Bump. I've been experimenting with his Green overcoat. Seems like the more you beat it up, the better it looks. What I did first is rather unorthodox. Please, no minors try what I have below without adult supervision. And for adults who do try this, please be careful, you can melt the coat and ruin it.
For starters I turned the whole thing inside out and took a lighter to the black felt inside. Don't linger to long as it can melt the outer part.
IMO the felt inside is to thick and makes his coat to bulky. If done right the felt burns off down to the material that the felt was attached to. IMO this let the whole coat hang better and got rid of some of the bulkiness.
Remember this is on the INSIDE of the coat on the Black material. Not on the outer part. I experimented a little bit with the flame and length of time the flame was on the material. A couple of areas it "just" started to get too hot and kind of scrunched the material up. This was the effect I wanted and looked pretty good but was to hard to control. Actually went a little to far on the left arm and melted 2 small holes. That's when I decided stop before I ruined the coat.
Next I took it to work for more fun. This stuff I did to the outer part of the coat. I used some rough emery on certain areas which roughed up the material. I tried to imagine what areas would take the most wear, and went from there.
We have a wire wheel on a pedestal grinder at work. I used that to GENTLY shred the very bottom of the coat. This would be the area that would drag when he walked. Some areas on the bottom I would wear through to the black material on the inside. These areas I burnt. I figured walking over a battlefied the bottome of his coat would get burnt from fires.
Lastly which I think benefitted the coat the most. I used our sandblast machine. I went slow as to not completely destroy the coat. I don't know what kind of media we are using in it so sorry. Kept doing a fine dusting front and back to the coat, and checking as I went. Again I went a little to hard on certain areas which may have took to much material off, but oddly enough I think it looks better. The best part of this was it got rid of all the gloss that was on the coat. It now looks to have an even flat finish on the coat.
I still think I am going to work on it some. I want to put some weathering on it. As I've said before, please no minors play with flames unless you have adult supervision. Anyone who tries anything like above, please take your time so you don't destroy his coat. I will try to take some pics but don't know how they will turn out.
