Firefly Costume: Ariel EMT Part I
Friday, April 18th, 2008 by tcgThe first step in every costume endeavor is deciding who or what you want to be. Make a list of three or four ideas. Then narrow it down to one choice by looking at the time and skill level involved.
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I wanted to do something recognizable to a particular fandom, but unique enough that there wouldn’t be 100 of us. ManWithPez suggested the Ariel EMTs from the series Firefly. An excellent choice. Not only is ‘Ariel’ a great episode, but the costumes require minimal sewing. And among the fans, high recognition.
The next step is finding reference pictures. I used screen captures from www.Still-flying.net. Comic books, trade books, stills, and screencaps are excellent reference sources.
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Please choose your references carefully. The lighting from the episode was blue and antiseptic, giving the patches a purple hue. I had started making the patches when it occurred to me to check the companion books. The Firefly Companion showed one of the patches and it was more red than purple. I don’t know if they used the red or if it was a mock. Oh well. I can live with the purple.
The hard part was the lettering. From Firefly translation sites, I knew it meant ‘nurse’. But I still didn’t have a clean shot of the characters. I copied the fancy calligraphy version from the translation site then changed the font style in an editing program. From there I cleaned up the lines and played with the round letters until I felt they looked liked the ones on the uniforms. I’ll share that with you so you don’t have to worry about it.
The last step today is making a plan. Analyze your costume head to toe. Begin to make a list of supplies you’ll need. For the EMTs you’ll need:
Needle and thread: blue, black, grey.
Blue work coveralls
Silver reflective tape or stripping ~$2.50 a roll
Blue Medic vest ~$26
Work boots or tennis shoes (dark neutral color)
Blue cap
Blue undershirt
Felt 5 for $1: purple
Fabric paint*: black, grey/silver (reflective is important), and white/opal (reflective is important)
ID badge holder
Pen light 6 pack for $6
Misc medic gear
Walkie talkie or Radio
Ariel Ambulance 
*I painted the patches, but you can embroider them if you prefer.
Gather your gear and I’ll see you next week for Part II.
Continue reading… Part I | Part II | Part III
April 21st, 2008 at 11:14 am
Interesting post! You and Pez look very official. Looking foward to rest of the Ariel series.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:31 am
I’ve decided to go ahead and make the new patches. It will also give me a chance to take some nice sequence shots.
April 26th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Awesome costume. All you need is a green screen and a HD image from the DVD to make an awesome image.
Here are some videos from YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6brdwY-dvU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2yja9-TcDo&feature=user
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:58 pm
[…] a three-part series, TCG shows you what materials to gather, how to put it all together — with pictures of the […]
May 31st, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Great stuff! Although, I recently located the original vest used for the episode. It is manufactured by DynaMed and it is referred to as an EMS Utility Vest. This link takes you to the cheapest place I’ve found it yet…
http://www.galls.com/style.html?assort=general_catalog&style=EV004&cat=3157
June 1st, 2008 at 12:42 am
The patches are actually purple. The show’s lighting is rather true to the coloring.
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:31 am
In the visual guide to the show, I don’t know why, but they do look red. Maybe it was a lighting thing when they were taking pictures for the book.
As for the real vest…We found it when we were making the costume, but the cost was a bit prohibitive. TCG was able to make the cheaper vest look pretty convincing.