My Jack Sparrow Costume

Hi all iv just joined this site as it seems to be a great place to talk cosplay and have seen many fantastic jack sparrow costumes.
Just thought i would upload my version that currenty i have spent under £300 on.
Some items are things purchased from costumebase and others i have made from materials and clothing found on ebay i hope you like.
Unfortunately the waistcoat is made by me out of an old lab coat and i cant seem to get the color right. But here is the finished look so far, boots were a leather brown pair which i recovered in suede and stained with boot polish

From the back

Distressing is your friend. If you got the rest of your gear to look as dirty and worn as the boots, you'd be half-way there! Good start in any case.

Thanks matey, any ideas on how i could distress the front of the waistcoat without ruining the back lol and then iv got to adress the issue of my wig, to many thin dreads and i have no idea how to make them thicker

Just bought this for £16.50 direct from a supplier in the U.S
Itl be good to get rid of the costumebase version. All this just for 1 day in Hastings for a guiness world record attempt haha

Grab some sandpaper and do to town... you get to control the fraying by the level of pressure you apply....then add some color and make it look dirty...now Im not entirely sure how you want to apply color...I usually mix paint with water and rub it in.... probably not the most efficient way, but it works.

I haven't posted much on this site much but I have gone through many versions of my Captain Jack costume. Here is some simple ways to distress it up.
1) the white undershirt- soak in a pot of tea and let dry. This step is time sensitive. Do it too long and you will need to launder it well. Do it a little at a time. If its not where you think it should be, repeat. If you want, put some tea in a spray bottle you can 'dirty' up the cuffs and collar.
2) soak the bandana in a bleach/water solution. Time, trial and error is the key here. Multiple baths can be used. Direct sunlight will also fade it up naturally but it takes time. Make sure you rinse the bleach off and fully dry to gauge how it is lightening up. Don't let a small animal or child get curious and fall into this bath... don't ask...
3) Ideally for the vest you would want the blue darker to start out, but you still may get some results using a bleach/water solution in a spray bottle to fade the middle of the panels like you have been out in the sun for years. Look at reference pics. Then use tea like above in the shirt, or some dry dirt from outside to age and weather the vest. If you wanted to temporarily remove the back panel you could dye the blue darker to enhance the effect.
4) The belts you have I would also rough them up and get them dirty by rubbing them into the ground. You could use shoe polish but be careful and go light. Mine are smooth leather and I used different methods...
5) the sash looks better with a little tea or coffee, near the ends, as over time it would drag on stuff. I had also taken a rasp or sandpaper to rough it up, create holes and make it look ratty.

When weathering, less is more. You can always go further if it isn't enough. It can be tough to go back. What looks like great weathering in person doesn't always show in pictures or film. You can take pictures between attempts and you will see how your costume is aging. I thought I was done so many times and would see a picture of my costume with a fan and I knew right away I needed to go the extra mile.
Experiment, and have fun with it. Sometimes its the accidents that make the best improvements to this costume. There is endless reference pictures online to help you. Hope this helps....
~Jason

Appreciate the help guys i shall do some distressing when i get some time off

looking good so far..
are you in the UK?
if yes.. join my crew sparrows UK
we can help you.

Yea born and bread matey so whats the sparrows uk?

Heres a close up of the costumebase wig and bandana. Iv ordered a screen accurate bandana now but i want to some how sort this wig out by adding a few thicker dreads and some lighter hair in places

well, sparrows uk is a group of jack sparrow impersonators ( we got some members as well from europe. )

by the way.. the bandana is just £4 and you get it in 3 days.. from UK

add me on facebook..

No way where from lol just paid £17 for 1 from america lol whatss your facebook addy?

ill send you a pm

Ok so the re....tea staining of my waist coat seems to have gone quite well i used boiling water and about 12 tea bags in a spray bottle. Its currently dryin and then ill get started on the shirt. Thanks for the tip folks ill pop a pic uo at some point

Heres the waistcoat atm its still wet so i imagine itl dry a bit lighter but im hoping it wnt be far off, next step ill take some bleach water solution to the chest and arm pits and grab some sandpaper to distress it a bit more.

Ignore the obvious poor bandana and wig i literaly had 5 seconds spare to chuck this all on lol just needed to see how the hat looked. If like me you dont have £100+ to spend on a genuine replica i purchased this from a certain dodgy costume shop and with a little reshaping and stitching i managed to get it to look pretty close to the real version. Im happy with the hgape n style but not the color which ill try and change though for an £8 hat it works pretty well and is made of solid material so theres no sag

New update, hat is done wig adjustments made and eyelets stitched in to the waistcoat.

Looks awesome mate, gotta love Captain Jack Sparrow

*looks at the thread title*

It's CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow. Savy, mate?

Looking good so far