Sanctuary Base 6 Suit By alternatecoppa Watch

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Finally here we go, a set of turn-arounds of my SB6 space suit from the Doctor Who episodes "Impossible Planet/Satan Pit" and "Waters of Mars."



I thought this one was going to be easy. Most of the parts are found & bought items, primary of which is the orange pumpkin suit itself which comes from a US costume maker who supplied several suits to be used in the show. Little did I know what I was in for...



The pocket/pouches had no zippers. The velcro leg strips were on the wrong leg. It was 10 times WAY too large for any human to fit into (despite that David Tennant is indeed taller than me). Finally, worst of all, it came with NASA patches HOT GLUED on the front of it. No returns were accepted and I was left with a VERY expensive costume that had to be seam-ripped apart, re-sized, re-cut, sewn back together with additional hours spent scraping hot glue out of the fibers.



Ironically enough, I got to meet the actual costume designer from the Doctor Who series, Louise Page, at the 2010 Gallifrey One convention and she & I got to talk about this very costume when I wore it to her panel. It went something like this:



Louise: That looks great! Did you make it all yourself?



Me: I might as well have for all the trouble it cost me but no, I bought it from...



Louise (cutting me off): Spacetoys.com?



Me: Yep that's the one.



Louise: Oh what a NIGHTMARE!



It turns out the suits she bought from them were really cheap (in quality, not price) as well and came apart the first day they sized them. Her experience with their customer service was just as deeply unpleasant too. In the end she told me that to get a filmable suit they had to take apart the Spacetoys suits, use them as patterns and remade their own from the same type of fabric. Pretty much the same thing I had to do! That kinda made all the stress seem a bit more worth it to know I was in good company with what I went through.



Other sourced parts of the costume are: Salomon snowboard boots, Extremities ice gloves and a Black Diamond body harness.



Custom-made parts include: Hand sewn wrist gauntlets for the gloves, cuffed sleeves, shoulder straps, a zipper cover for the neck, and embroidered patches for the chest & arm.

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Published : Mar 3, 2010