Halloween / Wizard World Austin Costume – Part 2 Design

This year for Halloween I’m going to try to make my costume. I have a pretty good idea for what I want to do.

In this installment of “boy&horse has a crazy plan that may never get very far, but what the hell, let’s try it anyway,” we are going to look at the actual design I have come up with for the costume…

As previously mentioned my idea is to combine elements from a variety of sources to pull together the idea of a Orange Lantern for Earth. The Costume will be a conversion of a uniform for an officer of the  Republics of Texas and the Rio Grande (a completely made up alliance of pre-annexation Texas and the short lived Republic of the Rio Grande, it did exist). It will be a multipart get-up of pre-made clothing items and stull I’ll have to make or modify.

What I need:

Uniform:

• Helmet / Orange Variant – This is an item that I already have on order from a military surplus website. As none of my family, that I associate with, fought in the Great War, I do not have one of these up in an attic waiting to be repainted. Here is a picture from the website: I plan to get two helmets eventually, one OL conversion and one in the regular paint scheme. The first one will be painted with the symbol:…completely pissing off all hard-nosed WWI vets in my family line.

  

• Hat – Along with the helmet, I will eventually need to get a hat to go along with this uniform in non-OL mode. I currently have no idea what this cover will look like, but it will not be a beret, raspberry or other wise. No-one ever looked bad-ass in a beret. Not really.
• Goggles – Oh, these are for the geek in me. I’m constitutionally required to wear goggle on any costume I create, but I also wear real, bump-into-things-velma-level-blind glasses and will need goggles that can fit over them. These are the winners so far, suggestions are always welcome:
• Shirt – Nothing really special here, probably a humorous t-shirt, or for Halloween an orange lantern shirt, as shown here:

  

• Jacket / Orange Variant – This is the first part of the costume that will require really heavy work. I plan the uniform jacket to be a handmade gambesome style jacket, as seen here:

  

  I have the pattern for the gambesome already, but now I’m looking for the material. It can be made from a variety of material, very few of which can be purchased in orange. And, that’s where most of my troubles are coming from. I want this jacket to be of good quality and to be functional. I’m pretty much dooming myself to failure, but fuck it, I want what I want.

  Also, instead of buttons, I’m going to use buckles:

• Coat – This is also something I’m planning on making myself, although I won’t have to have it completed by Halloween or the comic con. The pattern I have is for a single breast frock coat. It’s a personal choice, I really don’t like double-breasted coats…
• Trousers – These are going to be a standard pair of black cargo pants, no frills because I believe pants have to be comfortable to wear and I’m not confident that I could make a pair of pants. I think I know my limitations…
• Boots – Again, I’m not a cobbler, so I will not attempt to make the boot, I plan to buy a pair of “modern” military style boots, but if I do and they’re not comfortable ‘ll wear my sketchers…
• Utility Belt / Orange Variaint – Batman style utility belt. This will have a black and orange variant.

Rank insignia, I’m still working out what the rank insignia will look like, if I don’t use a modified version of US insignia. I haven’t even worked out what the ranks I will use. I could go all BSG on the order… don’t know yet…

• Orange Lantern Ring. I already have the Orange Lantern Ring, one of my favorite toys:

And that’s the overall design, most of these items are easy to get online, right now I’m looking at fabric…

Previous Log: The Idea…

Next Up: The Building the Gambeson…

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