January 2021 – Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy

Galactic Style Guide – Hats I

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, 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 taking things from the top and talking Hats!
Our main cast of characters tend to go hatless, but for secondary and background characters, hats are very commonplace. While certain styles tend to work better with certain settings, covering your head in some way is a great way to remind your audience that you are portraying an inhabitant of the Galaxy Far Far Away.
When I put a call out to the SWLH facebook group for style suggestions, the immediate first response was ‘Caps with flaps!’. As this type of hat is readily available as military surplus, such hats are a no-brainer way to make yourself quickly blend into the galactic populace:

Jedi Temple guards (3653 BBY), Grotto Werribee, Donovian ‘rainman’, tramper, Suu Lawquane concept; Pfilbee Jhorn, Alliance cold-weather troopers, Echo Base hangar technicians, Benedict Vidkun.

It’s worth pointing out that the hats of the Hoth hangar techs are essentially a WW2 US Navy deck hat, so if you’re handy with a sewing machine, stick around at the end for a free pattern.

On the subject of bounty hunting ‘trophies’

As I’ve talked about a few times before, when reenacting any setting (historic or fictional) one of the best ways to add depth to an impression is by including small details or items of ‘pocket trash’! One of the ideas I frequently see discussed in online Star Wars cosplay circles is the idea of ‘hunting trophies’, and a recent thread made me realize I definitely have some thoughts on the subject!

Whether it’s bones and claws from critters, crystals from Jedi lightsabers, battle droid fingers, or actual lightsabers, the notion that a bounty hunter or mercenary character should have a collection of tchotchkes taken from past kills dangling from their belt, blaster, or backpack is one of those trends that the costuming community has really latched onto. However, I submit that this type of decoration is A) actually an impediment to such work, and B) a fan reenactorism not seen in either primary or secondary sources. Be sure to stick around til the end for some ideas on how to more authentically portray these kinds of character in true ‘living history’ style!

Even more galactic whittling: Gozanti cruiser

Amazing what a transformation a coat of paint can accomplish!

For my latest ‘galactic folk art’ adventure, I decided to make a civilian-model Gozanti cruiser, partially inspired by the post-Disney Imperial incarnation featured in ‘The Heiress’. This ship has been around since at least 32 BBY (its first appearance was taking off outside Mos Espa in Episode I), so it’s a solid fit for any of my personas to carry in a pocket:

Whenever I’m feeling stressed out, in a funk, or down on myself (usually after spending too much time on social media and comparing my own slow progress and accomplishments with other folks’ flashy projects!), I find a great coping mechanism is to pick up some small project that can be completed with short turnaround. Whittling is a great choice for these kinds of projects, as I find the act of whittling by itself to be very grounding and meditative. However, the ‘in the flow’ quality of the work means that I always forget to take in-progress pictures, reinforcing my FOMO of not keeping up with the social media Joneses! (Aaahh, what difficult-to-navigate times we live in. 😉

Searching for AgriCorps style

It’s somehow been several (4.5?!) years since first I first ventured forth to do some first-person galactic interpretation, and as you would expect in a hobby geared towards constant tinkering and improvement, I’ve made plenty of changes to that impression since then. In the coming months, I plan to roll out some ‘complete kit’ breakdowns for my various Star Wars living-history personas. In the case of my ex-Agricultural Corps Jedi impression, I realized that a kit breakdown wouldn’t be the right place for fully detailing the research that went into said impression…especially since I portray him long after the Corps has been dissolved!
What’s more, a recent addition to our community in the SWLH facebook group expressed great interest in pursuing an AgriCorps impression, so I wanted to use this post and lay out the few bits of information I’ve been able to dig up–not only for their benefit, but for anyone else who might be thinking about such a persona. If you have an interest in gardening, botany, biology, geology, or environmental science and want to apply it to the Galaxy Far Far Away, consider the AgriCorps!

Compared to the larger Order as a whole, our sample size of analyzable visual examples for the Service Corps (and AgriCorps specifically) is a miniscule—only nine.

This generic Mohawk’d fellow comes from the Power of the Jedi Sourcebook (2002), while The Jedi Path (circa 115 BBY) gives us six more individuals, plus a generic Service Corps member:

Thoughts on ‘The Rescue’

Aaaand just like that, I think I’m done. Erm, I meant…Welcome back to my commentary series on Season 2 of The Mandalorian; for this installment we’re breaking down the Season 2 finale, Chapter 16 ‘ The Rescue’.

We open with Slave 1 chasing a Lambda-class shuttle, and wasn’t it nice to hear those high-pitched lasers again? We see the inside of the shuttle, and it was amazing how much more open the cockpit feels versus what we saw in Episode VI—is it something to do with being widescreen, depth of field, or is the set here just twice as big? It just feels like we’re seeing two totally different ships to me.