milsurp – Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy

Building the Alliance pilot – Part 2: Soft Kit

In our last post, I laid out my plan to push the boundaries of Original Trilogy pilot style in a simple, believable way: take the iconic ANH look and swap the orange flightsuit for a tan one. It may be a minor change, but it’s also an effective one – let’s get started and break it down layer by layer!

The flightsuit in question is my old tan standby from Wampawear – originally purchased for a hypothetical New Republic Archeological Corps shovel bum impression. That may have fizzled out, but the elements I initially gathered for it are as solid as ever. All the weathering you see is 100% honest and natural: every time over the last 4 or 5 years when I’ve had to work on my car (oil changes, brakes, pushing out dents, lug stud swaps, etc.) I’ve worn this flightsuit, and in the process have built up a really impressive pattern of real wear in authentic places. In person it’s absolutely filthy looking, but on camera it just reads as extra well-used. I hesitate to wash it because I’m so pleased with the patina but I’m also aware that doing so would probably be good for the garment. If I do, it will likely just be handwashed with little (if any) detergent.
(Boots are Finnish military jackboots I snagged from Varusteleka years ago.)

From the beginning, the ejection harness was one component I really wanted to do in as authentic or realistic a manner as possible. While it’s an obvious stylistic homage to the parachute harnesses of WW2, it doesn’t quite make much sense—there’s just not that much to it, comparably. Apparently, Rebel Legion folks just safety pin or Velcro the naked top end of their harness webbing to the flak vest or flight suit, which I find completely un-immersive! I wanted this to really feel like a piece of in-universe military gear – one I wouldn’t be afraid to be seen suiting up in – so I came up with a simple over-the-shoulder design that would still remain unseen under the shoulders of the flak vest.

Continue getting dressed, pilot-style!

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 – Ponchos 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’! It’s been a minute since our last entry in this series, but here on the last weekend of Star Wars Month, we’re taking a look at examples of garments which have been part of the GFFA look since the very beginning: ponchos! For our purposes, we’re defining a poncho as a garment worn as an outer layer for protection from the elements and which covers the front of the body; things like capes and cloaks tend to be open in the front and worn more for form than function (hence their frequent use by ‘classes’ like gamblers and politicians). As we’ll see, ponchos on the other hand are almost always associated with salt-of-the-earth folks who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Let’s dig in!

The first poncho we see in the Original Trilogy is worn by Luke as part of his farmboy attire:

While it’s a fun idea, as we’ll see next month, this is *not* Qui-Gon’s poncho.

more examples inside!

An Introduction to Galactic Glamping: laid-back camping in a galaxy far far away

Hello there! Instead of a fresh entry in the Diamonds in the Rough series, this week I’m happy to present a guest post, courtesy of Anders of DT Blasterworks. Be sure to read to the end to learn about an exciting upcoming Star Wars reenacting event!

The intent of “Galactic Glamping” is to have a fun, relaxed, car-camping experience while enjoying the Star Wars aesthetic: it’s another way to enjoy cosplay outside of the confines of a hotel or convention center and really get in touch with the way the characters interact with their environment. In this primer, we’ll go over the look of the gear and equipment you should be using, some good in-universe food and snack ideas, and general recommendations. The most important thing about this is comfort and convenience—by not having to carry everything in on your back, and instead letting your “speeder” carry your gear, you aren’t limited to lightweight, small items. You can bring that heavy tent, use hard-sided containers like footlockers and coolers to transport your stuff, and cook a good meal out there!

Luke may have been “roughing it”, but his campsite is a great example of what this activity can look like!

Learn more about galactic glamping within!

Upgrading the Rebel persona: flak vest

As the name of the game in rigorous reenacting is ‘continual improvement’, I’m always on the lookout for things to help add some depth or otherwise level-up my impressions. While Rebel characters typically steer away from the plastoid armor side of things, I realized that the ribbed vests worn by various characters were probably meant to protect the vital organs and so would be perfect for a partisan persona as well!

Rebel pilots, BoShek, Bossk; 1313 mercenaries, Ruusan rebel (Dave Dorman)

A few months ago, my buddy Anders (of DT Blasterworks) sent me a link to a lower-priced rebel pilot-style flak vest he was thinking about buying. Since my initial impetus for building a SectorForces partisan/guerilla kit was to pair Alliance-issued materiel with local planetary style, I had initially considered including one of these vests. The only one I had looked into was produced by Wampa Wear; at $125, while it’s probably—if anything like their flightsuits—extremely well-made and screen-accurate, I couldn’t justify paying that much for a purely costume piece…so the idea returned to the back burner.

However, Anders’ link (and his report that it was decent quality) renewed my interest, so at about 1/3^rd the price of a Wampa Wear vest, I pulled the trigger. Out of the package, I could tell the vest fell in the category of “close enough”, about which I’ve written before: presumably, there are variations on the flak vest throughout the galaxy, and they’re not all produced identically. All the same, I still wanted to try my hand at ‘accuratizing’ the cheapo vest to see if I couldn’t get it a little closer to Alliance specs, as a few things stood out to me that could use tweaking:

**The to-do list:**
-fix the diameter and spacing of the sewn channels
-bind the curved edges with twill tape
-replace the rear buckle
-replace the large side clasps (down the line)

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!