Monday 24 November 2014

Ultimate Six Frock Coat -
restocking the special fabrics

Over the past few months I have been very busy restocking on a number of bespoke woven fabrics needed to make my Ultimate Sixth Doctor costume.


These are a mix of specially knitted, hand woven and industrial loom woven fabric and represent the most screen accurate reproductions made to date.

I’m always tweaking and doing my best to improve the fabrics I use when the opportunity arises to make revisions to get them even closer to screen used.

Now, you’ll be forgiven from thinking I’m off my rocker with my latest batch of tartan for the frock coat. The colour looks WAY off!

I had heard that the tartan used had been over-dyed before use, but without knowing what the original colour was before dyeing it would be near impossible to recreate truly accurately.

But after doing some research, I came across an original preliminary sketch by costume designer Pat Godfrey.

It reveals the idea was to use less intense colours, including trousers in a subtle green, and a frock coat with fewer colours used.
The lapels match, rather than being of different fabrics and if you look closely you can see it uses a tartan in a baby pink colour.

A large swatch of the tartan is attached, and you can see not only the colour it was, but you can see much more distinction between the yarns used to make the darker stripes of the weave.

My guess is the fabric was bought ready to be made up into the coat, but a change of heart lead it to being over-dyed to a revised colour scheme rather than waste the material.

So, what I have done is re-pick my colours to match this swatch, with the intention to over-dye it JUST like it was done back in 1984.

The result has been well worth the effort, with a much better match to the original coat, including the black stripes being polluted with the red dye - something that was apparent on the screen-worn coat. The broad stripes also have been improved.

Red Tartan (fabric 1) - done properly!

Sunday 2 November 2014

Barking Signing - 1st November 2014

I so much enjoyed last month’s signing session in Barking, today I am going to the next one!
Barking Signing - 1st November 2104
Of the guests attending, I already have Sarah Sutton and Nicola Bryant in my book, So aside from Sally Kenynette (who was in Blake’s Seven and not Doctor Who) I am going to gather all the rest.

SARAH SUTTON played Nyssa in Doctor Who from The Keeper of Traken to Terminus as well as Ann Talbot in Black Orchid. She also made a cameo appearance as Nyssa in The Caves of Androzani and reprised the role in the thirtieth anniversary special Dimensions in Time.


NICOLA BRYANT played companion Perpugilliam "Peri" Brownfrom Planet of Fire to Mindwarp. She later reprised the role for Dimensions in Time and has since appeared in many Doctor Who video and audio spin-offs.




SALLY KNYVETTE On screen Knyvette is best known for her roles as Jenna Stannis in the first two seasons of the British science fiction series Blake’s 7. She later complained of her role that Jenna had ”started off as this really exciting, intergalactic space pirate, but then she became a sort of housewife on the Liberator”.

PHILIP OLIVIER is an English actor who portrays Seventh Doctor companion Hex in the Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories.



ROBIN SQUIRE played the lead Auton in the original Spearhead From Space series, filmed in September 1969.


WENDY PADBURY played companion Zoe Heriot from The Wheel in Space to The War Games and again in The Five Doctors.