Tag: interview

I did a podcast!

Last month I was very fortunate to be approached by Kara DJ of the Into A Larger World podcast, who stumbled upon this site and was very intrigued by what we aspire to do here. A few weeks later, I was able to sit down and chat with Kara for a bit about my long, convoluted journey to where we are today, and I’m happy to announce that the episode is now available for your listening pleasure:

After you’re done, follow her instagram and then give the rest of her episodes a listen! As someone who also thrives on research and deep-dives, I really dig what she’s doing and think it’s a really cool show – so check it out!
If you have your own podcast and are curious about just what sets ‘living history’ apart from cosplay or other Costumed Arts activities, I’d love to chat with you too, so just drop a comment below, or hit the Contact button above and we’ll be in touch. MTFBWY!

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

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!

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?

Diamonds in the Rough – Scott Bowen

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 looking at Scott Bowen’s excellent original Rodian character, ‘Bossome Scow’:

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

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 Sean S., who portrays the Rodian pirate, ‘Xetrax’:

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!

Continue reading “Diamonds in the Rough: Buck”

Diamonds in the Rough: Max

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 two Halcyon cruisers, Max and his wife, about the creation of their excellent smuggler/civilian outfits!

Special shout-outs this month to Doremy and Renee for their generous donations to help out the site – you all rock! 🙂 If you like this series and would like to support my work as well, consider contributing below!

While I personally avoid the divergent creative and aesthetic decisions of the post-Disney era, these outfits are still quite representative of the general galactic style and worth showing off!
read the full interview!

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!