Wednesday 21 April 2010

The Future is Made of Pipes: Greatcoat Prototype


The coat is made of a coarse charcoal-coloured wool subtly-patterned with a pattern of swirls. It owes its existence to the rather lovely buttons and is based loosely on the greatcoat worn by Captain Jack from Torchwood, but most greatcoats follow a similar pattern.

The coat has weapon straps on the left. The 42" bastard sword (from Character Kit, which incidentally is currently having a sale) is neatly concealed there. There's a rather glare-heavy photo of the sword in the straps under the cut.

The buttons are very heavy and are black and silver in colour. They have a weathered look to them and from them we had originally planned the coat to seem "post-apocalyptic" and later, these photos to be cyberpunk (hence the choice of the pipes and air vents of the science site as a location) but the frilly shirt, the sword and the addition of the goggles, takes it perhaps to some odd urban fantasy setting. Though quite decidedly a *punk derivative.

Afterwards, we tossed around ideas about this man being a steampunk pirate or some sort of fugitive in a dystopic future. We're not entirely sure. What do you think?

The swirls were not part of the original design. We made the decision based entirely on a small swatch of the fabric, not realising what seemed like an irregularity of the cloth was actually part of a large swirly pattern. By the time we realised this, the cloth was bought and we were locked in our decision.

That all said, the coat is still very warm and serves at least that primary function admirably (Easter events get very cold) and the swirls give it a unique touch.

The coat is worn with a frilly shirt and black trousers. In the shots by the disused swimming baths, there is different white shirt with a high collar.

Also being worn in the photos are the homemade brass "beer" goggles, the tutorial of which can be found here.

To commission a similar (perhaps less swirly) coat from the Mercenary would cost in the region of £100.

As always, many more photos under the cut.




The 42" bastard sword in sword straps. 

3 comments:

  1. So let me get this straight- you designed a coat to enable the dreaded 'trenchcoat katana' syndrome? :)

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  2. But it isn't guilty of the aforementioned crime, a Katana just falls through the loops at the moment, you need a proper cross piece or guard on the sword for it to work.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well put, sir- I'll consider letting you off this time...

    (of course, the reason why trenchcoat katana syndrome is a recognised crime is because it usually makes no sense. So if the coat actually makes it work in practice, then fair play :)

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