⊰ Cupcake Coat ⊱
This coat was designed for a participant in an ongoing space-saga LARP, held inside the spaceship in Lod.
After I’d already made branch-wood weapon and the space coat for his teammates, I was given a regular leather jacket to adapt to the character.Makes me feel like Edna Mode (the designer from The Incredibles, No capes!).
The requirements were: a large cupcake illustration on the back, and for the jacket to look “as if the character had put it together from different parts, each in a different color.”
I asked a few directed questions about the character’s personality, home planet, role on the crew, and more, in order to decide on the style and what would suit him.
⊲ Steps in the making [5] ⊳
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The coat before everything
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Intial planning
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Planning the cupcake. I decided to go with a classic design without overcomplicating it.
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After breaking two heavy needles, the rank insignia was glued on and the “stitches” were painted.
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With only the cupcake illustration done, before adding the fabrics.
I bought three different, special types of fabric. I took a pattern based on the jacket’s original seams and assembled the new pieces. I decided to keep everything symmetrical.
Each type of fabric appears both on the front and the back. I added to the fabrics metallic shades: copper, bronze and silver.
The “knitted” fabric used for the pockets (the middle one in the photo ↓) is also the “belt” on the back.
The fabric at the bottom of the back with black and silver (on the right) is also the fabric connecting the front and back pieces at the top of the shoulders with copper paint.
The striped fabric (on the left), on both sides of the cupcake on the back, is also the fabric sewn along the button placket on the front, and even the buttons themselves got a silver rings.
With such a combination of many fabric types, I made sure not to cross into anything silly or clownish. It was important for me to keep the character’s look dignified.
I also added elbow pads, the character’s rank, the Human Fleet patch, and his spaceship’s emblem.
Usually, when I sew, I make sure the thread color matches the garment, and the stitches are super-fine, hidden, and as precise as possible.
But since the request here was for the jacket to look as if the character had sewn it themselves, and sewing is not their main profession, I chose zigzag stitching. Each fabric I added had a different thread color (silver/white/light blue/black) so the stitches would show clearly against the fabric.
The sewing machine was very unhappy, it struggled with the leather, the extra layers, and the thread snapping every so often, but honestly, that also added to the effect of “the character sewed these additions onto the jacket themselves.”
I made sure the stitching wasn’t uniform: in some areas tighter, in others looser, with stretches and repeats that ensured the sewing machine would hate me.
It was also quite challenging to reach all the areas; I had to roll up the sleeve and the sides so they could pass to the right of the needle and give me access.
At the end of the work on the jacket, which started out brand new, I had to age it. I sanded areas of the jacket (and also a bit of my finger and nail) using a large bench sander, in some spots even down to small tears (as requested by the client). I dirtied the jacket with brown and black stains, added lighter dusty grime, and finished it with a layer of varnish-matte to protect the paint and prevent it from dirtying other items.
The way I see it, the coat has geological layers.
The black leather jacket itself is the first layer, the oldest and most worn, and his character sewed the fabric additions to cover areas of tearing and wear.
When I distressed the garment, I masked off the parts that would be the character’s newest additions to the coat: the rank insignia and the Fleet and spaceship emblems on the upper sleeves.
