Club Obi Wan

OK...obviously everyone has to take these pics with a grain of salt. Differences in lighting, angle, color, contrast and a thousand other factors make this a far-from-exact comparison. But...it does give an indication of something, and it's why I'm posting this thread.
It's not my intention to start an argument between the Distress/Non-Distress camps...I only want to show why it is I personally mess around with my gear to try and get it to look a certain way. Some folks have asked me in the past why I do, and I think these pics can give some indication as to why I go through the trouble. The pics are big, and it may take a while for the dial-up users to see them, and I apologize for that if you're interested in seeing them.













-Rabittooth

Rab, I'm curious as to how you achieved the "wrinkled" look on the jacket, as well as the process you used for distressing and darkening the Alden's. I know this has been discussed before, but I want to know what you did, because IMHO that's some of the best looking stuff I've seen around here.

Cheers,
Cassidy

An excellent and very sound defense for all those distressing afficianados out there (myself included). More often than not I choose to "distress" my gear for the sole purpose of making it look, for lack of a better term, right. None of the methods I use actually damages my gear (Geesh, the price we pay for a lot of this stuff you'd have to be NUTS to distress it that much ) it's more of an issue with the correct color, etc. Let's face it, Indy didn't have an orange holster or boots or a red bag strap on his MK-VII any more than he had a blue fedora. I would never think of putting my gear in harms way just for the sake of making it look more "accurate". Now if you'll excuse me, I have to throw on my Wested and get dragged around the block behind my buddy's jeep.

-GCR

BTW- That's some awesome lookin' work on all your gear, Rabbittooth! You got yourself one heck of a collection.

Very good comparison pics, Rab.

I do enough crazy stuff on my own to distress my gear naturally fairly quickly, but I can certainly see the appeal of modifying gear from the get-go based on those pics. Excellent job on distressing yours stuff, by the way.

Regards,

Farn

I'm with you guys, distressing is the way to go for movie-like authenticity (sans bullwhip!). When you get down to brass tacks, a pristine Wested leather jacket out of the box does not look like the jackets you see in the Indiana Jones films. Each one (depending on the film or scene required) must be artificially distressed and properly broken in to achieve the same aesthetic look. That said, I raise a glass in toast of artificial aging; may our gear be screen-worthy!

-Dale

Thanks Folks! Like I said...alot of factors have to be considered when you're comparing contrast and color photographically from different sources...but I think the general idea is there.

Cassidy wrote:Rab, I'm curious as to how you achieved the "wrinkled" look on the jacket, as well as the process you used for distressing and darkening the Alden's. I know this has been discussed before, but I want to know what you did, because IMHO that's some of the best looking stuff I've seen around here.
Cheers,
Cassidy

Well...he wrinkling is just achieved by crushing and wrinkling it. The Wested lamb WILL wrinkle, and after some wear, most of them will work themselves out and give a more "film-look" appearance. The distress method is just the one MK introduced to us all:

http://www.regular-guy.com/jacket.htm

The boot (and most of the leather) distress technique is here:

http://www.indygear.com/forum/viewtopic ... ght=#74211

By the way...those are NOT Aldens pictured above...they are $40.00 J.Crew boots. I wouldn't reccomend taking a zippo lighter to your Aldens! (Although I did to my old pair that got sold with my old gear)
There are numerous other darkening/distressing techniques out there that woun't cause any potential damage to such expensive boots.



-Rabittooth

whipwarrior wrote:I'm with you guys, distressing is the way to go for movie-like authenticity (sans bullwhip!). When you get down to brass tacks, a pristine Wested leather jacket out of the box does not look like the jackets you see in the Indiana Jones films. Each one (depending on the film or scene required) must be artificially distressed and properly broken in to achieve the same asthetic look. That said, I raise a glass in toast of artificial aging; may our gear be screen-worthy!

-Dale

And that comes from the original KING of complete Indygear authenticity.



-Rabittooth

I will die before my jacket ever gets distressed naturally. You don't get to wear it that much in Florida. The movie jackets were originally distressed using a wire brush and pocket knife, according to the bonus DVD. I've considered putting mine on and doing some bellycrawls and back crawls on my concrete driveway, then lay it out in the backyard in the summer and let the Florida sun bleach it some.

And that comes from the original KING of complete Indygear authenticity.

You are too kind, sir!

Hey Rabbitooth, about the pictures of the jackets above. Are the 2 replica jacket pics the same jacket,before after distressing, or are they two different jackets? Just curious, because I'm amazed at how dark you could get the authentic brown to look.

Yeah I was wondering about the color difference myself. It seems one may be made from the authentic lambskin, while the other was lambskin (as per the comparisons on the Wested page). Are these the same jackets?

No...they are not the same jacket...but they are both Wested Authentic lambskin.



-Rabittooth

Alright, I'll ask.
Rabittooth, how did you get your Authentic lamb to look so screen accurate?

I rubbed the whole jacket down with rubbing alcohol to reduce the shine, then used the acetone method that MK introduced to us outlined here:

http://www.regular-guy.com/jacket.htm

Did a little sanding around the edges and seams and viloa.
It actually looks much better with some well-place fullers earth here and there. Someday I'll take some more pics with it a bit "dirty".








The lighting is much diferent in the before and after pics. The "before" pics were taken outdoors in sunlight and the "after" were taken indoors with just my kitchen overhead...but they give some indication of the difference.

-Rabittooth

Thanks for posting those, Rab. The jacket looks especially nice. Very nice indeed. Now you've made me want another Wested just to distress it.
I'd also like to point out how most gearheads have been walking around in NH trousers that were waaaaay too baggy. You can see the pants come up to the third ring on his boots in every pic. If he were wearing NH trousers the bottom cuff would extend all the way out past the laces entirely. I always looked frumpy in my NH's until I took them in to get them taken in and now they are just as you see in the pics here. I hope Peter really looks well at how the pants are IN the film and not just replicate the NH ones, otherwise it's back to the tailorer.

Another nice sidenote is how incredibly wrong the color is on the Keppler holster. I've been hoping he would go ahead and just have his people make the change but it seems it just hasn't happened. I know it was supposed to have happened a while back but it's still the same old orange beast. How hard can it be to find flat brown dye while it's being made?

how does that jacket look so awesome? I am not going to artificially distress mine, as ill probably have it for 900 years, but that jacket looks to perfect to me

Nice work! Thanks for the pics, ive been looking for a good way to distress my bag strap....!

Do you have a picture of yourself wearing all this awesomely distressed gear? Just wondering... oh, and nice job!

In Christ,
Shane

IndyMcFly wrote:Do you have a picture of yourself wearing all this awesomely distressed gear? Just wondering... oh, and nice job!

In Christ,
Shane

This is actually my previous set of gear...but you get the idea:



-Rabittooth

I think I"ll use this method to distress my jacket, but I'm concerned about possible damage. I want to still be able to wear it in, say, ten years.

Does this method damage the quality of the leather, in the sense that it wouldn't keep me as warm in the fall/winter after it was distressed?

Also, what dye did you use? I have the same authentic brown lamb jacket.

Rab, I still shake my head everytime I see your portrait above...classiest shot around that I'M aware of. Just VERY well done, and I once AGAIN offer a tip of my fedora to you, sir. High regards. Michaelson

Wow! Thank you, Sir!
You're a Scholar and a Gentleman! Not to mention having good eyesight, a wonderful sense of style and excellent taste!

-Rabittooth

You still have the address to mail the check to, right? Oh, this isn't the PM area, is it??!! Never mind...move along folks...move along... Regards. Michaelson

Rabbittooth - I'm here waiting on my Wested Authentic Lamb, just digging around for background info so I'm ready to go when it gets here - and ran across this thread. EXCELLENT postings, thank you SO much for sharing this. I'm saving it as a web archive so I'll never lose it!

This is a great series of posts- very helpful. Thanks alot all!

Welcome to the forums, excellent picture, but it doesnt auto resize, so your avatar may want to shrink a little :c)

Oops...That's better:)

much, still looks great... did you draw it yourself?

Excellent job Rabitooth, excellent..

Any tips on how to distress a new bad strap?

Erin Jones wrote:Any tips on how to distress a new bad strap?

Yeah...the results seen above were done almost entirely with a zippo lighter...the flame held just far away enough from the leather to deposit soot and darken it, which you rub in with your fingers.
Then you gotta bend and twist the strap a bit to get the fine wrinkles in it, and lastly you need to take a dark brown or black sharpie marker and color the sides.
I also sand the metal of the buckle and dab crazy glue on the buckle to dull down the shine and distress it up.











-Rabittooth

Great pics and great tips.

Does the soot tend to rub off or does it set in the leather?

Man, that looks good.

Nope...the look seems to stay put.

-Rabittooth

That's what I wanted to hear.... sweet.

Another excellent method to distress leather goods is to use black water based stain, a damp sponge, and blot the areas that you want to make darker. Keep the water based stain dilute but not too dilute that it doesn't soak into the leather. It looks like most of the leather parts do not look like they have been sealed with some sort of wax or sealant (except the jacket).

For the holster Tandy makes an excellent antique dark brown oil based stain that does wonders when applied. Again it may now work too well on your jacket.

There are also acetone based leather dye strippers that can be applied the same way with a damp sponge in order to lighten areas of the leather and turn around and restain it with some antique brown.

Many (many) years ago, I worked on a film which was shot on location (a castle) in the middle of winter, of course, most of the time was spent sheltering from the rain or snow, so I used thes oportunites to learn as much as I could from the fx, stunts, and wardrobe depts. One of the costume ladies mentioned that she specialised in 'ageing' leather jackets, this is her process as she explained it to me-

1.wrap the jaket in gaffer tape, peel it off slowly, as it will remove more of the surface than ripping it off quickly. repeat this stage several times in places where scuffing would naturally appear (depending on the character, ie a sniper would have more wear on the front and shoulder, a driver would have more on the back)

2. use a well worn wire brush, or brillo pad to scuff the seams, elbows and shoulders.

3. wash and tumble dry.

4. press/iron creases into it

5. soak in cold water.

6. hang on a mannequin (with bent arms) or a padded hanger, bend back corners of collars and pocket flaps, and hold them in place with bulldog clips. fill the pockets with marbles. wrap elastic bands around the sleeves. leave to drip dry.

There was also mention of beating heavy leather with a heavy chain. and also folding the leather over, and rubbing course sand between the two parts.

Hope this is of some use/ interest.

Rabbittooth can you please post the whole "Film jacket" pic? I'm very interested as I never seen this before. Thanks.

Oh no... did the links just break for all of those great images? This was one of my favorite threads - loved the distressed jacket especially.

I'm usually not a thread-necromancer myself, but I too would like to see a revival of this thread, espcially the jacket.
Some of the links don't work, including the jacket distressing link (http://www.regular-guy.com/jacket.htm)

Does someone know this info is uploaded elsewhere?

ME AS WELL!!!

Rabittooth wrote:

IndyMcFly wrote:Do you have a picture of yourself wearing all this awesomely distressed gear? Just wondering... oh, and nice job!

In Christ,
Shane

This is actually my previous set of gear...but you get the idea:



-Rabittooth

I'd personally like to see this photo. Michaelson gave it high praise and I'm eager to see what Rab's total gear pic looks like. Repost?

Thanks,
Tony

It looks like the original photo from Rab is no longer on his server. I went to his main site and it looks like he's out of the Indy gear hobby as he issold his entire costume as one lot on Ebay.

With that said, I think I found an altered pic of the one that Michaelson was speaking so highly of. Although the face has been edited out, I can see how this would have been a great photo:



Also, Rab had mentioned that he'd had "previous set of gear" so I might be wrong in what I've speculated. My apologies to Rab if that's the case!

Tony

That's the one!

Regards! Michaelson

Greatdane wrote:I'm usually not a thread-necromancer myself, but I too would like to see a revival of this thread, espcially the jacket.
Some of the links don't work, including the jacket distressing link (http://www.regular-guy.com/jacket.htm)

Does someone know this info is uploaded elsewhere?

Was currious myself, anyone out there know?

Is your jacket the
Raiders of Lost Ark Jacket Authentic Lamb from Wested?

Rabittooth wrote:I rubbed the whole jacket down with rubbing alcohol to reduce the shine, then used the acetone method that MK introduced to us outlined here:

http://www.regular-guy.com/jacket.htm

Did a little sanding around the edges and seams and viloa.
It actually looks much better with some well-place fullers earth here and there. Someday I'll take some more pics with it a bit "dirty".








The lighting is much diferent in the before and after pics. The "before" pics were taken outdoors in sunlight and the "after" were taken indoors with just my kitchen overhead...but they give some indication of the difference.

-Rabittooth

I'm more interested in how the distressing of the shoes, shirts, and holster was done. This is definetly making me want to destress my gear.

IndyFan89 wrote:I'm more interested in how the distressing of the shoes, shirts, and holster was done. This is definetly making me want to destress my gear.

Shoes and holster: sandpaper/wire brush and alcohol
Shirt: wrinkle and dirt/blood

Kyle

knibs7 wrote:

IndyFan89 wrote:I'm more interested in how the distressing of the shoes, shirts, and holster was done. This is definetly making me want to destress my gear.

Shoes and holster: sandpaper/wire brush and alcohol
Shirt: wrinkle and dirt/blood

Kyle

Thanks Kyle. One more question, what is the best way to darken/color correct the leather items?

Hi all,

I'm looking to do some distressing on one of my jackets and am looking for MK thread on the topic but it seems to have been relocated or disappeared:

http://www.regular-guy.com/jacket.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Has anyone got an updated link or archived version of the tutorial? Thanks!

Hopefully archived, as MK removed all his links when he left the site and started the Fedora Lounge 'back in the day'.

Regard! Michaelson