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
K98 Mauser triple pouch

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!

Artifact ID: Podracer power cell

It’s a hit!

I had written about this prop years ago, but that was really just noticing that the item Qui-Gon hands Anakin was the same as one in the Episode I Racer game:

Well, last week I decided to enlist the help of the prop hive-mind and posted a thread on the RPF seeking help in identifying this piece, and in a surprisingly rapid timeframe, one of the respondents had it pinned down!

What is it?! And where can I get one?

A295 rifle conversion update 3

The pandemic project saga continues! Last time I checked in, I was stuck at bottlenecks on the remaining stock, scope, and magazine fronts that kept me from proceeding, but after my usual lull, I again have something worth sharing!

-the StG’s wooden stock needed to be replaced with a metal ‘T’ stock; and as my potential welding instructor is in the COVID high-risk category, I outsourced this element to a machinist friend of mine.

Continue reading “A295 rifle conversion update 3”

A295 rifle conversion update 2

Quarantine projects continue! It took a while to figure out and execute, but after my usual lull, I again have something worth sharing! While molding and casting the familiar V8 greeblies on the front of the receiver was pretty straightforward, these side greeblies on the rear receiver were another story.
a295sidegreebs Continue reading “A295 rifle conversion update 2”

A295 rifle conversion update

The quarantine project queue continues apace! It’s been a couple months since I started my functional A295 blaster rifle project, so I thought it was time for an update on how things are progressing.
Since I’m not scratchbuilding a prop gun, the steps to convert from StG44 to A295 are actually relatively simple, and most everything is reversible:

-Step 1: cut off the protruding rod* (okay, that one’s not reversible 😉

gas20200307
*fun fact: since it doesn’t have a cleaning rod or ramrod, this post originally allowed three soldiers to make a tripod and keep their rifles out of the muck.

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In search of the functional ‘blaster’ rifle

If you’ve been wondering why I haven’t posted in far too many weeks, this is one of the reasons. Don’t worry, projects are proceeding apace!
A295-StG44 Hothrifle*I use EU terminology. If you’re into post-Disney stuff, just replace any instance of ‘A295’ in the following with ‘A280C’*

About a year back, I began toying with the idea of retooling my SKS into a more GFFA-style slugthrower. Eventually, though, I had to resign myself to the limitations of the Simonov platform, and abandoned the idea. However, a few weeks ago, someone in the Endor Commando facebook group was seeking help on a A280 prop rifle they were planning…and I got the bug again. I never liked the looks of the Endor rifle…it just seemed clunky and ugly to me (the alternate version with the triangle buttstock especially so) – give me an A295 Hoth rifle any day!
A280 a295Owing also to having more time onscreen and the easier availability of the base gun*, I see way more prop A280s online. At the same, I got to thinking about what folks these days could use to build an A295 prop out of, and one fellow pointed out the most accurate base rifle would be AGM’s all-metal electric airsoft StG44, which retails for $235; he commented that it would be awfully expensive “for something you will be cutting up” for a prop rifle. I agreed, but this led me to my next question: well, what if you were cutting it up, but it was still a functional rifle? And just out of curiosity, how cheap could I do it for?
Continue reading “In search of the functional ‘blaster’ rifle”

Artifact ID: G3 cleaning kit

Our Rogue One identification series continues, with a very useful–and very accessible–piece of German hardware that you can use to diversify your Star Wars-reenacting ‘hard kit’.R1 G3box
Credit for this goes to German contributor ‘T.K.’, whose eagle eyes were able to identify the gray-and-yellow box on the shoulder of ‘Cassian Andor’ as a familiar bit of Deutschland militaria.
Continue reading “Artifact ID: G3 cleaning kit”

Artifact ID: Donovian Rainmen revisited

As we stand on the threshold of 2019, I hope that this blog will help inspire more of you to use this year to break out of the limiting ‘cosplay box’, and experience the Star Wars galaxy in the most authentic way you can! This is a follow up to a post I made almost exactly a year (51 weeks!) ago, which identified several items of European military surplus used to outfit some Episode II background extras portraying a crew of ‘Donovian Rainmen’:
rainmen1_AotCVD
This post would not be possible without the help of one T.K., who reached out from Germany and was kind enough to supply a list of several more items from the various films that he has identified, including several from our friends the Rainmen! T.K.’s observations are backed up by actively serving in the German Bundeswehr (Army) – so he has had first-hand experience with many of these pieces of gear. Continue reading “Artifact ID: Donovian Rainmen revisited”