common – Page 3 – Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy

Building the Alliance pilot – Part 1: Concept

It may certainly have been a while since I had a new kit built to break down, but I think I finally picked a real winner with this one! As I mentioned recently, I’d apparently been toying with the idea of assembling a proper Rebel Alliance Pilot kit for a while now: at the end of last April it was an idle fancy, by May, I was highly considering it, and by the end of June I had actively started pricing and sourcing the components!

When I was first entertaining the idea, I experienced a funny, unfamiliar feeling. I’ve become SO used to having to do actual research/work—decide on a home planet, find references to extrapolate the local style, draft patterns, create garments, etc.—for my typical ‘Original Character’ impression/persona that an Alliance pilot (made up of specific elements without much room for customization) feels like just a series of boxes to check off. However, I figured I had already acquired three of the biggest elements (flightsuit, boots, and vest) over the years for use in other kits (because they’re no-nonsense, commonly-seen-in-universe pieces that naturally lend themselves to mix-and-matching!), so why not take the next step and create a kit that would actually be recognizable to John Q Public with minimal explanation? Plus, since opportunities for doing SW living history continue to be pretty much non-existent in my sector, a pilot outfit might actually finally allow me to join up with the Rebel Legion – because none of my previous kits¹ quite jive with their current model!

Usually, whenever I see someone online who has put together a ‘custom pilot’ costume, it’s been prefaced by some variation of “I put my own spin on it!” and leans more on the OC’s go-to “wouldn’t it be cool if ___?”…. and thus the final result rarely ‘reads’ as “pilot”.
As should be clear by now, I have a really hard time going along with the crowd; however, as I hope I’ve also made clear, I believe a valid ‘middle way’ exists between the two extremes of the dogmatic “on-screen assemblages only!” Legion, and more casual, “anything goes, let your imagination run wild!”-type cosplay.
I don’t know how many hundred OT-era pilot cosplayers there are out there (easily 95% of these are X-wings), but I’ve yet to see one that didn’t follow these same old onscreen combinations of flightsuit color and helmet style:

As someone really interested in the early Rebellion period, I think switching things up to be a little less uniform helps underline the ‘ragtag’ nature of the Alliance. I’m sure there had to be pilots who joined up and brought their own personal flightsuits with them – I definitely remember some climate ‘direct actions’ where we street medics were literally told, “Sorry we don’t have any supplies for you, you’ll have to requisition your own or use what you have” and can easily imagine similar situations in the pilots’ ranks.
Obviously, I can’t resist pushing the boundaries of OT-era pilot style at least a little bit, but I’m not going to go so far outside the bounds that I no longer look like an OT-era pilot! (Now there’s a nice summary of the ‘middle way’ approach for you: do your research, push the boundaries, but stay within the guardrails!)
Luckily for me, I don’t have to feel like I’m sticking my neck out too far because an often-overlooked EU source did it first!

Channeling The starfighter game that time forgot!

Building the Inner Persona: pilot slang

Hello there and ‘May the Fourth be with you’! It’s been a while since we’ve had one of these ‘in-universe vocab’ entries, but in the course of my recent work on a pilot impression, I was reminded of this excellent set of terms, as found in The Essential Guide to Warfare, (p. 141):

3-9 line: A line across a fighter’s wings, based on an imaginary clock in which 12 is ahead of a fighter and 6 is behind. The goal of dogfighting is to keep bandits in front of one’s 3-9 line.

ACM: Aerial combat maneuvering, better known as dogfighting.

Bandit: A hostile fighter or starship.

Big L: Lightspeed.

Bingo: Having enough fuel for a safe return.

Bluelined: Disabled by an ion cannon blast.

keep reading for more terms to make you sound like a gffa stick jockey!

Galactic Style Guide – Capes and Cloaks I

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the 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 examining examples of capes and cloaks. (Robes—like those worn by the Jedi or Emperor Palpatine—have sleeves and will be covered in a future post!) Traditionally, a Cape will be shorter in length and made of more fashionable materials compared to the longer, more utilitarian Cloak, but I use them fairly interchangeably here.

Star Wars’ costume designs have always been a unique mixture of Spaghetti Western, 20th century militaria, Eastern/’exotic’, and medieval styles, and the use of capes/cloaks are largely responsible for the latter. With many cosplayers eager to add a little ‘swish’ to their outfits, I hope these posts will be of some use: because when inspiration is needed, it is best to go right to the source instead of to what others have done!

Let’s dive right in with the only guy (IMHO) who can compete with Han Solo in terms of style!

Biggs Darklighter shows up to his desert hometown rocking a solid black knee-length wool cape with a short standing collar (and no visible fasteners, naturally!). It doesn’t appear to be lined, so that great drape is due to it being a really solid weight of fabric. If it is lined, it’s in a pretty similar color or material (note also that this is a rare example of a ‘good guy’ character wearing a ‘bad guy’ color).
However, with the Anchorhead scenes on the cutting room floor, we have few major characters wearing these kinds of garments in the rest of the film.
The only one who really comes to mind is the Mos Eisley spy Garindan who wears a most interesting hooded cloak:

Unlike the rest of our examples, old Long-snoot’s hooded cloak is a one-piece, and I’d love to see what the overall shape of it is! Visually, we can deduce that he’s an antagonist (because the cloak is black!), and as we will come to expect, it’s made of wool in a nice weight, is a solid color, and unadorned.
Aside from Garindan, It’s not until we make it to Cloud City in the next installment that we find another cape in the foreground:

Breaking down lots more In-universe caped characters after the jump

Galactic Style Guide – Ammo belts and Pouches III

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the 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 concluding our examination of the various styles of belt gear and pouches seen onscreen by looking at Original and Prequel examples together – let’s get started! In the first two entries, we focused on military-surplus (or milsurp style) gear, so this time we’re looking at the few non-milsurp examples.

Our two male heroes have belt gear which seems military but (as far as I know) isn’t – if you can’t swing actual milsurp, you can’t go wrong with real, unadorned leather in one color, and minimal hardware (snaps and brass studs, at most):

One of the ‘Pruneface’ commandos in Episode VI has an intriguing cylindrical belt pouch, which I believe was also borrowed for Wilford Brimley’s character a few years later:

What do we think it is? Optic case of some sort? Milsurp or not?

One of the places where we see a decidedly different style in action is among the ‘scum and villany’ at Jabba’s palace. Let’s break it down:

Galactic Style Guide – Ammo belts and Pouches II

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the bimonthly series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! In our second entry looking at the various styles of belt pouches and bandoliers seen onscreen, we’re focusing on military surplus (and milsurp-style) examples as seen in the Prequel Trilogy.
Let’s begin (again!) on Tatooine!

Throughout Episode I, we see young Anakin Skywalker wearing one half of an Italian Army ammo pouch for the Carcano rifle (plus another mystery pouch):

Several of the background characters in Mos Espa have belt gear with ‘Lift The Dot’ fasteners; these appear to be a dual-magazine pouch very similar to this WW1-era pouch for the Colt 1911. As I discussed previously, I feel that these kinds of pouches are acceptable for outfitting far-background characters like these, but I feel they toe the line of ‘visible fasteners’. However, they’re usually very sturdily made to stand up to the rigors of authentic use, so if you are reenacting or doing living history with an audience inside the 10-foot line, it’s probably worthwhile to take the extra effort to cover them behind some canvas or webbing.

Jedwar Seelah, Chokk, and the unnamed Nikto podrace mechanics.

keep reading for more examples!

Galactic Style Guide – Ammo belts and Pouches I

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the bimonthly 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 taking a deep dive into a specific category of gear that plays a major role in creating the GFFA’s uniquely grounded, quasi-militaristic aesthetic – belt pouches! As a great number of Star Wars character designs utilize longer robes or tunics instead of more western/modern shirts and trousers (and thus are are sans pockets), it seems that even the most pedestrian costume designs are routinely festooned with a wide variety of semi-rigid containers for carrying small items!
Due to the great number of onscreen examples, I waffled back and forth for how best to organize and present them all. Eventually, I decided to break them down by real-world source (milsurp vs. non-milsurp) and era (Classic Trilogy vs. Prequels) within these categories. As usual, we’ll close with some important takeaways for those of you who may want to incorporate a pouch or two in your own kit to add some in-universe style points! Let’s begin (as we so often do) on Tatooine!

The first folks we see onscreen wearing military surplus are the Jawas, who set the trend for what follows. Much like the majority of base firearms used for blaster building, the Jawas’ belt gear is comprised of European ammunition pouches and bandoleers drawn from a period of roughly 1890 to 1945 CE.

Jawas and Tuskens are both seen using **British pattern 1903 bandoleers**

Farmboy Luke continues our trend of leather Euro milsurp pieces, sporting an interesting trio of belt pouches:

keep reading for more examples of authentic, in-universe belt gear!

Galactic Style Guide – Backpacks II

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the bimonthly 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 returning to our examination of in-universe backpacks, this time focusing on some less rigid examples, encompassing not just backpacks but also things like satchels and bedrolls.
As we said last month, this kind of unassuming and field-functional gear is woefully underrepresented among the GFFA costuming community (who tend to go for eye-catching and…less-than-functional). This is too bad, because a good pack can really elevate an impression and make it feel like a living, breathing kit and not just a costume: it shows the viewer “I am a real individual with needs beyond what I carry on my belt or in my pockets.”
Let’s dive in and get some ideas!

The softpack that gets the most screentime in the Lucas films is probably the one Luke totes Yoda around in during his Jedi training. As far as I know, nobody has yet identified it as a milsurp piece (though the buckles might be?) so it may have been made in-house for Episode V. If anyone has any details on it, please share them below in the comments!

keep reading for more in-universe backpack inspo

Galactic Style Guide – Backpacks I

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the bimonthly series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! This topic has been requested by several folks, so it’s been a long time coming. In this entry, we’re taking a look at an oft-overlooked category of gear, which can really elevate an impression and make it feel like a living, breathing kit. We’re talking about backpacks! Due to the sample size, I’ve decided to break this into two parts – one for ‘hard’ backpacks, and one (next month!) for softer packs.

Let’s go chronologically and kick things off with this paired bedroll-backpack from the old, Old Republic (Tales of the Jedi: Redemption #3). As usual, the cover art is far more evocative than the actual panels, but I include it here as the pack itself seems to be fairly structured:

The inclusion of a big ol’ wooly blanket/bedroll is not only appropriate given the hostile climate of Rhen Var, but also a very attainable piece of functional kit!

I’m sure there have to be other pre-Prequel-era examples, but I haven’t found them! If you know of any, please let me know below! Next, let’s move on to some liveaction hard packs.

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!

keep reading for the full breakdown and details

Galactic Style Guide – Ponchos II

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the bimonthly 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 ponchos, focusing on examples from the prequel era! (As a reminder: for our purposes, we’re defining a poncho as a garment worn as an outer layer for protection from the elements, which covers the front of the body).
Let’s keep things rolling with the poncho I think I would most want to curl up in:

Qui-Gon wears this poncho when venturing into Mos Espa in Episode I—the script specifying that he is “dressed as a moisture farmer”. Trisha Biggar notes that the coarse-weave is a silk/linen mix and that the border is “printed”—though I’m not sure what exactly that means (Dressing A Galaxy, p20).

Take a good look at that beautiful nubby texture!

keep reading for many more examples