Diamonds in the Rough: Kristen Jones

Welcome back to our monthly spotlight series! In this feature, I interview Star Wars costumers who have ‘gone the distance’ and put in the effort to create solid, in-universe outfits or personas. This month we’re talking with Kristen Jones, co-founder of J&K Props, about the creation of her incredible desert nomad/bounty hunter impression:

Kristen said that her initial inspiration for this character design was a background character from ‘Episode 7’, named “Saarco Plank” – this inspiration is especially evident in the design of the faceplate and the overall color scheme:

Inspiration for the soft parts came more from other background characters in the Star Wars universe…especially those which inhabited desert places.
Kristen loved the idea of an anonymous-looking character who might be seated back in a dark corner of a cantina, but that we shouldn’t be able to work out their identity or any details about them simply by looking at them. The majority of her prop pieces were made in the time-honored tradition of kitbashing–which of course has had a strong influence on the look of the GFFA ever since the original film.

While not intentionally designed with a backstory/persona in mind, Kristen reports she is currently developing one – like her, a human female – but one who uses the outfit to hide this fact (similar to Leia’s Boussh disguise) and who is a resourceful scavenger/ huntress.

When I first came across it on the RPF, I was especially struck by the wonderful texture of her soft goods. Kristen told me that the maroon hood and skirt-wraps were made from handwoven natural fabric from Dharma Trading, whose desert-dweller texture was really brought out by washing and drying.
The rest of the outfit includes a black tunic made with JJ Industries’ Kylo Ren fabric and Po-Zu boots. As for hard elements, her chest plate is an upscaled and 3D-printed Mando hip plate, with a Boba Fett helmet ear piece on its face, accented by a blue LED light. The shoulder bells also come from a Din Djarin pattern, though downsized to fit better. The wrist bracers are Cara Dune pattern, with a Crossman pellet gun reflex sight mounted on the left one.
As we should expect from a high-quality kit like this, military surplus plays a big role: the ammo pouches are for M1 Carbine mags, and the shoulder bag is an ComBloc AK-47 ammo bag.
Kristen’s blaster rifle was kitbashed using a Kodiak pump-action paintball gun, with a stock made from a 2×6, a Nerf gun magazine, and a couple of stunt pegs from her son’s bike! Her blaster pistol was made from a Daisy BB gun, with an air tank inlet from a paintball gun for a scope.
True to her scavenger persona, the cylinders on her belt and right boot are firing bolts taken from old paintball guns!
Her backpack, on the other hand, was completely scratch built, while the various containers on it were 3D printed.
The centerpiece of this kit – the faceplate- was also the first element she made, using four US military MSA gas mask lenses, cut, ground and glued together to form the “face”. The rest of the helmet was made from scrap bits of leather, various bits from her junk drawer, plus some extra parts from the gas masks.

As I would expect with such an intricate costume build, Kristen says construction took her around 2 years total: back in 2020 “it looked like a tall Jawa” . Since then it has evolved to the point that she has several different ways to wear it by switching out key parts for others to give a different look.

A desert dweller like this character needs plenty of weathering to sell the look, which Kristen breaks down thusly:
“For the helmet, armour parts, and ammo belt, I used a combination of silver paint (for metal chipping) cast iron stove polish (for dirt and grime) and airbrushed inks (for weathering the armour). The soft parts were washed several times to encourage fraying at the edges, and were dirtied up with multicoloured textured spray paints in both Desert Sand and Rustic Umber colours.”

When it comes to functionality, Kristen reports that in addition to the ammo belts and satchel her backpack and holster could also be used in real life, and that she wears the boots pretty often as part of her day-to-day wear. One of the things that I have always appreciated about the Star Wars look is how practical it is – especially if your kit includes milsurp items which can often be used for their intended purpose!

Since a good reenactor’s kit is never really ‘finished’, Kristen has a couple of upgrades in mind: making a custom wig with distinctive style to wear when the helmet is off, as well as exploring adding a few more armor pieces.

When asked about what topics or subjects she might address or teach with her nomad kit, Kristen said that she would most likely focus on how she relied upon her own imagination to craft the ensemble—how her imagination supposed she would have assembled it herself from whatever she could scavenge—and how important it is when creating a cohesive character design to take these things into account, and endeavoring to show the observer who you are through the things you wear.

You can find Kristen on instagram @jandkprops!

If you know of a costumer whom you would like to nominate for inclusion in this series, please feel free to leave a comment below or come join the discussion at the SWLH facebook group! See you next month for another Diamond in the Rough!

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