Doctor Who The Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)
I've been meaning to upgrade the Eighth Doctor outfit, so here, finally, is the new improved version. If you want to see the first outfit and figure I made for Debbie for Christmas 2002, you can see it here. If you want to check out images of the original outfit, you can find plenty in the Photo Gallery at the BBC web site devoted to Doctor Who.
The base figure is Dragon's British Royal Marine Roger action figure. It originally had a crew cut, but my friend Rick and his wife Regina kindly sculpted some long hair to transform the figure into the Eighth Doctor. You can see more of Rick's wonderful Doctor Who customs at his site.
The coat is green velvet, which is a pain to sew. I used the same pattern that's given a wonderful fit with other fabrics, but with the velvet it came out baggy, so I had to do multiple alterations. Yuck. I had to keep telling myself it would be worth it. The buttons are "Barbie buttons" (yes, they're actually called that on the packaging) and beads painted hunter green. There is a button on either side of the slit in the back of the coat as well as two rows of buttons on the coat front. The lapels and trim along the cuffs on the sleeves are both of green satin.
The pin in his cravat is made from the tip of a straight pin, with a yellow bead glued to it. I'm always breaking or bending pins when I sew, so this was a nice way to recycle some of them. The vest buttons are tortoise shell beads.
In a fit of insanity, I decided to put extra detail into this outfit as a reward for getting dissertation chapters submitted. While I was trying to figure out how to sew all of this, it felt like some sort of sick, twisted, masochistic reward. However, I think it was worth it in the end. The sleeves can be rolled up. There are functional pockets in the coat and another in the vest for his pocket watch.
The pocket watch is made from studs I found in the craft store section devoted to customizing t-shirts. I used pliers to bend one of the prongs that normally pierce t-shirt fabric to form a loop. I bent the other three prongs into supports for the watch face. I printed out a clock from Jim's Printable Minis, then glued some clear plastic to it to make the watch face. The clear plastic came from an old Barbie box. I put jump rings through the loop on the "watch" and through the last link in a bit of chain. The second jump ring slipped through one of the beads on the vest.
I finally made a sonic screwdriver, following the as-always-helpful instructions on Sean Huxter's site. My design varies a little bit. I wanted the red centerpiece to have a metal end cap, so I cut an extra length of tubing and inserted a toothpick, which I then painted red.
Usual disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with the BBC, or trying to infringe on their or anybody else's copyrights. I'm just having fun sewing, and finding ways to display my projects has been a great excuse to finally learn some Photoshop basics.