for £9 which just needed the rear pockets altering to look a bit scalloped and combined with a leather jacket I already had and some brown Doc Marten boots ...

No.

Not even with an appropriate background.

£10.62 left for a jacket, some boots and a better hat ... might need to revise that budget ...

 

[phillbarron]

So I revised the budget up to £150 (ish) and bought some fake leather:

2 metres for £22, plus a metre of cotton at about £8.50 for the lining and a metre of satin/polyester stuff at about the same (once I'd realised one metre wasn't enough for the lining, didn't have time to order more and had to panic buy from limited local stock).

Which makes a grand total of £39 to make a jacket.

I'm not great with sewing, but I get by. I picked a jacket I thought was probably similar ish to Indy's (albeit with no collar stand, pockets, pleats or side straps ... I just had to guess how those worked) and used it to make a pattern or sorts.

And then just flailed madly with scissors and a sewing machine I can barely understand until it started to look like a jacket.

My process involves working late at night when the family are asleep, with not enough light and no dressform and no mirrors.

It's not the best process.

I do 4-5 hours in each session with the first 2 to 3 hours of each session spent unpicking and redoing the bits I messed up the day before.

That's end of day one. Weird puffy sleeve on one side.

End of day two: straps attached, one pocket larger than the other.

End of day three: sleeve fixed, lined, pockets the same size (with hand warmers) ... but wonky.

End of day four: zip, storm flap and bottom closed up ... but the whole jacket wonky

End of day five I remember having a bit of a wobble. Nothing seemed to be working the way I wanted it to. Nothing was straight, i was spending more time repairing what is done wrong than making anything new and I just felt I'd ruined the whole thing in some indefinable way.

End of day six and it seems to be looking more like what it's meant to look like.

End of day seven and I have a collar! On an Indiana Jones jacket!

It fits! It's comfortable! It hangs a bit oddly, but it looks vaguely like what it's meant to look like and it only cost me £39!

Total spend so far is £128.38 and all I need to sort out are the hat and the boots!

For £21.62 ... I might need to revise that budget again.

 

[Dr Jones Sr]

It's impressive, how you've managed so much on such a small budget.

Just for the hat, I would have scoured Ebay and Fedora Lounge and felt lucky if I could acquire a used Akubra Federation IV in my size, that I would still need to "bash", for £100. (That's what I did for my Chief Hopper hat.)

Trying to do the whole costume for that amount seemed impossible, until you showed how to do it.

Charity shop finds can be terrific but can take months or years of searching. Ditto Ebay: I've been searching Ebay since 2016 for an accurate Dr Jones Senior tie and have never found one.

 

[phillbarron]

It's impressive, how you've managed so much on such a small budget.

Just for the hat, I would have scoured Ebay and Fedora Lounge and felt lucky if I could acquire a used Akubra Federation IV in my size, that I would still need to "bash", for £100. (That's what I did for my Chief Hopper hat.)

Trying to do the whole costume for that amount seemed impossible, until you showed how to do it.

Charity shop finds can be terrific but can take months or years of searching. Ditto Ebay: I've been searching Ebay since 2016 for an accurate Dr Jones Senior tie and have never found one.

I guess it was probably made specially?

I half remember a story from Doctor Who where they asked a guest character what colour bow-tie he wanted. He picked a specific colour with polka dots and was mortified to find out the wardrobe department hand painted the dots on to a plain tie because they couldn't find the right one.

Is there a normal tie with the same pattern you could cut up and use to make one? Not sure how much material you'd need?

 

[Psab keel]

Your jacket is amazing!

 

[phillbarron]

Boots. I scoured charity shops and the cheapest shoe shops looking for anything which might pass for Alden 405s at a squint. I didn't really want to spend more than £20 on something I might only wear once or twice ... but there wasn't really anything similar.

They're a weird boot, somewhere between a work boot and a dress boot in appearance. I think if you asked the general public to describe Indy's boots they'd pick some kind of hiking boot.

All I needed was something cheap with the apron toe (even though the Alden apron toe is fake).

Eventually, just as I was thinking I'd stick to my DMs, I found these two options:

... for £24 or £27 respectively.

Option one seems the better colour and had the better sole (even though both have too much grip). Option two looks a bit less like a hiking boot and has the better textured leather.

I ordered both.

Option one was really uncomfortable, so I went with the more expensive option, hacked off the ankle padding, dyed them a bit darker and painted in the stitching and the sole:

Which will do for my budget.

£155.38 - that's £150 (ish) in my book ... but I still had to do something about the fedora.

Closer examination of the £10 one made me realise there was a plastic wire sewn into the too-narrow brim.

Unpicking the stitching gave me the wider brim ... but left it too floppy to wear. However, a bit of steam and some hairspray left it looking like this:

Which, when combined with a £5 web belt (came with a brown metal buckle, but I sprayed it gold) left me with this:

For the princely sum of £160.38. Okay, so that blows my initial £100 budget, but it's still not bad.

I kept hoping the jacket collar would settle down, but it never did.

Still, that was all the time I had to work with so it had to do.

And work it did.

Yes, given more time and money it could be better ... but it achieved what I wanted it to do - Indy on a budget!

 

[phillbarron]

Your jacket is amazing!

Thank you!

 

[phillbarron]

These things are never really finished. Or at least, I never seem to finish anything. A few weeks after Wyntercon things were still niggling at me.

There was no bow on the hat. That just looks wrong, so I made one. Dying a brown grosgrain ribbon to (almost) match the existing band:

The jacket had three major issues for me ... the collar:

The puffy pleats:

And the colour:

I genuinely thought the collar problem was due to the material, but eventually it hit me. The jacket I measured to make the pattern doesn't have a collar stand. I took the zip length from that but forgot to take off the two inches for the collar stand. The zip is two inches too long!

So I pulled out two inches (ish) of teeth:

Reattached the end stops:

And remade the collar stand:

The result is a far better, less flyaway collar:

While I had the collar off, I turned the jacket inside out:

And sewed elastic over the inside edges of the pleats, joining them together across my back:

Which pulls the pleats together, stopping them from puffing out:

Lastly, the colour. The problem with the colour is I chose from three tiny, inch-square swatches so couldn't really see the full colour. Knowing you can't distress and weather faux leather (unless you paint it) I opted for a pre-distressed pattern.

Initially I loved the colour, it's so rich and chocolatey. Unfortunately it's not very Indy. And although it looked sorry of okay under yellow lights when I was working on it each night, in broad daylight it was just too bright.

So I dyed it with leather dye:

Original colour for comparison:

The added advantage here is I could take it outside and kick it around on the paving slabs, scratching it, rubbing off bits of colour and dulling the shine a bit:

None of which really shows up in these photos. Maybe on the pocket buttons and the right elbow? It looks better in real life.

I also bought a proper vintage MKVII gas mask bag for £40:

Which, after reblocking the top of the fedora, left me with this:

To look like this:

Which also leaves me much happier.

I might square off the shirt pockets at some point and add the pen holder ... but other than that. I think I'm done?

Although ... are those trousers green? Is it just the lighting? They look green to me.

Hmm ...

 

[Dr Jones Sr]

Very impressive! Especially how you were able to get that hat looking so much better.

The one thing that jumps out to me is the shiny jacket.

There are wonderful ways of distressing leather that don't work on vinyl.

I have cheap vinyl Funtasma costume boots that I painted with Liquitex paint to imitate distressed leather.

I suppose that would work on a vinyl jacket but I can't recall seeing anyone do it.

Here on the right are the Funtasma vinyl "Captain" boots as they came.

On the left is after imitating weathering/distressing/dirt with Liquitex paint. I didn't do distressing to the surface of the vinyl, it's just paint.

 

[phillbarron]

Very impressive! Especially how you were able to get that hat looking so much better.

The one thing that jumps out to me is the shiny jacket.

There are wonderful ways of distressing leather that don't work on vinyl.

I have cheap vinyl Funtasma costume boots that I painted with Liquitex paint to imitate distressed leather.

I suppose that would work on a vinyl jacket but I can't recall seeing anyone do it.

Here on the right are the Funtasma vinyl "Captain" boots as they came.

On the left is after imitating weathering/distressing/dirt with Liquitex paint. I didn't do distressing to the surface of the vinyl, it's just paint.

View attachment 1760838

That looks amazing.

I like the Raiders look for the jacket where it's not distressed that much, so where as painting would create the light weathering, I'm not sure it would work to being down the shine generally.

Having said that, I see they do a matt varnish. That might work?

I seem to remember they used to spray the A-Team Van with hairspray to remove the paintwork shine and prevent reflections of camera crew. I was idly wondering today if that would work or if it would just melt the vinyl?

 

[phillbarron]

I just threw a small handful of light grey grout powder over the jacket and rubbed it off with a dry sponge:

Which in real life looks great, but still looks shiny in photos. However, when placed between two real leather jackets ...

I think it's harder to tell the fake one? Maybe?

Ignoring the crappy stitching on the pockets!

 

[Dr Jones Sr]

As you probably know what people often do to distress real leather is to soak it with Rubbing Alcohol, then while it's still wet hit it with sandpaper.

This removes the upper layer of colour, making the high points (that would get the most wear) a lighter colour.

On vinyl you can imitate the look without disturbing the surface of the vinyl by hitting the high points with a lighter-colour paint.

The same thing works on leather too, here's a dark brown leather sporran as it came to me (left) and after hitting the high points with, as I recall, Burnt Sienna, which was a good match for the leather's under-colour.

As you see it gets the look of distressing without actually doing any distressing!

Now here are some pics of real leather Indy jackets that people have distressed with sandpaper etc.

It would be easy to get this look by hitting the high points with Liquitex paint, a lighter shade of brown than the basic vinyl colour.

(You'd want to put the jacket on and bend your elbow and bunch up the sleeves before doing the "highlight pass" on the sleeves.)

Sorry for beating the drum about distressing. It's personal preference of course, but as a person who doesn't cosplay Indy I've always very much preferred the look of distressed jackets.

It looks "right" to me because all the jackets seen in the various Indy films have been distressed.

 

[JamesM242]

phillbarron — thanks for sharing the journey of your Indy costume! I really enjoyed reading through your build!

 

[phillbarron]

As you probably know what people often do to distress real leather is to soak it with Rubbing Alcohol, then while it's still wet hit it with sandpaper.

This removes the upper layer of colour, making the high points (that would get the most wear) a lighter colour.

On vinyl you can imitate the look without disturbing the surface of the vinyl by hitting the high points with a lighter-colour paint.

The same thing works on leather too, here's a dark brown leather sporran as it came to me (left) and after hitting the high points with, as I recall, Burnt Sienna, which was a good match for the leather's under-colour.

As you see it gets the look of distressing without actually doing any distressing!

View attachment 1761158

Now here are some pics of real leather Indy jackets that people have distressed with sandpaper etc.

It would be easy to get this look by hitting the high points with Liquitex paint, a lighter shade of brown that the basic vinyl colour.

(You'd want to put the jacket on and bend your elbow and bunch up the sleeves before doing the "highlight pass" on the sleeves.)

Sorry for beating the drum about distressing. It's personal preference of course, but as a person who doesn't cosplay Indy I've always very much preferred the look of distressed jackets.

It looks "right" to me because all the jackets seen in the various Indy films have been distressed.

View attachment 1761159

Because I've got dark brown dye over a lighter brown vinyl I can distress it with fine sandpaper and get a nice weathering - more similar in colour to your sporran than those jackets.

To my eye, the weathering on those jackets looks like the Last Crusade jacket:

Whereas I prefer the Raiders look:

Although I prefer the fedora and gunbelt and holster from other films. I guess I'm going for an amalgamation of the bits I like.

The weathering on the Raiders jacket seems to be mostly texture with the few lighter bits of colour a more reddish brown than subsequent films. Like most of these things though, it seems to vary massively from scene to scene and depending on the lighting.

 

[phillbarron]

phillbarron — thanks for sharing the journey of your Indy costume! I really enjoyed reading through your build!

Thank you for reading!

 

[phillbarron]

Looking at my last post, that last photo of Indy leaning against the fireplace:

Specifically the storm flap and I'm inclined to think you're right, Dr Jones Sr.

There is much more weathering than I'd been led to believe from reading other people's posts, it's just not really visible on screen. The texture seems to show more than the colour.

With that in mind I've attached my jacket with sandpaper and the results look fantastic ...

Just don't really show up in photos.

Close ups fares a little better:

But not much better.

Happy with that for now though.

Moving on to other things - the shirt.

This screen used, Raiders shirt popped up for auction recently:

Which has just driven home how far off my shirt is. The collar is the wrong shape, the pockets the wrong shape and too close together, the pleats are too wide, the buttons the wrong colour ... and so on.

Obviously the colour is wrong too (although much more yellow in person!), but in the spirit of this build buying a new one seems less fun (and expensive) than trying to alter what I have.

So I started with the pocket shape. Mine are rounded at the bottom:

I could take the pockets off and remake new ones from the second shirt I destroyed. Or shorten these ones, making them straighter ... but in the end I opted to open up the corners, iron them flat and stitch straight across.

I decided against moving them further apart because I think it will just leave a lot of holes.

For some reason I thought the pleats should be the same width as the buttons ... um ...piece. Not sure what that's called?

Looking at screenshots, it appears the shirts vary across all five films (excluding the completely different shirt in the 1969 sections of Dial of Destiny).

I think maybe the pleats are wider in Last Crusade? But in Raiders they're much narrower. So I've gone for that look:

New one on the left, old on the right.

And with both done and the pen holder added to the left-breast pocket:

I took the opportunity this time to tuck the pleats into the shoulders and under the tops and bottoms of the pockets.

Final thing for today was to tailor it for a better fit and create a more accurate tail:

Not sure the tailored sides are obvious in that pic, but the fit is much, much better.

Next stop: buttons. If I can find some. Or dye some?

 

[TerranCmdr]

Fantastic work on all of this! Im especially impressed with the jacket.

 

[phillbarron]

Fantastic work on all of this! Im especially impressed with the jacket.

Thank you. It came out so much better than I expected.

 

[Jedisushi]

You did an amazing job with this! This is what it’s all about!

 

[phillbarron]

You did an amazing job with this! This is what it’s all about!

Doing the research.
Forgetting the research.
Getting it wrong.
Spending twice as much time as needed putting it right.
Still not being completely happy ...