Angelphie

Costume :	Vince Noir
Variant :	Zooniverse Jacket
Source :	The Mighty Boosh
Progress :	Complete

Worn At :

London MCM Expo October 2008

Photos
Information
Comments (2)

Costume Photos

Reference

Signatures!

Detail

Jacket

Don't touch me

Vince and Howard

Boosh

Costume Information

General
Cost :	around £30 per jacket
Awards :	Best Performance at London Expo October 2008 (Sunday)
Time Taken :	About a week to make both jackets

Description
I originally had planned to make Eilidh a Zooniverse jacket (and a matching one for me too) as a surprise present for her birthday in November, which was particularly appropriate since she was going to see the Boosh live show then. However, it turned out that there was to be a signing at Zavvi in Glasgow on the 13th September, so I got the bug to make the jackets then, with about a week’s notice. I still tried to keep it a secret from Eli, and although she was with me when I bought the pattern and fabric, miraculously she didn’t twig what I was up to! The fabric is a lovely cotton drill. On researching the jackets (by going insane taking screenshots) I discovered that shirt patterns were the closest thing to them, McCall’s patterns were on sale, so I got 4518, which was very helpful and didn’t involve any difficult alterations. I took care with the details, such as the correct double zips and the poppers on the cuffs. The breast pockets also have functioning snaps closures, and I learnt how to make welt pockets especially for this project. Overall I’m very pleased with the construction; I tried to make them as professional as I could, particularly since it’s normal clothing. All the seams are either French seams or raw edges are overlocked, and I did my best to neatly topstitch. The basic jackets didn’t present any real problems; what was more challenging was all the stuff on Vince’s jacket and the Zooniverse patches. I’m pleased with the patches - I started by scanning in the image of one in the dvd booklet. However, the patch in that photo is worn, the colours were uneven and it was also at an angle, so a lot of tidying up was involved in Photoshop, and because I’m rubbish, also by printing it off, drawing on it by hand, then scanning it back in again… I got a decent image in the end though, and printed that off as a t-shirt transfer, ironed it on to fabric, which was then appliquéd to the sleeves by machine embroidering around the edges. Vince’s skull patch was done similarly - using a blown-up screenshot as far as possible, then my own sketching to tidy it up. It was ironed on to felt for a more patch-like effect. Luckily, the Kiss Army patch was a far easier project - although I didn’t manage to buy one, I easily got a good image of one to make into a transfer. The silver trim on the pockets is tricot lamé (it was a pain figuring out how to incorporate that into the welt pockets) and the “Noir” was cut out from the same fabric, and ironed on using Bondaweb. The other detail is simply studs on the shoulders, chains, safety pins, and the ring off a keychain hanging from the zip. The badges were the things that annoyed me most. When I was little, I had a badge making kit. Do these exist for children today? No, not really. I only found a couple online in the end, for about £20, and they didn’t even make badges the right size 0_o I was not impressed. I nearly resorted to sticking my designs over existing badges, but managed something slightly better with t-shirt transfers ironed on to fabric, then stretched over self-cover buttons. It might have been a roundabout route, but I think it was the next best thing to real badges. The “pop” one was easy to create, and I scanned the photo from the book to get a clear of the Johnny Rotten one. Otherwise, I relied on screenshots cleaned up as best as I could. We had an excellent time wearing these to the book launch, where the cast were awesome enough to sign the jackets for us! For London Expo, we wore the jackets as part of full costumes. The rest of the outfit isn’t quite so exact, but I fairly closely followed the clothes from the episode “Bollo", because those were easiest to copy. I assembled the stripy top using two dirt cheap Primark t-shirts - one giving me the fabric to make long sleeves for the other one. I had to unpick the pockets on them, hem it, also sew on a new collar. Because I was entering the craftsmanship judging, I had to have made the majority of my costume, so I made the trousers from scratch. I used a strange sort of cotton drill which is a similar colour to theirs (although the actual colour of theirs is plain weird and seemed impossible to match). I recreated all the belt loops and the welt pocket at the back, and did a lot of hand stitching for neat, invisible finishes at the hems and waistband. Finally, I made the sweatband from a red sock, and iron-on rhinestones for the design. The belt and boots are from ebay, and the watch is Ashe's The wig took a while to find. I was having a hard time finding anything with the right brown/blonde mix, but managed to find a few from the eBay seller wigs_us. They happened to have a Sepia punky wig in the right colour, which turned out to be perfect! The fluffy style worked nicely, but it still took a looong time to cut, layer and style it. I also did a small amount of custom colouring with a brown permanent marker to alter the highlights slightly.

Description

I originally had planned to make Eilidh a Zooniverse jacket (and a matching one for me too) as a surprise present for her birthday in November, which was particularly appropriate since she was going to see the Boosh live show then. However, it turned out that there was to be a signing at Zavvi in Glasgow on the 13th September, so I got the bug to make the jackets then, with about a week’s notice. I still tried to keep it a secret from Eli, and although she was with me when I bought the pattern and fabric, miraculously she didn’t twig what I was up to!

The fabric is a lovely cotton drill. On researching the jackets (by going insane taking screenshots) I discovered that shirt patterns were the closest thing to them, McCall’s patterns were on sale, so I got 4518, which was very helpful and didn’t involve any difficult alterations.

I took care with the details, such as the correct double zips and the poppers on the cuffs. The breast pockets also have functioning snaps closures, and I learnt how to make welt pockets especially for this project. Overall I’m very pleased with the construction; I tried to make them as professional as I could, particularly since it’s normal clothing. All the seams are either French seams or raw edges are overlocked, and I did my best to neatly topstitch.

The basic jackets didn’t present any real problems; what was more challenging was all the stuff on Vince’s jacket and the Zooniverse patches. I’m pleased with the patches - I started by scanning in the image of one in the dvd booklet. However, the patch in that photo is worn, the colours were uneven and it was also at an angle, so a lot of tidying up was involved in Photoshop, and because I’m rubbish, also by printing it off, drawing on it by hand, then scanning it back in again… I got a decent image in the end though, and printed that off as a t-shirt transfer, ironed it on to fabric, which was then appliquéd to the sleeves by machine embroidering around the edges.

Vince’s skull patch was done similarly - using a blown-up screenshot as far as possible, then my own sketching to tidy it up. It was ironed on to felt for a more patch-like effect. Luckily, the Kiss Army patch was a far easier project - although I didn’t manage to buy one, I easily got a good image of one to make into a transfer.

The silver trim on the pockets is tricot lamé (it was a pain figuring out how to incorporate that into the welt pockets) and the “Noir” was cut out from the same fabric, and ironed on using Bondaweb. The other detail is simply studs on the shoulders, chains, safety pins, and the ring off a keychain hanging from the zip.

The badges were the things that annoyed me most. When I was little, I had a badge making kit. Do these exist for children today? No, not really. I only found a couple online in the end, for about £20, and they didn’t even make badges the right size 0_o I was not impressed. I nearly resorted to sticking my designs over existing badges, but managed something slightly better with t-shirt transfers ironed on to fabric, then stretched over self-cover buttons. It might have been a roundabout route, but I think it was the next best thing to real badges. The “pop” one was easy to create, and I scanned the photo from the book to get a clear of the Johnny Rotten one. Otherwise, I relied on screenshots cleaned up as best as I could.

We had an excellent time wearing these to the book launch, where the cast were awesome enough to sign the jackets for us!

For London Expo, we wore the jackets as part of full costumes. The rest of the outfit isn’t quite so exact, but I fairly closely followed the clothes from the episode “Bollo", because those were easiest to copy. I assembled the stripy top using two dirt cheap Primark t-shirts - one giving me the fabric to make long sleeves for the other one. I had to unpick the pockets on them, hem it, also sew on a new collar. Because I was entering the craftsmanship judging, I had to have made the majority of my costume, so I made the trousers from scratch. I used a strange sort of cotton drill which is a similar colour to theirs (although the actual colour of theirs is plain weird and seemed impossible to match). I recreated all the belt loops and the welt pocket at the back, and did a lot of hand stitching for neat, invisible finishes at the hems and waistband. Finally, I made the sweatband from a red sock, and iron-on rhinestones for the design. The belt and boots are from ebay, and the watch is Ashe's

The wig took a while to find. I was having a hard time finding anything with the right brown/blonde mix, but managed to find a few from the eBay seller wigs_us. They happened to have a Sepia punky wig in the right colour, which turned out to be perfect! The fluffy style worked nicely, but it still took a looong time to cut, layer and style it. I also did a small amount of custom colouring with a brown permanent marker to alter the highlights slightly.

Comments

I love the jacket, it's just so perfect!
And judging by your other Vince cosplay this version will look excellent too :D
[And very awesome you got your coat signed too!] I look forward to seeing it expo time!

by Special-Pleb on Sunday, 14 September, 2008 - 20:11

LOL, you guys ROCK!
Great cosplays! X3

by Uni on Tuesday, 11 November, 2008 - 23:09