Six Frock Coat - it’s in the design

Work is progressing real well on my test for the Six Frock Coat.

But while I am making one in a tasteful, colour co-ordinated purple, it would be a good time to pull myself back to the target colour scheme and take a look at the ORIGINAL costume design by Pat Godfrey.

I love the near child-like way it is drawn, and the felt pens to block in the colour. Nothing is subtle here – as you would expect having been introduced to the costume by the finished result.

Ultimate Six Frock Coat: the easy fabrics - colour matching round three

I reported recently that I had received a second round of lab dyed wools for my colour matching.
I’m slowly getting there, but wanted to have another little go at the Green Felt (Fabric 3) and the Peach Felt (Fabric 4).

Fabrics 3 and 4

The previous round of tests moved the project forward, but I felt were weren’t there just yet (see left).

Well today I got the latest revised swatches for approval.

I think the Peach Felt (Fabric 4) looks better, and although the Green Felt (Fabric 3) looks stronger in colour, I don’t think it is quite right yet.

That said, I think I now have a collection of swatches worth putting forward for direct comparison to the original coat to see how we stand.
I know that some of them are not right yet, but I could benefit from seeing them side-by-side to know which direction to go with the colour.

Check back soon to see how thing turned out.

Ultimate Six Frock Coat - fuzzy felts and wools

I’ve had a bit of a lucky break with some of the fabrics I need to match on the coat, which going into 2011, is certainly welcome news!

Fabrics 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 11

Now, I had already found a supplier for a number of the key felt fabrics.

You can read about these under
The Easy Fabrics

Off the roll they could supply an excellent match for the Purple Felt (fabric 2); a fair match for the Red Felt (fabric 5); but by the time I got down to the Green Felt (fabric 3) it wasn’t so good (see above).

What I didn’t show at the time was a lack of match for the Yellow Lapel (fabric 7) and the complete abscence of the bright Pink Felt (fabric 11). The yellows they had in their range were either just a little too bright or way too dark (see left).

The company I had lined up was, however, able to dye-to-match if given a colour to use.
Great – but they wanted a minimum of 50 metres in  a single order to do it! Ouch!
For the Pink Felt that made it totally impractical, as I only need a single piece around 6 inches wide by 24 inches high!!!!!!

I have since done some searching around and have found a fabric mill in England who make and supply just the right type of felts.

Six Coat - Cloth Ears

This is another one of my delayed entires.

I should have posted this at least a week back, but due to my vertigo attack, I was unable to finish writing it.
Here it is at last.

Here is the list of my week:

23rd June - BONHAMS AUCTION

24th June - CARDIFF TOUR

26th June - LONDON TOUR

27th June - SIX COAT (Cloth Ears)

Today was, thankfully, the last day of my whirlwind week of Who happenings.

On Wednesday I had been to the latest Bonhams Auction; Thursday I went to Cardiff on a Location Tour; Friday was a bit of rest bite (though my birthday, so I had earned a bit of rest); Saturday I had taken my French friend on a Tour Of London; and today my friends who own one of the original screen-used Six Frock coats came to visit.

Earlier this year I had acted as a go-between for Bob Mitsch when he came to the UK for the Time Quest event. He had wanted to meet every Doctor, appropriately dressed, and I had made him a Five Coat and Trousers to meet Peter Davison in (see left).

Timelash - episode two

My recent opportunity to see and wear an Original Six Frock Coat (see left) reminded me of my efforts to reproduce the coat way back in 1985.

I was at college in Harrow Weald taking my A-Levels in Technical Drawing (Engineering) and Art. At the time Colin Baker was Doctor Who, and despite it being an appalling car crash of colour and textures, I was quite taken with the Frock Coat he wore.
For the first time I was moved to actually have a go at making my own – mainly because I felt you could ‘see’ the pattern, since every panel making it was a different colour, the individual shapes could be easily made out.

Now, you need to wind your mind and understanding back to what things were like in those days. There was really only one source of pictures for Doctor Who: The Doctor Who Monthly Magazine. In those days it was principally a black & white affair, with only a colour cover and centre spread, and occasional a colour insert page running through it, but that was rare.

The June 1984 issue (see right) introduced us to The Sixth Doctor, and had (at the time) the best clear image of his costume - in colour!

Timelash

Well, today has been a long, and very exciting day!

The week started with me finally finishing my Five Coat, and ended with personal access to some unique costume items.

A friend who commissioned me to make him a pair of Five Trousers was interested in having his own Five Coat to go with it, but was keen to see mine before ordering one for himself. So I agreed he could visit so he can see it first-hand.

During our conversations arranging this, it came apparent that he was more a fan of the Sixth Doctor and owned a number of screen-used original costume pieces worn by Colin Baker. Wow!
I tentatively asked if he could bring them along so I could maybe get pattern traces, photographs and detail scans of fabrics for reference, with a view to making replicas. He was most agreeable. Game on!

The pressure to get the Five Coat finished was on me two-fold: the sooner I could complete it, the sooner I could see the Six Costume.
So, this weekend he came by and after inspecting my Five Coat (which he was suitably impressed with) we turned to his collection of Six Clothes. And what a list it is. Fantastic!

Making Phoenix fabric

I was going to call this entry: “Well that’s annoying!”, but luckily I pulled things back from defeat.

Things haven’t gone as planned this week.

I previously posted that I am making a pair of Six trousers before doing the ones for the suit, so I can get some practice in.

From the Six Breakdown on dw_cosplay I had found and ordered some of the Yellow Ticking (see left) from Interior Mall.
Their website says they ship worldwide, but do not quote shipping prices, asking you to enquire direct for a quote.
When I got a reply I found their shipping costs to the UK were very over priced at US$58 for sending just 4 yards of fabric (value US$70).
Luckily I have a friend in San Diego who had something to send me and he agreed to take delivery of the fabric and add it to the shipment before dispatching it to me.
This simplified things, and I can’t thank him enough for making that happen.

Before forwarding it on to me my friend thought the material was not quite right, saying his recollection of Colin Baker’s trousers was that they had a single stripe. I had always thought this as well, but had found that the trousers he wore for his first season were actually a triple stripe: two narrow ones either side of a thicker one. A nice clear image of this can be seen on DoctorWhoProps.com (see below). The Interior Mall fabric looked to be a good match.

He also thought the colour was a little off, but I’d have to see that to know what he meant.

The packaged arrived this week, and to my horror I saw exactly what he meant.
It was totally the wrong colour! Instead of being a vibrant yellow it was a light oatmeal instead, and looked to be a match to another colour on their site, the swatch for which can be seen here (right).

This was really annoying – thanks Ray (who cut and packed it according to the attached ticket). Pillow ticking, as this fabric is known, is relatively commonplace, and I had found several suppliers in the UK (Tinsmiths had a good range) though they did not have the right yellow with black stripes. So I had only gone to Interior Mall for the colour!

So all that effort was effectively for nothing.
Urrggghhhhh*@!

I will have to abandon using the Interior Mall fabric, as returning it to the US and getting new stock will be an extra expense I cannot justify, especially since ticking is not an expensive fabric, so replacing will be cheaper. I will retain the Interior Mall fabric and use it for something else (don’t worry, I have something in mind).

Instead I have decided to bite the bullet and buy some new ticking in the UK (from John Lewis) that is white with black stripes and dye it to the right colour, something again I have never done before, so this will be an experience and a challenge.

In a Comparing Fabrics style, here is the Interior Mall fabric (below top) compared with the UK-sourced John Lewis ticking (below bottom).

In hindsight I think the Interior Mall fabric has the stripes too close together anyway (see above). I am also not keen that the stripes are printed, not woven as I had found with the replacement UK-sourced fabric.

I found some colourfast Dylon fabric dye in Sunflower Yellow (which sounds nice) at a local wool shop (see left). This can be used in a washing machine at 40degrees. I also need to buy 1lb of salt, which is used to open the pores of the fabric and make the dye fast.
This is one of the occasions I think reading the instructions on the packet would be wise (being a man I don’t often do that).

First I need to wash the fabric thoroughly, to make sure there is no grease or dressing on the material, this will resist the dye and make it come out patchy.
I then empty the entire packet of dye into the drum of the washing machine, add 1lb of table salt, then the still wet fabric (see right).

I then have to wait a nerve-racking hour for the machine and dye to do its magic.
Once the hour is up it’s time to see what‘s happened, and I am pleasently surprised to find it has worked a total treat. My white and black ticking is now yellow and black, and the dye has not tainted the black stripes as I secretly thought it might (see left).

I just then need to leave it out to dry then thoroughly press it to make it pristine and ready for use (see below).

In the long run, I think I have now ended up with a better fabric than I ordered from Interior Mall. It is a proper woven pattern, and as a result the pinstripes on it are nice and sharp. Achieving the colour was nowhere near as scary or difficult as I thought. I think this is an exceptional case, but I would consider doing this again if finding the right pattern/colourway was a problem. If a white colourway was available as an alternative, dye it to the right colour is now very much an option!

Finally, comparing my fabric to a detail close-up of an actual pair of the Colin Baker trousers, I think I have got a pretty good match!