October 2020 – Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy

Project: B1 battle droid arm (part 2)

Just in time for Halloween, I’m proud to finally be able to show off a project that’s downright skeletal!:

When we last checked in, my battle droid arm project had been printed, resin-filled, cleaned up and given a base coat of paint. Next came the fun part: assembly! To allow them the proper range of motion, the hand and forearm joints were articulated with turned pins and set screws, as it appears the original was made (although I have not yet added the tiny set screws in the fingers; my thumb can do more than just rotate in a circle, as it has an actual captive ball-and-socket):

As you can see, I really need to add some extra-grungy finger grime!

To really sell the artifact as a battlefield relic, I originally wanted to include some cables or wires poking out of the top of the shoulder, but my research turned up the surprising conclusion that such details wouldn’t be necessary.

My worry for The Mandalorian Season 2

(Don’t worry folks, your regularly-scheduled Saturday post is still coming, but since everyone and their mother is watching DisneyPlus today, I had to get this out there and off my chest)

After first approaching it with caution, by the end of its first season, I was 90% on-board with The Mandalorian…all the way up until the last shot with that stupid ‘darksaber’ (Pete the Retailer agrees). Then earlier this year, I started seeing second season rumour-mill headlines that Lucasfilm was bringing in Temuera Morrison to play Boba Fett, while all signs were pointing towards Rosario Dawson (of all people) playing a live-action Ahsoka Tano. A few weeks later, a rumour that they were also looking for a live-action ‘Ezra Bridger’ (whose SWarsy naming-game I’ve always thought was amazingly weak) from Rebels. WHY?

Galactic Style Guide – Vests II

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help You create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! For this month’s installment, we’re wrapping up our look at sleeveless or vest-type garments.

We’ll start off with some ‘common’ vests:

Mace Towani, Noa Briqualon (x3); Gela Yeens, Greedo, Kabe, Sai’torr Kal Fas, Bom Vimdin, Dr. Evazan; Lobot, Nien Nunb, Emon Azzameen, Thracken Sal-Solo, Corellian spacer, generic Colonist (FFG), Baldarek.

Upgrading the Rebel persona: captured armor

Reb-leg 202010-2 When I started putting together a Rebel partizan impression a few years back, I initially had the idea—inspired by real-life guerillas’ practice of appropriating enemy equipment—to include a piece or two of captured Imperial hardware in the kit. I was very aware of the temptation to overdo it…too many cosplayers let their imaginations run wild and pretty soon a simple ‘Rebel fighter’ costume becomes an unrealistically fully-armored supertrooper. Since s Alliance doctrine holds that “complete freedom of movement is more useful than the dubious protection provided by armor—which rarely stops a blaster bolt anyway” (WestEndGames, Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, p99), we don’t have a ton of examples of Rebels wearing extensive armor; even this more modern source depicts a Rebel ‘heavy’ gunner with only an arm’s worth of armor:

reb-heavy — FantasyFlightGames: *Age of Rebellion* – Forged in Battle, p 82

I reasoned that while a Rebel partizan would probably do most of their shooting from a prone position, anything to give an advantage in taking a stable shot would be desirable, so with this in mind (and to keep things simple), I decided to order a single Stormtrooper shin/calf from Walt’s Trooper Factory, along with a ‘sniper’ knee plate: Continue reading “Upgrading the Rebel persona: captured armor”

Building the Inner Persona: Similes

In this installment of the Inner Persona miniseries, we’ll continue to expand our mental ‘word-hoard’ by adding some galactic similes – phrases that compare things using like or as:

“as acquisitive as a Neimoidian” (Darth Plageius chapter 5)

“as ostentatious as a Hutt” (ibid)

“as slippery as a greased Dug” (Outbound Flight)

“as nervous as a Trandoshan in a wallet factory” (Outlander part 1)

“slick as a slime toad” (Jabba’s Game Galaxy)

“Green as a monkey-lizard” (ibid)

Staying true to the aesthetic

(I had originally scheduled this to post a few weeks from now, but since writing it the pitfalls described below keep popping up on my feed, so I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer.) After seeing more than my fair share of Star Wars costumers and their outfits online, I’ve noticed a particular trend in the last year or two across various social media platforms, mainly in the case of the Galaxy’s Edge-inspired/Batuu-bounding or OC crowd:

The desire to slap a Rebel Alliance starbird, Jedi crest, Sith symbol, Mickey Mouse, or Aurebesh letters on bloody everything seems very strong with this segment of the fandom, and the big driver of this, I think, is of course the consumer market. As a quick test, let’s do a image search for ‘Star Wars backpack’.