Farscape John Crichton. (leather outfit.)

Oh, yeah, those are all great coats. I love long coats. I love anything long and flowing. Trenchcoats, Long coats, Dresses. Long skirts. (and I don't just mean on the gals, I love long skirt styles on guys. Like the Morlocs in the newer version of "The time Machine", or the Clasic "PinHead", etc.)

The very first time I saw John Crichton's long coat, on screen all those years ago, I ran over to the TV, and said, I have to have that. As bad as I want one, and will some day have one, I have also taken a liking to his season 3-4 shorter leather jacket. That shorter leather jacket would make a great every day coat. I think the nerds out there would get it, and a lot of other folks would just like it, because it looks cool. (I'm really kicking myself, for not buying the one that was up on ebay last summer.)

I wore my fabric john costume at Marcon last spring, and I was really surprised by the number of folks that remembered the show, and were really excited to see me, and my crew all dressed up as farscape characters

Thats the beauty of the Farscape coats..Johns short jacket looks a bit like a biker jacket, so mundanes would think that and geeks would know the truth!


oh and tall men in long skirts....well im a bit of a goth and i know for a fact it can look awesome. same with anything long...Neo looked incredible once he got his long cassock coat, it made him look regal.

TeeKay said:

Something to mention though is that buckle from the holster to the belt is not the same. It's a smaller sized version of the buckles used on Crichton's season 3/4 short black jacket. as seen in this picture:

Again this is something I've never been able to find - I don't even know the make of this one, all I know is that it's a front release buckle rather than a side release.

Those costume makers didn't make it easy for us, hehe.

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Bringing this one back from the dead but if anyone is interested I found what looks to be either this buckle or one very similar here:

Hardware : Buckles : Front Release Belt Buckle for 25 mm webbing / Shelby - Extreme Materials & Gear

An Astronaut said:

Bringing this one back from the dead but if anyone is interested I found what looks to be either this buckle or one very similar here:

Hardware : Buckles : Front Release Belt Buckle for 25 mm webbing / Shelby - Extreme Materials & Gear

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WOW! That is so funny, is was thinking about getting back to work on this costume, and I jus started looking for those buckles again today. Today. And then you post this. Thank you. If those aren't them, they are very close. (way closer then the buckles I have right now. )

Happy to be of service. Although I have to source it from Finland? Seriously? Finland!?! Ah well, after days of searching I didn't think I'd find anything even remotely close so I can't really complain.

Sakara said:

teekay - your John outfit is ..perfection.

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jason1976 said:

WOW! That looks great.

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Thanks for you comments

Sakara - An Ahkna costume would be awesome, if you get the chance you should absolutely do that! Also, a little off topic, but your asari is amazing!

An Astronaut said:

Bringing this one back from the dead but if anyone is interested I found what looks to be either this buckle or one very similar here:

Hardware : Buckles : Front Release Belt Buckle for 25 mm webbing / Shelby - Extreme Materials & Gear

Click to expand...

You absolute legend!

I dread to think how much time I've spent looking for buckles like these, it's been a while since I saw any Farscape so I'd have to go back and check, but I don't remember the button in the middle having ridges like the one you found, that being said it's still WAY WAY WAY closer than anything I managed to find. I had a feeling they might be YKKs as all the other buckles were, but was never able to find them on YKK's website (and believe me I searched, lol)

Well, I've been looking into doing this costume myself, which basically means I'd get a friend with sewing skills to do it for me while I helped in whatever way possible. However, the duster and vest are going to be a pain. These pictures are a huge help but does anyone have a pattern of some sort? I know some people have successfully made their own already so it would be easier than starting from scratch myself.

Well, just incase no-one saw my post earlier in the thread, I do know who has the original costume, and they do make replicas. They are expensive, and i have yet to see one. But they do make them.

Here is a hint. The only season 3-4 Farscape holster you can regularly find on ebay, is made, and sold, by this person.

As for your own home pattern. Well, there are a lot of great patterns out there that could be easily modified to do the trick, for the duster at least. (I just don't have anyone that can sow leather, and I still have a LOT of weight to loose first anyways. ) There is a matrixy trenchcoat pattern that has ben out for years, made by Simplicity". The put them on sale for $1. on a pretty regular basses at Joe-anns fabrics. I have used this for as a base for many other projects in the past. It is a long coat, so you can cut the pattern to what ever length looks right on you. It has a "yoke" for the back of the shoulder area, that you could use to mark where it should start being leather. and then us it on the front as well. (just be sure to use the front part of the neck part, to cut out the part where the front of your neck will be, so it will lay right.) there are seems that go up the front on either side, right where the set belt "webbing" tucks into seams on the real coat. The back has one seem up the middle, where as the real coat has no seem in the middle on the wool part. That is an easy fix, but eliminate the seam allowance where that seem would be on the pattern, and then rather then cuting out to sepperate parts, fold your fabric in half, and put where the seam would be, right on the fold, eliminating the need for a seem there. (and by getting rid of that seam allowance, you don't wind up with too wide of a piece of fabric. ) It would be easy to mod the sleeves to look more like those on the real coat as well.

I'm just throwing this out in the broad strokes, but if you need me to make it a little more clear, I could.

The hardist part as I see it, is getting someone that can do leather, and who can do the descriptive stitching, and piping, that goes on the leather bits. Leather is hard enough to work with, without having to try to line up all those rows of stitched lines. Talk about a headache. I don't even think that, detail addes that much to the coat, unless your up really close, I'm tempted to leave it off of my coat, if I ever get one made. (it is a must for the vest though, but I already have a vest that is ok.)

Do you mind if I ask where you got your vest?
I'm looking at getting one from Pendragon, but am still on the lookout for something slightly cheaper (although I'm not holding out too much hope!)

I got mine from ebay. There seems to be one, that comes up for sale, every year, or so. No really, I weighted a LONG time for the chance to get on cheep. I looked into having it made by other online sites, but didn't get a reply from any of them. The Pendragon, is nice, but it's out of my price range, and it still doesn't look 100% accurate to me. Mine my be way off, but I only paid $60. for mine, and that's with shipping. I replaced the buckles on mine with the correct YKK buckles, and then made my own metal face plate for them. The shoulders on my vest were HUGE. I mean, it made me look like an anime character, so My mom was nice enough to undo the piping around the arms, and cut the shoulders back almost 2" on each side, and sowed the piping back on. It looks so much better now, but the back is still way off, and wall the shoulders don't stick out as much, they still don't lay quite right. I don't really care thoguh. Se all I really want is the coat, I just wanted the vest because I don't think the coat looks quite right without the vest on under it. (If the coat had a caller, I wouldn't even have a vest.)

I mean the vest is cool, and all, but I LOVE that coat.

There are a couple well known places like Pendragon that make the coat, and vest, but there are other places to. (I don't know who they are, but I see their work out there) The show has such a great look, even if the fan base is small, I would think there would be more places out there making this stuff. I mean, non of these folks have licenses, but they keep making this stuff, so why not others. Some competition would make this all much more affordable. I just wish that it would have been popular enough for there to be a mass produced line of these cloths. Sadly, now-a-days every company thinks they have to do a limited run over everything. They have to work, less, and make less product, and they can charge out the nose for it. I miss the days then things were truly mass prodused. yes the quity, and accuracy may have been lacking, but at least everyone could get in on the fun.

Well you didn't ask for a rant, in short, the cheep ones are out there, but you may either have to make it yourself, have it made, or just save up for one of the "fancy" ones.

I have tried out the vest and the jackets from Pendragon, they are really nice and worth the price. I paid $800 to have a locla leather tailor make me a PK jacket,he promised it to be perfect and it was terrible when he finished it. Theirs are much better and fit really well.

Yeah, think I'm gonna be ordering mine real soon

Well, I have seen Pendragon's stuff on regular folks, and some times they do a really, really good job, and some times......... Lets just say I have seen some real frelling messes they made. Some folks say they have the original costumes to work off of, but I've heard that there was only one of the long coats made for the show, and it is not with them. At least it's not any more, because I know who owns it at this time, and it is not them.

I haven't seen their most recent version, but the last I heard, there is still a few inaccuracies in their's. (they do use more accurate buckles on there coat then they used to, but the vest still used the wrong ones, I think, and the strops on the coat, and vest should be more like seat belt material, but i think they still use standard nylon straps. )

I used to have a set of Pendragon's leathers and while they are really well made, they are quite inaccurate - the duster more so than the vest. On mine, at least, the buckles and the straps were wrong and the seams on the duster were also wrong, I've not seen anything recent so I don't know whether they've refined their designs at all.

That's not to say they're bad, as I said they're really well made and fit well and I really loved my set. Besides, absolute 100% accuracy isn't all that important to everyone and they're easily recognisable to fans of the show.

To my knowledge, they've never owned the original costumes, I was at the '05 con when they were auctioned (would have bid myself but 20,000 was considerably out of my price range, LOL!) and have only ever been owned by one person. She was kind enough to let me take the really good detailed photos of them the following year. There was definitely only one duster, don't know about the vest - though that was used a lot more so there may have been "stunt" versions of that made, but that's just pure speculation. I did send my photos to the guys at Abbyshot in the hope that they'd put out a Crichton coat and vest, but nothing ever came from that sadly.

Getting back to Pendragon's costumes, if you can live with the inaccuracies then I totally recommend them

K I have the jacket the vest the black tshirt the gun and the holster the main thing i am wanting to get is the pants and i know you can buy just leather pants but i would like some that look authentic anyone know where those could be purchased?

Last year, when I was really trying to pull my costume together (and my girl friends) I did see a picture on a custom leather working site, of custom made, accurate John, and Aaryn pants. They didn't have a price posted, and didn't ask, because i was sure it would be WAY out of my price range. I don't have a link handy, but if you do a google picute search for Aaryn leather pants. you should find them. (eventually anyways.)

Or, in the costume fabrics section at Joe-an's I saw some really cool leather looking fabric, that is much more comfotible, then vinyl, and it looks much easier to sow. so you might be able to find someone to make you some paints out of that. It would be as hot as leather, and it would be a lot cheaper, and easier for the average seamstress to work with.

If you don't mind me asking, where did you get your holster?

I searched high and low for months to try and locate some screen-accurate pants.
After having no luck, I ended up buying some leather pants from eBay. They were used and already had the 'lived in' look.
Don't think I'm going to find anything any better, unless I get someone to make me some bespoke pants at a ridiculous cost (after trying to find enough decent reference pics!)

I got my leather paints for like $8. (might have been $12) at a thrift store. Now I just have to loose the wait to get into them. (I got them in the size I used to wear before I got.......um.... much much larger. But I'll get back down there someday.)

Got convinced today to do a John Crichton costume. Naturally I came to the RPF first and found this thread. Very useful, so my thanks for everyone's input so far.

Are there any other traders aside from Pendragon out there making the vests/jackets/dusters? I've seen some hints around here, but nothing concrete. Pendragon seem to be the way to go, despite the inaccuracies, but it's always good to have options.

Tracking down the t-shirts and boots shouldn't be too hard. Are the Doc Martens in question the 1490 boot, the 10 eye cap toe boot, or the 8267 boot? (going by their current listings on their site)

Teekay: do you have any more pictures of the belt please? It looks more complicated than I first thought...

Finally, can't seem to find anything resembling Crichton's pants online still. Closest I've got have been a pair of Harley Davison leather & textile pants, but very pricey for not close enough. Any further luck on this item?

Thanks!

Be seeing you,

Magnus Darcrider

I can't think of their name right now, but if you do a search on ebay, for "Farscape holster" you find a seller, that will do the vest duster, and/or season 4 Jacket. (they don't list them on ebay, but if you contact them they will tell you that they have the original pieces, and give you a price list for both leather, and vinyl versions.)

The belt is pretty easy, I have done a few of them myself. I don't have any pics handy though. It's easy if you have the money to go to Tandy leather, and buy the 2 inch black belt bland. If you don't have that kind of money (with I don't for my own costume, but I have for friends ) Then good luck fining a belt that is black, 2" wide, and long enough to work with at the thrift store.

I will have to dig out my boots, and take a look at them, but I want to say they are the 14 eyed version. I got mine on ebay for like $36. and the funny thing is, mine are real doc's but the stitching is black, and not that yellow/orange, you find on most doc's. Most folks used to say, that they must have died/sharpied the stitching black on the screen used ones, but there may have been some made that way at some point. I don't know.

As for the paints, good luck. I looked for month, and month. I did find one site that showed that they at lest at one time, did both Aaryn and John's leather pants, but I couldn't get a reply from them. (I also found a site that did a version of the vest I liked, and they also would not replay) If you want accurate, you may have to have them made, or make them yourself. They do sell some very nice leather like stuff in the costume fabric section of Joe-ann's. It looks like leather, but breaths a bit more, and can be used with most sowing machines. Or, you could just go with plain black leather pants. No that's not accurate, but that is what most folks do. I got my pair for $12. at a thrift store. (of course 2.5 years latter, I'm still trying to get into them. ) I was thinking, depending on how close folks are going to be to you, you could put a bit of black "fishnet" material around the nee area of some off the shelf black leahter pants, to get that kind of quilted look. (Hey I know it's hokey, but from across a room, it might not look too bad. :lol)