As I mentioned in the Mayor of Halloween Town making-of, I'm, like many former goths, a huge fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Yet, after all these years of cosplaying (15 years already...), I'd never considered cosplaying Jack. In my opinion, he's one of those characters with such a specific body shape that it's difficult to do them justice, especially since, unlike a character like Barry the Chopper, it's almost impossible to cheat on your own proportions by adding volume, since Jack is extremely tall and extremely thin. Ironically, with my 1 m72 and 50kg, I am too small and too fat to do Jack…
But for once, TheMom was a force of suggestion for a cosplay group, especially a subject as popular as Disney (TheMom tends to avoid photos at conventions...), I told myself that I was going to make an effort, by cheating as much as possible on my shapes. I wasn't planning on starving myself either...
With the “Making-of” articles, I come back to the overall design of a character, including the mistakes made along the way, and even when possible, the sewing part (of which I generally have very few photos…).
1. Costume Choice
Unlike the Mayor, who only has one outfit with a tiny variation, Jack appears in the film in three different outfits, not to mention the enormous number of variations that exist as Disney collectable figurines.
But to stick with the basics, Jack has his classic, iconic version with the black tailcoat and white stripes, the red Santa Claw version with a beard, and... his beige pajamas.
Just for fun, I'll have to make it one day, but I'll limit myself here to his iconic black version.
2. Pieces list
Jack's outfit consists of three pieces: pants, a jacket, and a bow tie. He doesn't really have a shirt, but rather a white area that we're not sure if it's clothing or directly on his torso. I'd settle for a white turtleneck.
The most important thing, of course, is his head; its shape is very specific and naturally changes throughout the film depending on his expressions (everyone knows how flexible a skull is...).
To complicate things a little further, I added a pair of articulated fingers to lengthen my arms and fingers.
3. Crafting
- The fingers:
You thought I was going to start with the head, right?
Yet chronologically, I started with Jack's hands. Originally, I hadn't necessarily planned to do anything in particular, but rather to use skeleton gloves or something like that, but my Pinterest feed started showing me giant articulated hands (probably inspired by research for a previous project that didn't come to fruition, instead I made Khonshu).
I thought that, yes, it would be nice to have Jack's long fingers... Come on, it's worth a try...
As a little anecdote, I never realised that Jack only had four fingers before focusing on my reference images, yet god knows what a pain his figurine hands are to dust off.
I did a lot of research to understand how articulated fingers work and how to adapt them to my case. Many people make big monster hands with an elastic system to fold the fingers, but I needed the thinnest system possible. I finally found a very complete video using wooden sticks (link here for info). I even took screenshots of the diagrams to better understand the assembly.
Then I made a prototype:
which fold:
I was quite happy with the result, so much so that I prepared all my sticks and made all the holes:
But the wire I was using wasn't the best for this ; some wires were popping off even though I hadn't asked them to (what should I do if they popped off once the modelling was finished?), and I found my system a bit cumbersome.
Finally, since I still had a lot of work to do on the Mayor, I gave up on making my fingers from scratch. I found a pair of articulated hands that I'll use as a base:
However, I didn't do nothing to them either!
Firstly, the fingers were much too big for my own hands. As a result, they slipped and didn't always bend. So I removed the fingers from their holder, then removed a piece altogether:
By removing the parts traced with markers, I could then thermoform the pieces to make them smaller. You can see my initial tests at the top of the photo.
Be careful though (I don't know who would read my making-of as a tutorial, but when in doubt...)
First: questionable plastic found on Amazon + heat gun = vapor mask!
Then, more technically, you have to be careful not to deform the other side of the pieces, otherwise the hinge tabs won't be able to pass through. So here's a tip:
The aluminium foil takes the shape of the channel where the tab passes, so there's no risk of crushing it. The skewer is used to hold the hinge pins at the correct diameter. Otherwise, the plastic will shrink, and you won't be able to assemble the finger.
Don't ask me how I know... Did I tell you I made test fingers?
Once the fingers were tightened, I filled the remaining holes with epoxy modelling clay, then I took them apart completely to sand everything down. Just so the paint had a better chance to adhere.
There are four elements per finger: the base with the arching tab, and three phalanges. There are ten fingers, so I'll let you count all the elements to sand. Also, I sanded with three different grits to get the rough surface without scratching...
After that, all the elements are primed and painted. For this, I used Vallejo miniature paint, whose base is supposed to be more scratch-resistant. We'll see how it holds up over time. And to paint them, all the elements are hung on a small hook:
The assembled fingers are sewn directly onto black gloves to put them on "easily" (in reality, it's a bit of a hassle). I painted a white patch on the top of the glove the day before, around 2 a.m., but I'll have to improve that later:
I am quite happy, the modifications are barely visible once painted:
- The Head:
Jack’s head was quite laborious to make, but that’s partly my fault…
As is often the case when I prepare a cosplay, I started by looking to see if there might be any patterns that could serve as a base for me, as is the case with Khonshu's head.
Luckily, I came across a pattern designed for Jack's head. According to reviews, it requires a bit of adjustment here and there, but as I said, at least it's a good base.
The pattern still seems a bit big to me, so I decided to make a cardboard prototype:
(One of my mistakes, which is common on all my prototypes, was thinking you should glue the mouth shut.)
As I thought, the pattern was designed for a much larger head (almost 40cm long). To properly scale down the pattern, I would have had to reprint it with a smaller percentage, like 80 or even 75%. Except I didn't have access to a printer for several days. So I tried to reduce it manually (second mistake).
So I re-patterned my pieces and made a new prototype, this time in EVA foam:
The size was better, but the size of the eye holes bothered me, even though the pattern included a strip to create a sense of thickness. So I went back and forth here and there to reduce the different volumes (the head was still too big). So much so that in the end, I cut up my prototype to use it as a pattern for the final version, which I wanted to make in high-density foam.
Ha ha ha. When I look back at my "final version," I wonder how I didn't realise beforehand that I was going off the rails with this pattern.
In fact, sometimes we're so convinced we're doing it right that we forget to stop and take a look at a reference image. At this point, I was making a pattern for the idea of Jack's head, and not a pattern of Jack's head. Judge for yourself:
In the end, I ended up making a sort of generic skull.
Fortunately, I took a step back and tried the original pattern again, in 80% this time, while correcting things that bothered me during the first prototypes (which goes to show that you learn from your failures...).
Finally, the true final version:
Since I used 5mm EVA foam (I ran out of 10mm), I doubled the edges that form the outline of the lips so I could round them with the Dremel. The hollows that form a kind of suture are made with a woodburner.
I had a little debate about teeth or no teeth? Open Mouth: Jack is most often shown with teeth, but it's an element I find pretty ugly, to be honest. Since I opted for a half-open mouth, I decided not to do the teeth.
Once the shape was ok, all that remained was the primers and the painting, which is extremely simplistic since it's white everywhere and black in the hollows of the mouth. I deliberately didn't use any shadows or anything else to keep with the film's very "puppet" feel:
Finally, I had to fill the holes so my head couldn't be seen through them, while still trying to see through enough to put one foot in front of the other... As with the mayor, I glued mesh fabric over the mouth and eyes:
- The bow tie:
I made the bow tie last, so pressed for time, and I don't have a lot of progress photos.
Jack's bow tie has a kind of pointy wing and a creature's head. Originally, according to the screenshots, in the film it was supposed to be a bat, but over time it changed into a kind of cat, including on official merchandise.
So for the head, I started by making a basic shape with a polystyrene half-sphere (the remaining halves of the Mayor's eyes, by the way), aluminium foil, and 2mm foam for the ears:
Then the whole thing was covered, in several passes, with EVA foam clay, to gradually form the details. A first layer to cover the surface:
Then a second for the details, but I don't have a photo.
The eyes were modelled separately and then added during the second pass to avoid distorting them while modelling the eyelids.
Nothing too exciting for the bow's wings, since they are a shape cut from 3mm foam, painted black, and then striped with white. With the assembled head, it looks like this:
4. Sewing
For Jack's costume, I found a pattern by Simplicity, specifically for Jack. Only the edges of the collar and the tails needed to be modified.
That's if you forget the fact that I ordered the pattern in a large size (44-52), and a men's size 44 is very, very far from my measurements.
Of course, I only realised this when I was cutting the pieces.
And it was impossible to find the pattern in smaller sizes, except on American Etsy shops that didn't ship to France.
Of course!
So I took it upon myself to retrace all the pieces, removing four sizes to try to get a rough 36 to adjust once the pieces were built:
I also modified the collar piece, which made a parentheses-shaped collar and not a classic jacket collar with its notch, and the tailcoat, which had two arrow-shaped panels instead of the slats of Jack's costume.
To top it all off, the fabric I had ordered, which I knew was stretchy, turned out to be... Lycra. Not the best fabric for a fitted jacket, then...
Sewing Jack was a series of adjustments here and there, firstly to adapt the costume to my size, but mainly because, according to TheMom, sewing this fabric was like sewing wet seaweed; it slipped all over the place and therefore didn't always fit properly.
The final version is okay, although the tailcoat slats crease a bit, but Lycra was definitely not a suitable fabric.
And so, the final result:
Conclusion
While writing this making-of, I feel like I haven't worked on Jack enough, that everything is summarised very quickly. Probably because there are few steps in the making, but they were very long... Overall, I'm satisfied with my costume. It's difficult to capture Jack's body shape in cosplay, even when choosing to wear platform heels, shaping shorts, and raising his head as much as possible…
Jack was very well received at Herofestival, and I received quite a few compliments. I was even told it was better than the one at Disneyland (but personally, I find Jack's costume from the park very ugly, so it's hard to do worse...).
For each making-of cosplay, I highlight one or more negative points, and on the contrary, I try to find at least one positive element.
What I would do differently:
- The choice of fabric! If I had to do it again, I'd look for another fabric the minute I received the one I ordered, which turned out to be Lycra.
- There are few elements, so it's hard to be critical, but if I have to do it again, I'll improve the paint on the gloves.
- And I'll try to make Zero too.
What I like:
- The head is pretty faithful to the original. I don't deserve much credit since I based it on an existing pattern that I modified a bit, but I still like it.
______________
A little "Come on, let's improve" to add Zero is tempting...
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