crafting – Page 2 – Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy

SWLH 2023-24 site update

Dear readers: happy new year! – I hope your 2024 is off to a good start and holds good times in store!
I want to begin by apologizing for my lack of engagement with this blog over the last season or two.
Whenever one tries to pursue a hobby into something more than a hobby, the threat of burnout is constant, and sadly—despite being a decently-successful member of its Maker community—my mental health when it comes to the Galaxy Far, Far Away took a definite downturn over this past year. (What I really need is to just stay off Star Wars Instagram, which typically takes just a couple swipes to alternately deflate my self-confidence, inflame my inferiority complex, zap my motivation, and/or raise my blood pressure! (Now there are some topics in serious need of unpacking!)

So then, what have I been up to?

-After spending most of 2023 sewing a succession of vest commissions for folks lucky enough to experience the short-lived Galactic Starcruiser (with a particularly hectic late-summer rush to outfit several final-voyage travelers), I had to return to a more conventional job for a steadier (and larger) source of income. Sewing-for-hire is great, and I love seeing my customers get to live their adventures wearing clothes I made for them, but it can’t quite pay the bills (at least not yet)!
Bike-commuting to/from and working a 9-to-5, detail-oriented, standing-desk job demands a totally different kind of energy than full-time crafting, and as a result I’m usually pretty wiped out when I come home, and after household chores, cooking dinner, and giving my partner and doggo the attention they deserve, there’s often very little time for galactic pursuits and other fun! Lately, I’ve been taking a break from the GFFA in favor of indulging my inner six-year-old by building out my herd of Jurassic Park dinosaurs (often repainted and retooled for scientific accuracy, naturally!).

-Just after Halloween I was approached by the host of the Into a Larger World podcast, who had found this blog and wanted to hear all about my approach to the GFFA. Eventually, we were able to chat and record an episode, which you can check out here! It was a ton of fun to sit down and actually talk Star Wars with another person for a change!

-Then there was my annual fall trek with the Middle-earth Reenactment Society, preparations for which took up every moment of free time for the better part of a week. (This time, we decided to do a paddle-in campout, which meant I had to get creative and tackle some major, long-overdue renovations to my rawhide canoe.)

On the way back home from the wilderness trip, I managed to snag something I’d had my eye out for (at least) the last six months – an old Wedge Antilles pilot helmet from Hasbro’s Black Series.
Why? Because OT flyboys are where it’s at! Yep, that’s right, I’ve been on hiatus long enough to almost finish building a whole new kit!

As I’m currently in the grasp of a polar vortex, we’re stuck waiting on warmer temperatures to return so I can properly weather it and finish up a few pieces, but I’m almost there – and you can be sure a full breakdown will be published in future posts!

So, what does 2024 hold in store for this site? I’m still trying to fight the good fight, and have several Galactic Style Guide entries in the works. I’d still like to do some costumer spotlight-interviews if possible, and I should definitely have some finally-finished projects to show off fairly soon! On the Offworld Outfitters side of things, once we get our Mark 3 vest pattern knocked out (third time’s the charm!), I would like to reopen my commissions, but likely on a more limited scale—ideally, something like one a month or so. I also have plans for a couple of non-vest offerings to put out there—but those announcements will have to wait until the time is right 😉

What are your GFFA costuming/reenacting/living history goals for 2024? Let me know in a comment below, or come chat with us on the SWLH facebook group!

Diamonds in the Rough – Colin “OddViking” Adams (part 2)

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 is the second half of our two-part interview with Colin Adams, and after digging deep into the design stages in last month’s entry, we’re ready to follow along as he starts his actual build process!

When first considering this project, Colin said he knew how to sew “at a moderate level”, and knew there were other folks who made custom Mando-style flightsuits. However, he also knew that if he was able to attempt this and succeed at it, not only could he learn some new skills, but he would also be able to alter and tailor it himself! I’ve always been a big fan of Lev Vygotsky’s ‘ZPD’ theory when applied to reenacting-crafting, and it helps to choose projects which not only build on one’s existing skills but which can help push them to the next level – but not to bite off something completely outside your existing skillset! If you’ve never touched a needle and thread before, sewing something as complex as a screen-quality flightsuit for your first project would likely result in you getting frustrated and giving up. There are no ‘skip three levels ahead’ cheat codes IRL, so it pays to work smart, start small, and build on what you already know! Looking back on his project, Colin said that while things like setting a zipper fly were so much more complex than they seemed at first, “I feel like I leveled up two levels doing this suit: it really came out great and fits me perfectly.”

the secrets of authentic Star Warsy crafting continue…

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

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 – 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!

Diamonds in the Rough – Scott Bowen

As you might imagine, Scott’s initial inspiration for this character design was the ur-Rodian example, GREEDO! His goal had a challenge embedded, however: not only to create an original Rodian character, but also to try and stick to Greedo’s iconic orange/teal/yellow colorscheme. As we will see, he definitely succeeds!

read the complete interview!

Diamonds in the Rough: Sean S

read the full interview!

Diamonds in the Rough: Buck

Welcome back to our monthly spotlight series! In this feature, we talk with Star Wars costumers who help illustrate what high-quality, in-universe costuming looks like, and provide some insights into their character creations!
This time around, we’re looking at ‘Buck’ and his excellent custom Mandalorian kit!

Buck told me that his original inspiration for this outfit were the blue tones of Jango Fett and the Death Watch, with the hooded poncho coming from Bo Katan and the Nite Owls’ appearance in Season 7 of The Clone Wars.

When designing this kit, Buck referred to the excellent work of Brian Matyas (concept artist for The Mandalorian) to get the general aesthetic. As Matyas has a rock-solid grasp on what authentic Star Wars looks like, you’ll see no garish colors or high-contrast custom Mandos here!

HOW TO: DIY shemagh scarf

As we’ve seen before, scarves and headwraps are absolutely legitimate pieces of in-universe headwear, but if I had to make a list of commonly-seen ‘reenactorisms’ which have the power to derail my appreciation of an otherwise-solid GFFA outfit, an off-the-shelf, Earth-y, two-tone shemagh/keffiyeh headscarf would have to be near the top. _{(Also up there? Those zipper-covered, holster-wannabe, drop-leg fanny packs.)}
These items are super useful for all sorts of authentic adventuring uses besides looking cool and keeping the sun off one’s head (improvised gathering container, level-one water prefilter, bandage/sling, last-ditch cordage source, etc); however, your standard two-color shemagh has some issues.

–Visually, prints or busy motifs are rarely seen in GFFA ‘soft kit’ – solids are by far the rule. (Especially in the Classic Trilogy period; in the Prequels, more variation is seen, but this is typically accomplished by embroidered details, not the actual weaving.)
–Thematically, there’s nothing wrong with channeling an ethnic fashion sense for SW purposes…a good scarf or headwrap can make you feel like a romantic desert rebel (Lawrence of Arabia, the Fremen of Arrakis, etc) which is a perfectly valid GFFA character type! However, in the 21st century, mass-produced shemaghs have a tendency to feel more ‘tacticool prepper bro’ than ‘exotic native insurgent’.
–Politically (because of their association as a ‘tactical’ accessory), the shemagh has been embraced by various anti-democratic groups…and we absolutely want to distance ourselves from that kind of sithspit.

BUT what if I told you that for about the same price as an Amazon-bought shemagh, you could make your own headscarf that’s even better? If you want to easily level up your Star Wars costuming and gain some DIY XP, read on!

get started on an Easy afternoon project

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:

read the full interview and see this kit’s evolution!