Clarke Griffin kom Skaikru (The 100) Bomber Jacket

by Willow Enright

Clarke Griffin from the CW's The 100

Clarke Griffin from the CW's The 100 has more outfits than she does plot lines. It certainly provides a vast array of cosplay ideas to choose from when creating your own Clarke. Since I'm making this Cosplay for my girlfriend, Erin, it was her choice and she decided to go with season two's classic quilted bomber jacket with all the blue accents. We'll be adding other ensemble pieces to this jacket to create the whole Clarke Griffin for Erin as a Cosplay character, but today I'm going to focus on her bomber jacket since this really is the main piece. 

Original BCBG Maxazria Black Faux Leather Quilted Bomber Jacket. I acquired it used on EBay.

Quilted Bomber Jacket before anything was done to it.

Original White Stripes

I happened across the BCBG Maxazria Black Faux Leather Quilted Bomber Jacket on Ebay by chance. When I saw it I knew I had to snag it to save myself the hassle of building the jacket by scratch since it was the perfect base starting point. Of course I scoured the internet in search of several reference photos to use before I began to actually transform it. I attempt to get pictures from all angles if possible to be sure that my reference is accurate enough. 

First coat of Angelus Blue Acrylic Leather Paint!

Very carefully coloring those white stripes.

The black piping detail was much easier to paint blue.

Since this jacket already had white accents where we needed to have blue ones, that's where I started. I used Angelus Blue Acrylic Leather Paint and craft paint brushes of various sizes to painstakingly make all the white areas blue. This took quite some time since you put on one coat of paint and then wait for it to dry before doing another, doing as many as are necessary to get the shade you want. I did 3 coats over the white until I was satisfied with the hue of blue. The black areas only required 2 coats to match the white stripes. For the horizontal arm bands on the sleeves I mixed Angelus Blue with a dab of Acrylic Heavy White to slightly lighten the blue to match the reference photos. The black faux leather only needed 1-2 coats of this color, especially since I wanted these arm bands to look more worn than the darker blue stripes. You can use a painter's tape when working on something this intricate to keep paint off the jacket and zippers, but I didn't simply because I knew that I would have to mess up my beautiful paint job in the end anyways. Once the initial transformation from white/black accents to blue ones was done I waited for it to fully dry, 24-48 hours. 

Blue stripes, horizontal and vertical and some accent piping.

Backside of mimicked spray painted blue highlights.

The next step was to add the blue highlights that appeared to be spray painted onto the jacket. For this step I again used Angelus Blue and Acrylic White only a very small amount on a sponge so that I could lightly dab it over the jacket, which I zipped over my body double so that I could see exactly where I was highlighting with the blue in comparison to my reference photos. I didn't blend the paint on the sponge but rather used a downward motion while dabbing with the sponge to mimic a spary paint can pattern. When I was done with the first pass, and while I waited for it to dry, I checked my reference shots again to see how accurate I was on the first blotching. I felt that it required more color so on my second blotching I used a medium amount of pressure to dab the same spots with more blue paint before leaving it to dry another 24 hours. 

Left shoulder patch made with Sharpie colored denium.

Clarke and Lexa (The 100) Shot of the detail on the right shoulder patch.

In the meantime I did some mild experimenting with different materials trying to figure out what would mimic Clarke's patches closely enough. For the left shoulder I found that using jean material would best match, only the scrap pair of jeans I had in my sewing scrap bin were blue. So, I took a good ol' Sharpie to the square of material transforming it into black denium. I left the edges to naturally fray, but colored them to match before hand sewing this patch into the diamond stitch pattern on the jacket. I realized after the fact that I didn't double check my reference picture, so my patch is diamond shape looking while Clarke's is actually a bit more square shaped... hence, the importance of checking your reference shots even when you think you know what you are doing. Alas. I wasn't going to undue all those hand stitches to turn it, so mine's a bit unique. 

Black Italian Lambskin painted with Angelus Silver Acrylic Leather Paint.

Hand stitched patch

The right shoulder patch was tricker to mimic because whatever the material was that was actually used in the T.V. show is unknown to me. I first tried bubble wrap painted silver thinking that using some sort of alternative material would be more post apocalyptic, but it was too obviously bubble wrap. In the end I used a black Italian Lambskin with a bubbled texture that I painted with Angelus Silver. However, I was careful not to paint the leather fully, leaving the black leather in the cracks of the design black for a more weathered appearance. After it was completely dry this patch was also hand stitched onto the right shoulder. 

Finished Bomber Jacket before final weathering

All that remains is the final weathering!

Antique Black Leather Stain was used on a sponge to go over areas of the blue stripes to add some additional weathering before leaving it to dry fully yet again. The painted areas were then treated with Chamberlain's Leather Milk no. 3 to help protect and perserve it so that when Erin takes it into the woods to give it that final weathering effect all my hard work won't be undone. 

​This is how I created Clarke Griffin kom Skaikru's post Apocalyptic bomber jacket! If you too are a fan of CW's The 100, which character have or would you like to do as a Cosplay? Stay tuned for more blogs as I will be working on more Clarke Griffin in the future, as well as Lexa kom Trikru! "Aai badan yu op en nou moun (I serve you but no other)!"