Jack Sparrow Costume Build by Indy Magnoli

[Indy Magnoli]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

Great find on that buckle guys!

A week and a day left. The waistcoat and frock coat are on their way, the chicken foot is drying out in the oven as I type. The only thing that's got me worried is my shirt. Paulette said she shipped it a while ago and since it hasn't arrive yet, I e-mailed her. Then I get a message back saying she was in an accident...

 

[paplooo]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

pay the postage and ill send you a copy of the vertebra and the mermaid.

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

Deal... hope we've got time!

 

[paplooo]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

i can send it on Monday ..

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

A friend of mine got a whole chicken the other day, so came over with two feet and a head. I took one of the feet, laid it on some tin foil with rock salt and dried it in the oven on fan bake at 50 C (about 120 F) for several hours over two days. The end result was a very rich orange-brown, so I stained it was some Raven Oil (used for leather work) and sealed it with a polyacrylic spray. It was still too "rich", so I painted it in several washes of greys and brown until I got that "dead dried" color. After adding a leather tie:

Unfortunately, the "thumb" toe dried sticking out instead of pointing downwards like the original, but... at least I've got a real chicken foot!

Five days left...

Kind regards,
Indy

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

Just got a message from Paulette (pauliepoos) and my shirt is not done. I've got a similar shirt, but it is stark white... so I'll see if I can darken it a bit. Also, my waistcoat isn't hear yet and only three shipping days left to go... not looking good!

My coat is finished, though there are a few tweaks I'd like to make... I'll get photos up shortly.

The good news is, the sword prototype is finished! The blade needs to be narrowed slightly and, of course, all the aging done, but here she is:

Hopefully I should have some photos of the scabbard by the weekend.

Kind regards,
Indy

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

Ok... bad news for me time. After several e-mails over the past week, most likely I am not going to have the following pieces in time for the weekend:

Shirt
Waistcoat
Sword

Here are my plans, and I'd like some advice and opinions:

SHIRT: I have a similar white shirt that I'll be tea staining today. Certainly "close enough" so that should be fine.

WAISTCOAT: Right now I'm leaning towards no replacement. With the frock coat on top and all the other belt effects, baldric, etc... I don't think anyone will notice. And, if I choose to remove the frock coat, better no waistcoat than something wrong. (My other idea was to wear one of my high gorge suit waistcoats to give the look [above the sash anyway] of the real waistcoat. The down side is that I couldn't remove the frock coat). So... what do you think?

SWORD: I'm really upset that after all this work, the prototype won't be hear in time, but I've got to come up with another option. I've got tons of swords in my collection but no cutlasses. I do have a period style fencing saber as well as a genuine 19th C Confederate Civil War saber (genuine meaning it's actually 150 years old):

I think the look of the Civil War saber will do the trick, but it is much longer than a cutlass and has a metal scabbard. So, do I carry this long saber instead? Do I try to whip up a leather scabbard in two days? Could I get away with a metal scabbard? Opinions?

I'm really disappointed that I'll only be a few days from a complete costume but... c'est la vie!

Thanks,
Magnoli

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

I just got off the phone with FedEx and there is a slim chance that my waistcoat could arrive in time so... fingers crossed!

Here is my antique sword & scabbard in the baldric. Not accurate, but I think this is certainly better than nothing:

Here is the shirt I already had:

Here is a steel sink with 2 liters of hot water and 9 teabags (I ended up adding another three, for a total of 12 bags):

I steeped the tea for five minutes, then pulled out the bags. I soaked the shirt for ten minutes, making sure to stir a few times for even staining. The end result was nothing short of amazing and, honestly, I don't think fabric dye would have done any better a job:

Since this was my "nice" poet shirt, I was hoping for a uniform staining and not a distressed, uneven look. And I got just what I wanted. I'm really impressed how evenly the tea stained the shirt. So, that's at least one thing that worked out very well.

Kind regards,
Indy

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

Well, the waistcoat arrived! And in time for me to add the accurate buttons. The sword just landed in Auckland, so I won't have that in time for tomorrow, but at least the outfit is complete. All in all, I'm happy. I'll post photos after the weekend. Wish me luck!

 

[Rikarus]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

nice wrok indy! I used tea to stain out a linen shirt for my cpt morgan set up and it worked great, don't forget pics tomorrw!

 

[Guri]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

You'll be amazing! I'm so looking forward to those photos. The tea stain worked like a dream...

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

It was a fantastic day! I'm playing catch-up right now after the busy weekend, but I'll post a full review and lots of photos later today or tomorrow. Until then... here's a teaser:

Kind regards,
Magnoli

 

[Cbstudios]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

Looks REALLY good Indy! Can't wait to see more shots!

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

Someone at the gala (fair) took a few high-res shots, but I probably won't get those for a few days. So, until then, here are some of the few we managed to get ourselves:

The full outfit (took two and a half months to put together):

Jack and company attracting people from the road:

Only $1 to fight Captain Jack Sparrow:

It was great fun all around and I've never had so many photos taken of me in such a short span of time (and will never get to see said photos). I was surprised how comfortable the entire outfit was... it was a beautiful warm, sunny day (highs of around 75F/24C) but the excitement must have kept me cool. The only thing that was annoying was my extra long saber (so when I get my correct length cutlass, all should be good).

Thanks to all for everything!

Kind regards,
Indy

 

[Guri]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

Those kids look like they're having a blast with you and you look amazing. I never get tired of seeing another Jack! SO well done.

 

[moose]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

You, sir, are unbelievably amazing. Well done!

 

[Rikarus]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

nice job Indy!!! looks fantastic!

 

[Crank729]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

Looks awesome! You kind of have that "look" too, you almost resemble jack.

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

Thanks for all the kind words! The two big changes I'm going to make are to tea-stain my pants darker (should help make them more brown as well) and add Pecard dressing to the entire boot to darken and age them. I don't think I'll distress the coat, only because I like recycling my costume pieces for other things and this coat would do very well for any generic 18th C gentleman's outfit. Next time I may add baby powder to dusty the coat up for Jack since this is easily removable afterwards.

Here are some more shots:

...when the rum is gone, Jack drinks Coke:

Kind regards,
Magnoli

 

[Cbstudios]

Re: Jack Sparrow Outfit by Feb 18th... !!!

You're right on the coat being dustier, Holy hell I hope we see some full photo shoots once your sword arrives and you've done your aforementioned mods! That's a hell of a costume, wish mine looked like that....