Welcome to the Farscape Peacekeeper Outfit Page

Since it premiered i've been wanting to make a peacekeeper outfit for a halloween costume. Well given some of the really good shots in the Season Two episodes, i've been able to create some base sketches.




The base of the costume is:
A black crew neck t-shirt
Black leather pants
Black boots (from what i've seen they look like military standard issue), half-calf high, lace up, polished to a shine.
Red Vest
Black Ankle length coat
Black belt with pouch and holster


How it looks: The Red Vest

Farscape show pics with the vest: 1, 2, 3




The sketches only show one half, but the items are symmetrical.

The areas in green are where black piping is used. Where the piping on the front meets the neck is the highest point on the neck, almost like its goes behind the neck (but doesn't)

The Grey is stitching in the leather, almost like a quilt has (creating texture i suppose). On the front of the vest the stitching goes straight vertical, on the back the stitching goes outward from the point at the back of the neck. The shoulders don't seem to have any stitching.

It looks like the vest is 9 pieces total: the collar, 2 front panels, 1 back panel, 2 shoulders, 2 sides, and 1 lower back. The 2 sides and lower back are a black shiny leather/vinyl, the rest is a deep red leather/vinyl.
Shoulders: Grab a shirt(t-shirt should be fine), notice the stitching at the shoulder - how it runs from your neck to your arm connecting to a sleeve, the point where the sleeve and this shoulder line meet, that should corespond to the point of your shoulder. The shoulders on this vest stop at this point (almost like a sleevless shirt). On the front the shoulder piece seems to stop about halfway to the armpit. On the back it seems to go all the way to the armpit.

The center piece on the back: Its hard to determine where the piece begins to arc in, but best guess would put it halfway along the piping (from the neck to the pit). The arc always goes inward, never outward, and stops at the middle of the back. When i say always goes inward i mean that the lines are always angled toward the center, though at points the angle isn't very sharp. Think of it as a giant U shape with the tops curved out.

Buckles: On the front of the vest there are 5 straps that start at the black piping along the edge of the red and stop about an inch from the center of the chest. At that point the buckles are attached. The buckles look like cheap plastic locking buckles you can find at most walmarts, targets, sewing shops, and some sporting good stores. They're the ones that you squeeze the two pieces together to get them apart, and they click when you lock them. Chances are you've got a backpack, school bag, or fanny pack with something similar. The male end goes on the wearer's left side.

Collar: It looks to be about an inch high with a single stitching along the center (around the neck) for texture. No piping on it.

Note: From the way it looks, the vest is suppose to be form fitting, my suggestion is to do the red parts as the pictures and sketches have them, and then use the black areas to adjust to the individuals figure.

How I made it:

First step: Measure myself. Now throughout this entire process a willing and knowledgeable assistant would have made the entire thing alot easier. If you've ever tried to measure yourself (and no, i don't mean that part) you know what i mean. Once i had my chest size, gut size, shoulder length, etc. I created a prototype of the vest using some cheap cloth i had. I started out with what i thought the width of each piece at the neck was and i sewed them together, note i'm only working with the red piece of the vest. Well if my neck was about 10 inches larger it would have been a perfect fit. So scrap that idea. I approached it from a different angle. I made the collar first. Once i had a collar that fit my neck almost perfectly (slightly larger since leather doesn't sit as tight as cloth). From the length of the collar piece i figured out the dimensions of the other pieces and put them together. 1 2 3 4 5

Once i had the piece together i had to make sure they sat correctly, once again an assistant would have made this alot easier. I ended up removing and replacing the shoulders cause they had the wrong angles at the shoulder point. After some trial, error, more trials and more errors i finally had the red pieces sitting and looking right. I cut some black cotton and used that to attach the sides and back. On the back at the base of the curved point i ended up resewing a few times till i got the stitching to look right. You kinda have to start from the middle and work your way out, it makes ti sit better. I then put it on inside out and held it closed while someone pin the seams to be more form fitting. Then i sewed along those seams and refitted it. Prototype was finished. It was then carefully disassembled and the pieces transfered to the leather and trigger cloth i had selected for the final project. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The final project started off pretty sucky. If you are going to use leather, get some soft garment grade leather. The stuff i got was a little too stiff for my liking. Also if you are going to sketch or trace on leather, use something that comes off easily - pencil, grease pencil or draw on the rough side. I in my infinite wisdom used a sharpie on the smooth side and screwed up. So i have two pieces that have black marker marks on them and not enough leather to replace them. Anyhow, i traced the pieces from the prototype. I should note that before i took the prototype apart i went around all the seams and trimmed them to roughly equal seam allowances (for those who are sewing declined, i made sure that the stitches were the same distance in on all parts, no sense wasting leather). Once traced and cut out, i attached the shoulders to the chest pieces, with a piece of black piping between. Then i attached the shoulders to the back and did a test fit. Every seem, except the collar gets black piping, even the edges of the shoulders. On the collar i sewed two pieces of leather, rough side out, together then turned them inside out and sewed about a half inch in from the inside seam. This creates a puffy edge at the top part of the collar. I then stuffed some piping in the neck and did a few more stitches to create a quilting effect. It didn't work as well i would have liked. I tried it on the chest pieces and on the back piece using some black fabric on the inside. I got some of the padded effect but not as much as the show version. On the chest piece vertical seams about an inch apart for the padding and on the back several on angles that seem to originate from the base of the neck. There arn't really many pictures of this but if you watch some of the episodes closely you can see what i'm talking about. Finally i attached the black pieces, leaving the seam along the side open till i was able to have it pinned to form fit. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

On the chest 5 sets of nylon webbing and strap latches were attached. I didn't use a specific measurement on them, but rather put on at the base, one near the top and put the other 3 equal distance in between. Now on mine the ends of the webbing were melted to prevent fraying, but while wearing it i would notice the edge sticking out a little bit. I might brush it with my arm or something. I'm thinking that you might do the webbing before assembling and run the webbing to the inside, but its just a thought. Finally i attached the collar. I flipped the collar so the inside of the collar (part that touches the neck) was out and layed it on the vest. Starting from the middle i sewed it onto the vest (i had to use a industrial sewing machine cause of the thickness). I then flipped the collar up and sewed it flat to the vest. This causes the collar to sit correctly and hide all the edges of the leather. Thats it. 1 2

These are pictures of the vest made by Strike Team props that I used to help figure out some of the stitches. 1 2 3 4 5

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The Over Coat

Farscape show pics with the coat: 1, 2



Black - Black shiny leather/vinyl, Dark Grey - Black cloth (wool?), Light Grey - Black straping

This coat has no collar, the collar of the vest should be exposed. From the pictures it looks like the collar of the coat is about 3/4 to 1 inch larger than the neck of the vest, allowing some of the red below the vest's collar to be seen.

The upper chest portion and the sleeves of the coat is a shiny leather, the rest (and i presume the back) are a dark fabric, probably wool.

The coat is ankle length, if you have an overcoat that fits pretty well you might wanna use that as a pattern. Be sure that any shoulder pads it has are removed (or taken into consideration) before making a pattern. The pics i've seen don't have puffy shoulders.

This coat only has 4 buckles, unlike the vest's 5, and the buckles themselves seem different. They are silver and look like a more ornate dress uniform type buckle. I don't really know how to describe them, so i'll leave it to your better judgement (you after all are probably gonna be wearing it).

This is probably a good point to mention where the straps attached to the buckles start. I've made a red line on my sketch that starts around the breast area and goes down, curving inward along the torso. This is a seam between the front panel and the sides. That seam is where the straps begin, following the curve inward in much the same way as the vest does.

Looks like the seam where the shoulder and the sleeve meet has black piping. Hard to tell for sure. Not sure how the cuffs are done either.




If you have a question or comment, drop me a line
Some source photos provided by Strike Team Props