If you want to get some authentic ‘woods time’ in your GFFA pursuits, you’re eventually going to need something to haul your gear around. I’ve had this trusty 1950 pack (made, as far as I can tell, by Bergan’s of Norway?) for seven years now, and I’ve been tweaking it here and there almost since I bought it.
I thought it would be a good idea to share all the various mods and justifications I’ve made over the years to make it roughly fit the GFFA commoner’s ‘aesthetic’. Continue reading “Building the ‘Outer Persona’: Backpack”
Tag: common
Building the Sulon Rebel – 4: Soft kit
What follows is a breakdown of the practical kit I eventually assembled for a Rebel ‘partizan’ persona, based on Sulon around 4-5 years ABY.
I. Soft Kit:
When starting to plan out what clothes a Rebel partisan on Sulon would wear, I didn’t have a lot of reference material to build from; the three Dark Forces novellas are each illustrated by three different artists with wildly different styles, and as typical Star Wars media, tend not to focus on the mundane minutiae of everyday citizens.
This gave me a certain amount of freedom, but I still wanted to keep things fairly conservative while starting out (a wise approach to take while reenacting in general!) Continue reading “Building the Sulon Rebel – 4: Soft kit”
Developing the Rebel Persona – 3: Naming
When creating a new living history persona, I find that using a name similar to my own given name is a great way to strengthen my connection to the persona. In my main Middle-earth impression, I use the Gothic translation of my name, which isn’t too far off. While there are plenty of ‘Earth names’ present in the GFFA, I felt that mine probably wouldn’t be a good fit; in which case, I was stuck until I could come up with an appropriate in-universe name.
While there are a ton of ‘Star Wars Name Generators’ out there, most of them are pretty arbitrary, and usually come up with a list of names that uncreatively follow the ‘Obi-Wan’ pattern. They also never take cultural naming conventions into account—Rodian names are distinct from Twi’leks, who are distinct from Hutts, who are distinct from Corellian Humans, who are different from Naboo humans, who are…you get the point. Continue reading “Developing the Rebel Persona – 3: Naming”
Step 8 – refine refine refine!
Congratulations! You’ve taken your first step into a larger world! Now the real work fun begins–continued research, polishing, perfecting, and refining!
Ask more questions, have others ask questions of you, research answers, and improve!
Kids ask the darndest things, so bounce your persona off some younglings and learn what you need to fine-tune…they will quickly find any blind spots in your impression. At my last event, a young girl asked me what I ate…all I was able to come up with was “Errm…milk?…Errm, yeah, that’s right, blue milk!”…so, it is safe to say that I definitely need to research that topic!
Researching, compiling, and writing this site takes a lot of time and energy. If you’ve got this far and have enjoyed reading our First Steps series, have learned something, or will use it as inspiration when creating an impression of your own, please consider supporting my work with a small donation below! Thank you!
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Your contribution is greatly appreciated and will help me continue to keep this blog ad-free!
(Alternately, you can support my work via ko-fi as well.)
Step 7 – The Inner Persona
Hopefully you’ve now had a chance to take some time to Reflect and inhabit your impression. Ask your persona questions, and try to answer as they would. You may be surprised at what you learn!—people in the GFFA may hold different opinions than you!
I have found that persona-building questions such as those below are very useful tools to help more fully flesh out an impression. Hopefully you’ve followed best practices in living history and kept your persona ‘common’, but these will help fill in some blanks. Continue reading “Step 7 – The Inner Persona”
Step 3 – Who Are You? (Personas 101)
Folks who are new to living history (or the ‘costumed arts’ in general) may be surprised to see that Step Three isn’t ‘Go Out And Buy A Bunch Of Stuff’ or ‘Time to Start Sewing!’. Many reenactors have done that very thing, only to find that what they wound up with was A Bunch Of Stuff they didn’t really need once they got more involved in the hobby. At this point, you should simply take a deep breath, and read on!
Now that we have thought about the opportunities that exist around you (or ones you can create!)—the What—it is time to think about Who will be doing the What. It is time to pick a persona. What do we mean when we speak of a Persona? Simply, this is the individual that one ‘portrays’ in one’s ‘impression’ (this step is very similar to the character-creation process at the start of a role-playing game). Continue reading “Step 3 – Who Are You? (Personas 101)”
Step 2.5 – What Will You Do?
Before continuing, you should first decide what you are going to do when you are doing GFFA living-history. In other words, what form will it take?, and how involved will you be? When people are involved in these pursuits for non-fictional settings, we can usually group them in two types: ‘reenactors’, and ‘historical interpreters’. What’s the difference between these? As Master Townsend explains,
“A reenactor, in the truest sense of the word, is like a bit-role actor in a movie. They help fill out the set. Reenactors typically have no speaking role. They usually have limited direct public interaction.
Reenacting is a great entry point into Living History for beginners. You don’t have to develop a specific individual persona to reenact. While it can be the easiest method of Living History, it can be an expensive direction to go*, depending on the persona type one chooses to portray.”
*See the 501st for walking examples of this—a set of stormtrooper armor will set you back several paychecks, but once you assemble and put it on, all you have to do is walk around and you’re in business.
The analogy to background characters in a movie is especially apt in this case, as the background characters in Star Wars films are excellent inspirational examples. These extras don’t interact with the ‘public’—the film audience—but they really help sell the illusion that the Galaxy is a living, breathing, vibrant setting (now there’s a good homework assignment: pick a SW movie and pay attention only to the background characters! I’ve found this is easier with a foreign audio track turned on – if you’re not focused on the dialogue, you can use more ‘brain bandwidth’ for looking at details!).
Townsend’s explanation of a reenactor sounds very close to what a costumed fan already does at a convention—they are an appropriately-costumed warm body that stands around and gets photographed, and the depth of public interaction is shallow. When was the last time you asked a cosplayer what planet they were born on, or asked them what they’re carrying in their utility-belt pouches? Continue reading “Step 2.5 – What Will You Do?”
Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy 