A.H. – Page 6 – Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy

AgriCorps Jedi impression (2023) – soft kit

Somehow, it’s been almost seven years since I first entertained the idea of doing first-person interpretive workshops in the Star Wars setting, and since then my various portrayals have evolved quite a lot! Although a reenacting kit is never ‘finished’—but I’m a perfectionist who likes to wait until something is complete before sharing (hence why I rarely share full-kit updates! – see the problem here?)—I want to try and lay out each of my ‘complete kits’ in their most up-to-date form, summarizing the background research and justifications for choices that I’ve made to create each impression. All of this is intended to serve as an example of what solid, research-based fictional living history looks like. Because they will inevitably get pushed down the blog’s front page, these posts will be collected at the new PERSONAS AND IMPRESSIONS page ^above^!

I want to start with the impression that first got me thinking about ‘doing Star Wars‘ in a reenacting/living history sense – a ‘washout Jedi’ member of the Agricultural Service Corps.

Galactic Style Guide – Colored Lenses & Visors

Welcome to another installment of our ‘Galactic Style Guide counterpoint’ subseries, where we help you strengthen your ‘Star Wars eye’ by highlighting and remedying common costuming faux pas that can make an outfit look Not Star Warsy. As part of the GSG, the ultimate goal is still to help you create a more accurate ‘outer persona’ – but we approach the goal from the opposite direction!
In past entries, we’ve looked at things that aren’t really part of the typical ‘galactic aesthetic’: bright colors, visible fasteners, overly-designed patchwork clothing, etc. This month, we’re going to focus on an element of character design which is present in the visual record, but which has a very specific pattern of usage and which is far overrepresented in the fan-costuming community.

Good reenacting—fictional or historical—typically deals less with the elites of a given culture/period/setting, and more with accurately representing the experience of its common people. Since the current paradigm of Star Wars ‘Original Character’ costuming seems to entirely revolve around 3D printing, armor, and helmets, if you want to create an armored or helmeted ‘OC’ that will faithfully represent a typical galactic inhabitant, then listen up and read on!

There’s one easy way to tell at a glance if an armored Star Wars character is somehow SPECIAL: just look at their helmet! If the lenses or visor are anything other than plain black*, you can bet money that they’re some sort of elite. Some examples from the good old EU:

Shae Visla (**Mandalore** the Avenger!), Utapau shadow scouts/Clone shadow trooper, clone commandos, **Commander** Gree and 41st scout trooper (*Episode III*), shadow trooper, shadow EVO trooper, and Emperor’s Shadow Guard (*The Force Unleashed*)

Notice anything?

Keep reading for recent post-disney examples, and analysis!

Diamonds in the Rough – Mandalorian foundling

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 is actually a bit of a carry-over from last month, because while building his own Mandalorian ‘Kryos’ kit, T.H. also created a simple but highly-effective outfit for his own youngling at home:

Less is more!

Drawing on history

Back in 2015, a museum exhibit in Belarus showed off a set of reconstructed costumes from early medieval (8th-12th centuries CE) Baltic cultures. Shortly afterwards, the outfits began making the rounds online, eventually getting shared to a Middle-earth reenactment group I’m a part of. We all thought they were very impressive: inspiring examples of what culturally-cohesive outfits can look like. Then, a year or two ago, I saw the exact same pictures again—but this time in a Batuu-bounding group on facebook! There, they were prefaced with a message like, “check these out – wouldn’t these make great bounding outfits?!”

While they are still great outfits, as-is, I had to disagree with the idea that they would be appropriate for GFFA use. As Doug Chiang pointed out in a recent interview, the thing that makes Star Wars feel so authentic as a setting is the eclectic use of mix-and-matched historical inspirations* (thanks largely to John Mollo’s foundational designs)—not merely using unmodified, straight-up historical ensembles! [As it’s pure gold, I’ve included Doug’s full quote at the end of this post, so keep reading.]
However, I could definitely see the appeal, especially in the outfits’ silhouettes, and challenged myself to apply a GFFA lens to the Baltic costumes and see if I couldn’t bring them nearer to the Star Wars aesthetic. I challenge you to try the same thing with other historical styles you may be inspired to use in your own outfit!

Let’s start with the red kit first. My main method used was to try and find an in-universe equivalent to each item:

Diamonds in the Rough – ‘Kryos’

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 learning from T.H., who has taken skills he honed as a historic reenactor and applied them to the GFFA setting, to great success with his excellent Mandalorian kit, ‘Kryos’:

When asked about his initial inspiration for this character design, TH says he was born in winter and has always felt a connection to snow, so creating a snow-based kit was only logical! As we would expect, the snowtroopers of Episode V were a big influence.
TH began the creation of this outfit by looking to “many influences”, not only the aforementioned snowtroopers, but also Echo Base rebels, other ‘arctic Mandalorian’ fan costumes, and real-world cultures from harsh climates, like historic Scandinavians. While he admitted that many of these inspirations didn’t end up in the final costume, as he says, “the research helps in getting on the right path.”

more insights in the full interview

Galactic Style Guide – Footwear II

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the monthly series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! In this entry, we’re continuing our look at the great variety of galactic footwear seen in live-action sources.
If you’re not able to acquire taller boots but still want to get a Star Warsy silhouette, our first two categories are great options!

**Puttees/leg wraps/winningas:** Luke Skywalker (0 BBY), ‘Galen Erso’, unidentified Warrick Davis character (Episode I), Anakin Skywalker, Wald (32 BBY), Owen Lars (19 BBY), Padme Naberrie (?)

many more examples below (some you may have in your closet right now!)

Diamonds in the Rough – the ‘Normandy Quarren’

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 very fortunate to bring you a look inside the French organization Transfert à Ord Mantell. The group is made up of several traditional (historic) reenactors who have applied their skills at reenacting to the galactic setting. When the photoset from their recent Normandy beach shoot hit the interwebs last month, it made quite a splash, and I knew I just HAD to pick their brains and learn more!

While there was obviously a lot of high-standard work on display, as the majority were existing character types (Imperial officer, stormtroopers, mudtrooper, scout trooper, a lowly rebel technician) or a known character (Boba Fett), the one that really caught my eye was their original Quarren character design:

what is it that makes this design WORK so well?

Galactic Style Guide – Footwear I

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the monthly series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! It’s taken us a few years to get here, but in this entry, we’re finally taking a look at the one element a good costume literally stands upon – shoes! There’s a lot to unpack here, so our first two entries will look at live-action sources, and the third will cover visual examples from EU sources.

I’ve done my best to break these down by category, but my research library is far from exhaustive!; these are mostly drawn from the Complete Visual Dictionary (DK) and Alinger’s SWCOT. (Even if I could afford a copy, Trisha Biggar’s Dressing a Galaxy is not as useful for those of us interested in ‘common’ galactic folk…plus, the prevalence of characters wearing long robes means we don’t often see any footwear anyway!).
Let’s get started by looking at what it seems just about everybody wears in the Galactic Civil War era:

**Riding boots**: Biggs Darklighter, Ben Kenobi, Dannik Jerriko, the Tonnika sisters, Han Solo;
Rebel pilots (0 BBY), Luke Skywalker (medal ceremony), Bespin wing guard, Alliance generals, Luke (4 ABY), Bib Fortuna

I didn’t include them here (because…y’know, space-fascism), but I should note that most ranking Imperials wear similar boots. If you’re portraying a character in the Civil War period, you really can’t go wrong with something tall, black, and shiny!

Plenty more examples within!

An Introduction to Galactic Glamping: laid-back camping in a galaxy far far away

Hello there! Instead of a fresh entry in the Diamonds in the Rough series, this week I’m happy to present a guest post, courtesy of Anders of DT Blasterworks. Be sure to read to the end to learn about an exciting upcoming Star Wars reenacting event!

The intent of “Galactic Glamping” is to have a fun, relaxed, car-camping experience while enjoying the Star Wars aesthetic: it’s another way to enjoy cosplay outside of the confines of a hotel or convention center and really get in touch with the way the characters interact with their environment. In this primer, we’ll go over the look of the gear and equipment you should be using, some good in-universe food and snack ideas, and general recommendations. The most important thing about this is comfort and convenience—by not having to carry everything in on your back, and instead letting your “speeder” carry your gear, you aren’t limited to lightweight, small items. You can bring that heavy tent, use hard-sided containers like footlockers and coolers to transport your stuff, and cook a good meal out there!

Luke may have been “roughing it”, but his campsite is a great example of what this activity can look like!

Learn more about galactic glamping within!

Galactic Style Guide – Good Greeble Guidelines

Happy New Year’s Eve, and welcome to another installment of our ‘Galactic Style Guide counterpoint’ subseries, where we help you strengthen your ‘Star Wars eye’ by highlighting and remedying common costuming faux pas that can make an outfit look Not Star Warsy. As part of the GSG, the ultimate goal is still to help you create a more accurate ‘outer persona’ – but we approach the goal from the opposite direction!

Although notably absent in the original film (and the Prequels), the pieces of wearable technology discussed in this early Style Guide entry have become nearly ubiquitous in the post-Disney era and among the casual costuming/Batuu-bounding communities. These devices’ purposes have been inconsistently identified, but most sources suggest they are either communication devices or personal transponders—think a wearable ‘Personal Locator Beacon’. (These differ from the plaques worn by Imperial and Rebel officers throughout the Original Trilogy, which clearly served to denote the wearer’s rank, and about which this article is not concerned!)

Despite being fairly limited in the visual record, “jacket greeblies” are frequently relied on by costumers to add ‘GFFA spice’ to an outfit, and the proliferation of 3D printing in the last decade has unleashed a flood of fan-made iterations of these wearable doodads. However, not all fan-made greeblies are created equal, so I wanted to try and ‘crack the code’ to see what makes the onscreen examples ‘work’ and some fan designs work…not so well.

It is important to note that when they show up in Episodes V and VI, we really only see these devices worn by Rebel Alliance personnel (with one possible underwhelming exception). If we look at our samples, we note that those from Empire are constructed in a different manner than those seen in Jedi: while they were kitbashed originally, the pieces worn onscreen were resin casts (Alinger, 86), which is perfect for outfitting dozens of background troops but limits the amount of detail seen on the final product:

Continue reading to learn the secrets of designing good greeblies!