As promised I present my tips on weathering coveralls, and I’ll even pop in some other costume tidbits. Lets start with an H1 weathering…
Purchase the spruce green coveralls new, or used from where ever you can find them. I have a pair that match H1 quite nicely and they were only tweleve bucks brand new. Take them home and wash them two or three times before you start any initial weathering, this takes all the impurities and chemical residue that could be present when bought. NOW WE START! Since the H1 coveralls were pretty heavily worn in some spots you’ll have to spot weather, I’ll cover this a little further down. First you will want to achieve an uniform weathering by washing your coveralls in bleach. The amount of bleach to get the right amount of color wash varies from brand to brand so this part will take some time. Start out first with a 50/50 ratio of bleach to water(distilled, tap, bottled, whatever is handy) and with a sponge spot apply the mix, very lightly and in coats to the inside of a sleeve or leg cuff as a test area. if after three light washes you see no effect to the color go for a 55 bleach/45 water ratio. as soon as you find one to fit your criteria just mix up a bigger batch in your sink(preferably garage or basement sink basin but a kitchen one will suffice), place the coveralls in the sink and let them soak. from time to time check them and wring an area out a little and check the color. The reason why you wring it out is because even in the bleach water color can still be loosely attached to the material and you might get them too light in color, you can correct it but that will take some time and I’ll disscuss trouble shooting at the end of the post. when you get them weathered completely to your liking run them under a faucet until you have completely removed all of the bleach water. you should only detect a minor bleach scent if any after this. Wash them in you washing machine on the cold cycle(why, so they don’t shrink or bleed onto other colors you should wash all your clothes this way) and dry them as usual. Now the creative part begins, take a slightly stronger bleach to water ratio, and when I say slightly I mean very subtly, so the colors are diferent but still match in the end. BE CAREFUL people screw here on this part alot so take care of your movements and how much is applied to the coveralls. Now obviously certain areas were worn more on the coveralls, i.e the knees, the wrist cuffs, ankle cuffs, shoulders. Get some stills from the movie IN DAYLIGHT of course, or just pause your DVD player and zoom in for certain shots if you have a clear zoom. Now with a sponge apply the bleach and water mixture in washes until they blend together like a dark to light color chart. Take some coarse grit sandpaper(an 80 grit is great to start) and add some texture to the cuffs, collar, knees, buttocks, etc. like where you would expect a mechanic to have signs of weather on their coveralls. Move onto a finer 200-300 grit and lightly rub the coveralls all over for a very light and very subtle surface weathering. even if you can see this in the movie, it makes sense in reality so people close to you in reality will think you hitched a ride with a mechanic and killed him for his clothes . Now you take a fine knife like an exacto, or a surgical knife of some kind and tear, rip and pull small spots, not cut to give it a worn many times frayed look. of course after all of this you can throw them around in the dirt and rub it in a bit for effect. take motor oli, or grease from your KFC, ore whatever you have handy that will stain like oil(remember MECHANIC!) put on areas to match the movie and some other areas that would seem feasable in reality
H1 footware is something of a misconception for many. some assume dress shoes because thats what everyone else uses. WRONG! The footware is U.S millitary issue jungle boots that are worn. You can buy these from local millitary surplus stores. For all of our UK and abroad myers breathern just try an oline millitary surplus store from the US and ask about international shipping and conversion rates if you can’t find them locally(sometimes you can to my knowledege). If they are bought new break them in by walking and flexing your foot in various positions and wash them with the same bleach to water mix. Before I forget(written listening to slipknots “before I forget” ironicly) these boots are leather with green cloth sidings. There are also eyelets just above the soles for breathablity. Now after the bleach water wash use some 400 grit wet sandpaper and wet the sandpaper and sand key areas, such as the boot tips, heel, and even the sides of the soles. Then rock these with the coveralls, a dirty collared grey or black t-shirt and your H1 mask and your set. BUTCHER KNIVES IN THE AIR! SAY IT!!!(MYERS FOR LIFE!!)SAY IT!!!(MYERS FOR LIFE!!).
H2 can be done the same way, if you want your H1 coveralls to look H2 dirty them up more and rock the Nemisis or whatever H2 mask you possess. If you want to try a straight forward H2 approach get charcoal grey coveralls and weather like I said before. Also the boots are different, not really sure what kind but try a mean looking pair of wolverine dress boots for this. SCAPELS IN THE AIR!!! NURSES IN THE AIR!!!RENT-A-COPS GET A HAMMER IN YOUR HEAD
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As you can see its not difficult to weather coveralls accordingly, just apply these techniques to coveralls that match other parts of the series. Dickies Big n Tall for H4, or similar to match that style, H5 counter woven pinstripe style heavily worn, H6 Dickies, H20 ?, and H8(why even go as H8 myers but to each your own).
TROUBLESHOOTING
To correct your intial overweathering use a diluted spruce green or similar dye (RIT is great, but any generic brand will do perfect). soak to coveralls for awhile and check them every so often on their color. Rinse under the faucet, cold wash in your machine, dry and keep going.
You can also spot weather the entire thing but that will take various mix ratios of the bleach water to acheieve a complete look. this technique works great too and you get those nice little darker colors in the recessed areas that give it a nice contrast. some people swear by this.
If neither is your cup of tea you can wait till you a good week or so of nice sunny days(damn you californians that have better weather than temprate PA ) and cold wash the coveralls in some diluted bleach water and hang dry. You can let them get sun washed and loose color. Learned this while on vacation a few years back that the nice new green shirt you bought and got chicken grease on and had no dryer to dry it you do the old hang dry method except my shirt wasn’t a deep bright green, it was an acid washed tye-dyed style shirt
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You could even try airbrushing the bleach water mix instead of sponging so you are ensured a nice light even coat. Just build up the weather wash in layers.
I should clarify that when doing the bleach to water combo saturation at the begining you must take care with the bleach. Another idea popped into my head that if you over weather them you probably could dump the dye into the same bleach water and let it soak in there. just be sure your dye doesn’t overpower the bleach water. Inevitably you might over spot weather so you could airbrush or sponge apply some dye water to get some overall colors more easily than having to submerge the coveralls in a bucket of dye and having to spot weather all over again. Just use a hair dryer or your dryer iteself after this “spot dying” before you move on so colors won’t bleed. I cannot urge you enough to be extremely cautious with the intial overall weathering, this is what determines your coveralls future color indefinitely so if you are intimidated by the bleach water saturation you should just sponge apply the bleach water in washes over the entire thing. Just some more stuff off the top of my head.
You can also take your airbrush and run the dye water through it. Since the airbrush has an adjustable nozzle you can control the spray of the dye water easily. My preference for a job like this would be a Pascche H single action airbrush. Its easy to handle and you don’t have to worry about the spray amount changes like if using a Double Action airbrush. But by all means if your a real mean double action sprayer use that. You can also sponge apply the dye water as sort of a reverse spot wheathering. I also should clarify that “three light washes of bleach water to test” means that the sponge should be saturated with the bleach water combo, squeeze out about half of the mix so a decent amount is still in the sponge, and rub the inside of the cuffs in washes. The washes should be done in such a way that the surface is wet but not soaked through the other side. In between washes just use a hair dryer to dry the surface between washes, and YES they must be dryed completely before the next wash is applied. I wish i had some more info, but I’m fresh outta ideas at the time. if anyone has their own ideas or tips by all means post them please. I want to learn more as much as any other fan here.
To end this post you have seen how it is easy, not daunting to create your myers costume cost effective and you got to be creative. (envision this with sunny lighting, me with a $&^@ eating Martha Stewart grin, and a couple of bloody knives in my hands) Michael Myers coveralls, they’re a good thing .
any questions, just e-mail me or PM me and I’ll get back to ya. Use my new addy though, here it is…
Hope you enjoyed this and take care fellow myers fanatics!
EDA