To use an archetype found in a remote repository, use the remoteRepositories property / parameter.
mvn archetype:create -DgroupId=[your group id] -DartifactId=[your artifact id] -DarchetypeGroupId=[group id of the remote archetype] -DarchetypeArtifactId=[artifact id of the remote archetype] -DarchetypeVersion=[version of the remote archetype] -DremoteRepositories=[urls of your remote repositories]
For example, if you want to use a remote.archetype.gid:remote-archetype-aid:1.0 to create a your.proj.gid:your-proj-aid project and that archetype is located at http://remote.archetypes.url, then your maven command would be
mvn archetype:create \ -DgroupId=your.proj.gid \ -DartifactId=your-proj-aid \ -DarchetypeGroupId=remote.archetype.gid \ -DarchetypeArtifactId=remote-archetype-aid \ -DarchetypeVersion=1.0 \ -DremoteRepositories=http://remote.archetypes.url
Moreover, you can specify several remote repositories by using a comma (,).
mvn archetype:create \ -DgroupId=your.proj.gid \ -DartifactId=your-proj-aid \ -DarchetypeGroupId=remote.archetype.gid \ -DarchetypeArtifactId=remote-archetype-aid \ -DarchetypeVersion=1.0 \ -DremoteRepositories=http://remote.archetypes.url,http://another.url
Furthermore, you can specify your remote repositories through a parent pom.
<project>
[...]
<packaging>pom</packaging>
[...]
<repositories>
<repository>
[...]
<id> [remote repository id] </id>
<url> [remote repository's url] </url>
[...]
</repository>
</repositories>
</project>