Alien / Nostromo Uniforms

I was out of the house today and missed delivery on my mk3 jacket, but I did get the magnoli silver wings delivered and I am blown away. If anyone still using the commercial ones on amazon/ebay etc is on the fence about switching, I can't even begin to describe how great these look, even the pics on the site don't do it justice. I'll be picking up the mk3 on monday and then starting in. Pics to follow. :)
 
Progress update:
Picked up the jacket the other day and got to work. The patch velcro and hood came off easy with a seamripper, but I decided to keep the beaver tail in for now. We didn't see it in the movie but it kinda gives it some character. ;)
The color on these jackets is interesting, mine was the olive color, much darker than the old navy jacket posted above. Rereading the thread I decided to try Funky's recommendation for dying it and that worked perfectly. The only thing I did differently was adding a cup of salt to the dye to help the color absorb. The jacket is now very close in color to the screen versions, but as others have mentioned these things can look so different depending on the lighting (as you can see in the two shots below). I gave it another wash to make sure the dye would hold and I think it's good to go and ready for the next steps.

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Funky said:
A few tips for anyone that gets a green one.

Wash with LIQUID RIT dye, Royal blue. Let it sit in the water and dye for about 15 minutes before the wash cycle. It will still have a hint of green but the blue
will be surprisingly close to what you see in the movie.
Click to expand...
 
Alright, I have to dedicate this update to Banzai88 for the amazing Nostromo stencil. As per his recommendation I fired up the movie (as if I need an excuse to watch my favorite film) and studied the lettering placement as much as I could both there and in all the stills I could find. I placed the stencil and very carefully painted it with stencil brushes and aqua green acrylic paint. As someone mentioned in the thread I brushed away from the stencil and when I pulled it up I had virtually no bleed through. I'm very happy with how it turned out. Although I have to say when I finished I was at the chestburster scene in the movie and was wondering why the hell I'm so eager to join this doomed crew. ;)
Thanks so much Banzai88! Onward to sewing!
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Since I didn't see too much discussion about it on here I thought I'd share the weathering I did on the Nostromo patches. After the patches were sewn on I decided they were too clean and new looking. My previous experience with costuming is post apocalyptic outfits so I'm familiar with a variety of weathering effects, but the trick here as opposed to full on post apoc gear is restraint. To achieve the look in the 2nd photo I rubbed the edges of the patch down with sand paper to split the thread from the sides a bit, and then did a very light pass on the rest of the patch. To make the colors a bit duller and faded I took a large stencil brush and put a thin, watered down layer of white acrylic paint over the it. I may play with it a bit more, but as you can see it now looks much closer to the worn and torn patches in the film (as seen in the 3rd pic). The colors on these patches aren't quite correct so if I had to do it over again I'd start with the Magnoli patches, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

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Mega update:
A very special thanks to Randy (SG-RB) for hooking me up with the lace panels to finish this off. They look fantastic and he was incredibly fast with delivery.
I made the collar piping following recommendations in this thread, oyster colored maxi-piping with a few drops of dye (previous instructions called for violet which none of my local stores carried, but fuchsia was similar enough that it got the job done). Since I'm not proficient at sewing just yet I took the jacket, lace panels, and piping to an alterator in town as per SG-RB's recommendation. The one I went to was busy so it took a few weeks, but she did a fantastic job. Once the panels were sewn on, I laced them up with foliage green 275 paracord, and my jacket is complete. The alterator did bring the collar piping over a bit too far as you can see in the pic, but I can live with that for now. Thanks so much to everyone in this thread for info and materials!
crew.png
 
Great job! Randy is a good guy; made my lacings as well. Yeah the piping goes on a bit too much but I'd leave it. If the original costumers weren't so rushed I bet they would have done the whole collar like yours.
 
So, jacket finished [emoji4]
applying the color on the back went wrong first, the skin doesn’t accept it... but after I scratched/sanded the surface of the letters it worked!
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And here are some of my other Nostromo uniforms:
Brett’s jacket converted in a light summer jacket, the original is way heavier
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Dallas‘ jacket
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And the crew shirts, Ash‘s light blue is finished and the white shirt is in progress... (the patch is one of those cheap Thailand imports, I’m gonna change it to a more accurate one)
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Great stuff! I hope that you'll post some photos of everything in use when the time comes. Can you share details on the Thai uniform shirt? I could use a quick-n-dirty solution for this item in the short-term...
 
Yes banzai is right, only the patch is from Thailand, the shirt is an used German Air Force shirt from eBay which was originally long sleeved, I used the spare parts from the shortened sleeves for the additional parts to sew on...
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The patches used for Parker were nearly the same kind, but I folded the lower blue seam inside to achieve this thin yellow line
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Yeah the shoes... they‚re just quick custom made from a pair of old converse I’ve discovered in the wardrobe, those guys have to expect the same!
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If i get my hands on some cheap display dummy’s, they will give a pretty accurate look together with the rest of the uniform ( I’m working on a flightsuit and some crew trousers for a few complete costumes)
But yes, as far as I know all the original crew shoes, except for Kane’s, were pf hi flyers with attached d-rings... im looking everywhere to find some affordable but they’ve become pretty rare...
Of course, the magnoli patches are the Creme de la Creme to get, but with shipping costs I would spend 30 bucks just for one wing, so it’s more something for a birthday wish [emoji6]

Edit: made a mistake at the currency conversion, just 17 bucks, so pretty affordable [emoji848][emoji53] but anyway my current 5$ patch is even more accurate for Parker’s jacket
View attachment 978600
The original jacket features a straight wing, while magnoli sells the shirt-edition which is more curvy! So maybe I’ll order some for the shirts, but spending more money for shipping than for the product is an effort of will!
 
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