ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit, Shirt & EVA Flamethrower)

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

Mike J. said:

Thank you! I'm going to have some t-shirts of the Balaji Imperial art for sale soon

And I took a look at your blog as well. That yellow-and-black dress seems very 1920's-y.


-MJ

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Mike J. said:

About that clutch pin back - you should be able to find another one on another pin you own? Or buy a pack of a few from the craft store...

Yeah, I ended up getting a very similar pin for my Kane costume. They both appear to be a color print onto silver material covered by domed epoxy. Not what was used on film, which was probably cloisonne or faux-cloisonne soft enamel on gold-tone metal. I think there were replicas of these made around the time of the film by the Thinking Cap Company, which seems to have had the rights and is the source of the earliest replica patches & caps.

Oddly enough, looking at a large still of Brett, you can tell his US Tricentennial patch is silkscreened and not embroidered (and on top of that it's oriented wrong!) .... Don't know why that should be, as the Nostromo patches clearly all were embroidered ... And the big wings patches ...

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Mike J. said:

The pockets look better now.

19 days? Bit of a spur of the moment thing? I've been gathering components for my Halloween costume for weeks now...


-MJ

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The t-shirts would be a cool idea. And I agree, the lady I photographed seemed to be inspired by the style from then.

Yes, I've a few badges lying about so could always swap the backing but it is a pain in the neck (no pun intended) having to do that. Here's hoping someone makes more accurate badges in the near future!

Yes the pockets definitely look a lot better. Still two tone but a little more discreet.
19 days if I count all the days I actually worked on the suit. I had thoughts about it for a few weeks but didn't properly start until I had bought the suit and put needle and thread to it the next day. But you're costume will probably be more accurate than mine!

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

NOSTROMO SHIRT

I think I’m hooked on the costume-making bug. Now that I’ve got the flight suit done, just having a green t-shirt underneath wasn’t enough. I wanted to make the shirt too. And sure enough, there is an abundance of resources on how to make your own online, much of which were generously shared here on RPF (see the main Aliens/Nostromo Uniform thread and SSGT Kitten's one). Like the flight suit, I will use this thread as a means of documenting my process, so that hopefully, it may help other newbies like me or just act as a possible source of reference.

INDEX

1. References
i. Film Sources
ii. Personal Notes
2. Patches
3. Base
i. Clean Slate
4. Sleeves
5. Pockets
i. Body
ii. Flap
6. Piping
i. Flap Piping
ii. Collar Piping
7. Epaulettes
8. Extras
i. Pen Holder
ii. Name Badge & Rectangles
iii. Finishing Off
9. Comparison
10. Summary

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

Source Images from the Film

Ripley



As you can see, it's a standardised crew shirt that Dallas, Kane and Parker also wear, with differences only in the WY wings.

Kane


Parker


It's also the same as Ash's, with the only difference other than the wings being in a light blue colour.

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

Oh boy!

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

Here's one of Ash showing that he does have the pink piping.

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

Mike J. said:

Oh boy!

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Hahahaha, plenty more to come!
Just wait until tonight and I start manic posting... again.

Big thanks as always for more reference photos! Hooray!

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

Of course! LMK if you need some HD screencaps.

I just took a look at my Marc Ecko 'close enough' uniform shirt, and it seems to have no model name or style name on it... Can't find one exactly like it on eBay or Google Image Search, either. It is a couple years old, however... May never have been popular, IDK, I just grabbed it when I saw it because it suggested a Nostromo shirt... Wasn't even there for that.

Are you going to make this from scratch, or try to find a close shirt and modify it?

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

Personal Notes / Detailed Study

Again, I've compiled a few notes to make it easier to understand the costume and help with the construction of it.


I think it may be a detail that is sometimes overlooked because Ripley usually has her sleeves rolled up, however like Dallas's, Parker's, Kane's and Ash's shirt, she also has a pocket on her left sleeve has I've pointed out here:


And a few notes on that and a reference image from the initial screen test footage:


So basically, the Nostromo shirts are a standardised piece across the entire crew, with some exceptions most likely based on their class/position.

Ripley's in particular features LIGHT BLUE Weylan-Yutani wings and the LIGHT BLUE Nostromo Patch.

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

PATCHES

So again, I purchased my patches from destinyone on eBay.

I bought the USCSS NOSTROMO Crew Uniform Embroidered Shirt Patch - ALIEN / ALIENS at £3.99



and the "CREW" WEYLAND-UTANI BLUE WINGS Jacket Patch - ALIEN / ALIENS - NOSTROMO CREW at £3.65



Both exactly as advertised, correct and decent size, colour and good quality iron-on patches.

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

JUST A WEE NOTE

Before I begin, I will just reiterate my aim for this piece. Similar to the flight suit, I will treat this as an alteration project as it is the second item I am making, and the second big project in my adventure on learning how to sew. I will endeavour to be as screen accurate as possible (after all, go big or go home) and to work as fast as possible and on a budget. I will therefore look to using methods that work for me and this shirt and what I have available to make this possible.



BASE

The GAP store in Glasgow seems to be having a sale every week so I went in one day to look for a basic thickish cotton shirt. I chose GAP because they're products are of a really nice quality and they do the minimalist/plain/basic look really well. Any other store like Primark would have been too cheap in material quality and supermarket chains like ASDA or Tesco didn't have anything as basic as what I wanted, or they only did school style shirts. Sure enough, I found a really, really good base in GAP for the price of £11.99. (Apologies for the dark photographs, I took this in a hurry late at night in my room)



It looked the part of being a work shirt too, and had the added bonus of seven buttons on the front. Although they're not the clasp types, I'm happy enough as it is plain white. The two extra pockets and panelling on the shoulders were handy too because that meant a little extra material. I also must stress the importance of buying a long sleeve shirt as your base because you can then take it up to short sleeves and you end up with a good amount of extra fabric to be repurposed for other things (i.e. epaulettes, pockets). This saves you having to buy two shirts (thus increasing your budget unnecessarily) and avoids the trouble of having to buy similar fabric.

I also suggest buying a size up from what you normally are, particularly if you are small like me (or if the shirt is somewhat fitted, which ladies usually are). Or at least make sure that it's not too tight but a little larger than usual, as if it were something issued to you. Stupidly, I bought a size small, which is the correct fit and has enough room for comfort if I'm wearing it as it is. My reasoning was that I would be wearing a bra, green t-shirt, the shirt as well as the flyer suit, so I didn't want too large of a shirt making it too bulky for me, which I found the medium to be. However, in hindsight, I would have probably chosen medium instead because I find that now that I have finished the shirt, when I roll up the sleeves, it is a little tight around the arms. But that might just be the shirt fit itself.

In any case, a few pointers to think about when purchasing your base shirt:

• Look for long sleeves
• A fairly thick cotton material but still lightweight
• Plain white buttons or metal clasps (7 down the front)
• Medium size for Ladies or a Small in Mens (but of course this really depends on yourself)

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

CLEAN SLATE (3/08/2015)

First things first, I unpicked the pockets. They were of course too small and the wrong shape so they needed to go. Out of that I got two rectangular pieces of fabric (about 4"x4" each, ex. seam allowances) and the flaps (about 2"x4"), plus two spare buttons.

Next on the list was to unpick the extras at the shoulders. However, when unpicking, I realised that I couldn't pull them out as easily as I first thought. It would mean completely taking out the sleeves and collar and sewing them up again. I therefore just undid the seam that attaches it to the main shirt and left it for the time being. As to whether I want to just cut it and fold the excess material underneath and sew, or completely resew the collar and sleeves, I'll rethink this part later.

Third thing to go were the cuffs. This gave me even more material and even a bit of padding (two strips of about 2.5"x6"), along with 4 extra buttons.



Pictured: The thin bit of fabric that allows the sleeve to open up and tidies the edges up (unsure of this thingamajig's name) could also be unpicked and reused.

Lastly, the sleeves. I cut them so that the final short sleeve measured about ~9" from shoulder to end, after I had hemmed it. This gave me another two large pieces of fabric (very roughly 9"x10" as the sleeves were wider at the top and slimmer by the cuff end... if that makes sense. It came out in a \_/ shape. )



So with all this extra fabric, here's what I have in mind for them:

• Pockets → Name Patch, Extra Rectangles
• Extras at the shoulder → Yet to be decided
• Cuffs → Pocket Flaps
• Thing fabric found at the sleeves → Epaulettes holder material
• Sleeves → Pockets and Epaulettes

Having now planned this out, I realise that I do not have enough material for the pocket on the left sleeve, that is often seen to be holding sunglasses. I initially felt that I had just about enough material from the shirt but then decided that I'd really be stretching what I had, and it might make the pocket extra small and disproportionate to the rest of the shirt. Furthermore, since the shirt was tight around the arms when I rolled it, I worried that having the sleeve would give extra bulk and might make it even tighter. Therefore, I have decided to forgo the sunglasses pocket on my shirt. Plus, all my sunglasses are too large to fit into the pocket

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

SLEEVES (7/8/15)

As I mentioned before, cut it to about 10.5" so I could have 1.5" to hem the sleeve. Folded half an inch first, and then another inch so that the raw edge was tucked inside. Did a row of edge stitching, then another row about an inch from the first, both for aesthetic purposes and to old the folded fabric.



Pretty simple but a bit fiddly to get the sleeve straight and not wonky.

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

It looks to me like they have brass snaps instead of buttons, and perhaps the epaulettes use snaps with 'pearl' inserts, like you see on a lot of western wear (that's the American west )

I think the color of the fancy wings does denote rank of some kind.

It looks like all the 'original' crew have a cream uniform shirt, whereas the new, substitute science officer Ash has (his old?) blue uniform (but a Nostromo patch?).

I think that name tag area might be a clear soft plastic window. In theory, you would slide a name tag in from the side.... I have no way to prove this, however. It does make me think of Kane's burial shroud.

Also, some of the crew have pens or pen-lights in those pen loops... but where does the bottom half of the pen go? Behind the pocket?

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

Mike J. said:

It looks to me like they have brass snaps instead of buttons, and perhaps the epaulettes use snaps with 'pearl' inserts, like you see on a lot of western wear (that's the American west )

I think the color of the fancy wings does denote rank of some kind.

It looks like all the 'original' crew have a cream uniform shirt, whereas the new, substitute science officer Ash has (his old?) blue uniform (but a Nostromo patch?).

I think that name tag area might be a clear soft plastic window. In theory, you would slide a name tag in from the side.... I have no way to prove this, however. It does make me think of Kane's burial shroud.

Also, some of the crew have pens or pen-lights in those pen loops... but where does the bottom half of the pen go? Behind the pocket?

Click to expand...

Yes, brass snaps, that's what I meant instead of clasps. I could't think of the word when I was writing the post.

Perhaps Ash's uniform is a new uniform, since he was a recent addition to the crew? Or the colour standard that science officers wore?

It makes sense to have that bit of plastic there but when I look at the photographs and screen caps, there's no indication of a plastic cover or insert there. Nothing reflects off that area and you can see that it's just the fabric that folds. Maybe it's a place for one to pin their badge in place? Or any extras that might denote rank?

As for the pen, I reckon it goes behind the pocket or it's actually cut into the shirt. Seems impractical but I zoomed into the photo you attached of Dallas and it looks like it's actually been cut into the shirt, as suggested by loose thread and the incision angle?



Seems silly but that's what it looks like to me.

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

I agree - looks ragged.

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

Like the G-4A and its variations compared to the real suit. You're right: 80% there is better than a big fail. Now, you're trying to repro the white suit of the crew (you like pain, don't you?. Eager to see what you'll cook us for the next post.

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

POCKETS (9/8/15)

Here is an image of a sleeve cut and opened up.


You can see that there is a clear gap of where the shirt would have opened a little so that you could roll the sleeves up. I will be cutting that apart so that I have a distinctive piece which will later become the epaulettes. For now, here is the larger part of this piece that I will turn into a pocket.



Because it used to be a sleeve, the fabric is wider at one end (about 9”) than it is at the other (just over 7”). So I’ve folded in the raw edges and folded it again until I have straight edges. I also made sure to fold an inch down from the top to make it sturdier.


This will also give me an overall pocket width of about 6 1/4” because I want the final to be around 5 3/4”. Remember to keep the iron handy at each point to flatten your folds so it’s easier to work with when sewing.


You’ll notice that a lot of my measurements are just a rough idea of what I felt was right for the size of my shirt and therefore aren't exactly nice round numbers. This is obviously due to the space that I have and the material I was left with. In an ideal world I'd have made it a lot neater. You'll also find that I wasn’t being exactly accurate either… Blame my enthusiasm for that. I was just really eager to get going and have it finished... anyway!

So there are pleats on the pockets and you’ll find that the middle section is the narrowest and also protrudes out. Mark out where your folds should be (for me, just below the 2” mark) and from the inside section, fold outwards towards the side so that you get this ‘protruded’ effect later. Repeat for the other side. This part is quite fiddly so once you work out where you want to pleats, make sure to pin it securely. Right after this, iron it so that the folds are set.


Once done, sew all the way round, about an inch from the edge.


Now you have the pockets ready to be sewn onto the shirt!

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

POCKET FLAP (9/10/15)

As I had planned before, the shirt cuffs will become the pocket flaps as they have a bit of batting inside to make it sturdy and they are already 2.5" in length.


Off with the button holes and cut to about 6" wide, so that I can again fold in the raw edges and make the diagonal cuts. I cut it at around the 1.5" mark.


Next, the pink piping. The fabric store we have in Glasgow, Mandors, luckily sold it by the roll (and in the right shade too) so I wasn't forced to buy a big pack but just enough of what I needed. I bought around 47" - definitely more than enough - and that only cost me 78p!



As the cuff is made from one piece of fabric folded over with batting inside, it allowed me to insert the piping in-between so that when sewn, it looks tidier and discreet. Sew all the way round as close to the flap edge as possible.


Do another row at an inch from the edge.


And they're ready to go:


Pockets all done!

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

I never noticed that the pens poke through the shirt! How interesting! Must have been a last minute decision on set. I love little things like that!

Re: ALIEN Ellen Ripley Costume Tutorial (Flight Suit & Shirt)

Very good work you're doing on that crew costume!