Diamonds in the Rough – Keith Olsen

Welcome back to our monthly spotlight series, where we discuss Star Wars costumers who have ‘gone the distance’ and put in the effort to create solid, in-universe outfits or personas. This month’s entry comes from Keith Olsen, who has done his research to put together an excellent impression of a generic ‘Pyke Syndicate’ soldier.

As you can see, this build was initially inspired by the appearance of the Pykes as seen on ‘The Book of Boba Fett‘ (though as I’ll discuss in a bit, an animated-style Pyke would look quite different!), and as such is based at around 5 ABY.

Keith did a lot of old-school costume replication legwork – unless something goes on display for an exhibit, this typically involves very carefully scrutinizing screenshots – to determine the materials and types of clothing that could be bought off the shelf for this outfit.
Let’s examine the elements one by one!

-Shirt and pants are from Propper, so they’re functional clothing and intended for hard-wearing use.
-Boots are ICON Joker motorcycle boots (ditto the above); these may be discontinued as Keith noted that three vendors were sold out of his size.
-The belt is a Velcro tactical belt

Greeblies are 3D prints, designed by a 501st member

The cloak is made of screen-matched upholstery fabric, and the vest was a custom commission, though Keith said he’d like it to be slightly more accurate.

In total, Keith reported that the research and assembly of this outfit took about five months, and that some research is still ongoing (as we know well, in this hobby one’s outfit is really never ‘finished’ and tweaking is a continual process!). Personally, I would love to see this outfit after a year or two of wear-and-tear and some passes of subtle weathering!

All in all, Keith’s outfit is a textbook case of how to research and source accurate pieces in order to match an onscreen look. While those making ‘custom’ or ‘original character’ kits may have more freedom, if you want to recreate a generic, ‘representative’ character from a specific group or class, it really pays to stick to the reference material!

Keith has been working on some other really cool projects, so if you’d like to see more of his work, check him out on Instagram @olsendinozoo.

As a closing sidebar, I’d like to bring up something I find fascinating- the interplay between animation and live-action, and when designs cross from one medium to the other. In this case, the Pyke species first appeared in a 2013 arc of The Clone Wars, where they looked like this:

After the Disney purchase, their live-action counterparts look fairly different – the hexagonal head shape and dangling barbels remain, but the face area has been expanded and the overall head size greatly decreased:

In the future, I’d love to take a look at other times when animation goes live-action – are there any notable examples I should include?

I’m always on the lookout for future interviewees, so if you know a high-quality costumer you would like to nominate for this series, please get in touch or come discuss with us at the Star Wars Living History facebook community. See you next month for our next entry – you won’t want to miss it!

(Special thanks to this month’s supporters P.D. and R.F.! Writing this site takes a lot of time and energy. If you’ve enjoyed reading, have learned something from this post, or will use it as inspiration for your own outfit, please consider supporting my work via ko-fi, or with a small donation below! Thank you!