Tag: persona

Building the Rebel persona: 5.1a – ‘Endor Donut’ Helmet

After finishing construction of my Rebel ‘swoop’ helmet last July, I started to feel that it might not be the best fit for a Rebel militiaman on Sulon, or more specifically, that it wasn’t the most practical choice.

Although there are a few other designs from EU sources, the Rebels’ only other proper helmet we know from the films is that worn by the Rebel strike team as seen in Episode VI, so by September I had begun weighing the pros and cons.
EDHs Continue reading “Building the Rebel persona: 5.1a – ‘Endor Donut’ Helmet”

Differentiating the Jedi persona

This post is a follow up to my earlier musings on the trade-off between public recognizability and authenticity. After some careful consideration, I finally made some decisions that allow me to have my cake and eat it too, while also helping to better distinguish my Jedi persona as being based in the Imperial era.
darktimesjedi_plain Continue reading “Differentiating the Jedi persona”

Building the Inner Persona: Vocabulary

Updated terms in italics
One of the later steps (#7 of 8) in Townsend’s Getting Started series is the process of further developing one’s persona through building of the ‘inner persona’. This means going beyond the superficial outer persona (one’s clothes and gear), and better inhabiting the mental headspace of your chosen individual. One great way to do this is through the words we use for things.
For example, if I were portraying an American settler in the early 1700s, referring to the indigenous population as “Native Americans” would smack of modern political correctness; but to refer to them as “savages” or “naturals” would be quite appropriate. Likewise, to greet someone with the postmodern “Whatsup?” in a 19th century reenacting context would be quite jarring! Continue reading “Building the Inner Persona: Vocabulary”

Downsides to Research: Accuracy vs Recognition

As part of the research that yielded my Service Corps insignia patch, I came upon a detail that has led me to a dilemma.
In Part 2 of Daniel Wallace’s The Jedi Path, the various paths that a Jedi initiate may take are outlined: whether to go on to become a Padawan apprentice, to ‘wash out’ and join the Service Corps, or to leave the Order entirely and rejoin the ‘civilian’ galactic community.
In addition to the text, this is illustrated visually:
initiate_paths
From this depiction, it appears that the Service Corps (center bottom) is differentiated by use of less layers of clothing (forgoing the tabards in favor of a tunic only?). My question is: How representative or stylized is this image?.…The token AgriCorps guy with the Mohawk also looks to be going with a simple tunic-only outfit.
The Jedi Path, as an in-universe textbook, is supposedly dated to 115 BBY… BUT, the comic series Act on Instinct—set during the Clone Wars—depicts a young AgriCorps member, Sanya, who does appear to wear tabards:
Sanya
In fact, her outfit looks like a regular Prequel Jedi, just in navy blue, and with wrapped forearms. Additionally, this character would be about the same age as Silo, and so might be seen as the closest analogue to my persona?
However… Continue reading “Downsides to Research: Accuracy vs Recognition”

Research Pays Off: the Sulon-style Henley

As I continue to refine my personas, further recent research has turned up what I believe represents true Sulon local style for my Rebel impression. Per the live-action cutscenes in Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, we know that a Henley style shirt was worn by both Kyle and Morgan Katarn!:
MorganKKatarn henley buttonsThe hologram in question commemorates Kyle’s departure for the Imperial Academy, c. 4 BBY, and he also wears a roughly similar style nine years later in 5 ABY, possibly as a throwback or in recognition of his Sulon upbringing? Continue reading “Research Pays Off: the Sulon-style Henley”

Building the Rebel Persona – 5: Hard Kit

#1 Helmet:
This is my take on a standard Rebel ‘swoop’ helmet as featured in Episode IV, but which has been commonly depicted in various planetside conflicts in plenty of secondary materials. It is made using the Pepakura technique (cardstock hardened with fiberglass resin and Bondo putty).
(Full, detailed account of construction found here).
20170717_210859

Naturally, we have zero hard references to specific gear that local Rebel cells received from Alliance Ordnance and Supply, so I don’t know how appropriate the swoop helmet is for my context—versus something like the ‘Endor donut’ helmet. My main issue with the swoop helmet is that the light color clearly stands out in outdoor settings (although it’s still frequently shown worn in such settings), but I’m hesitant about painting it a light brown or something, which might deviate a bit too much from the accepted visual norm of what we’re used to seeing. Continue reading “Building the Rebel Persona – 5: Hard Kit”

Building the Sulon Rebel – 4: Soft kit

What follows is a breakdown of the practical kit I eventually assembled for a Rebel ‘partizan’ persona, based on Sulon around 4-5 years ABY.

I. Soft Kit:

When starting to plan out what clothes a Rebel partisan on Sulon would wear, I didn’t have a lot of reference material to build from; the three Dark Forces novellas are each illustrated by three different artists with wildly different styles, and as typical Star Wars media, tend not to focus on the mundane minutiae of everyday citizens.
This gave me a certain amount of freedom, but I still wanted to keep things fairly conservative while starting out (a wise approach to take while reenacting in general!) Continue reading “Building the Sulon Rebel – 4: Soft kit”

Developing the Rebel Persona – 3: Naming

When creating a new living history persona, I find that using a name similar to my own given name is a great way to strengthen my connection to the persona. In my main Middle-earth impression, I use the Gothic translation of my name, which isn’t too far off. While there are plenty of ‘Earth names’ present in the GFFA, I felt that mine probably wouldn’t be a good fit; in which case, I was stuck until I could come up with an appropriate in-universe name.

While there are a ton of ‘Star Wars Name Generators’ out there, most of them are pretty arbitrary, and usually come up with a list of names that uncreatively follow the ‘Obi-Wan’ pattern. They also never take cultural naming conventions into account—Rodian names are distinct from Twi’leks, who are distinct from Hutts, who are distinct from Corellian Humans, who are different from Naboo humans, who are…you get the point. Continue reading “Developing the Rebel Persona – 3: Naming”

Developing the Rebel Persona – 2: Homeworld

When building a persona from scratch, a few basic questions must be answered before getting too far ahead of oneself:
WHO would this be?: Some sort of generic partisan Rebel from a local Sector Force.
WHEN were they be?: Galactic Civil War period—which, properly speaking, limits us to the 2BBY-5ABY period.
WHERE did they live or come from?:   ?????

This last one had me stumped—I may have had a whole galaxy to pick from, but I naturally wanted a degree of verisimilitude in my choice. I’m from (and most likely to operate in) a temperate, deciduous biome, so I knew I wouldn’t be picking a desert or ice planet, but unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of planets in the GFFA that resemble eastern North America! Continue reading “Developing the Rebel Persona – 2: Homeworld”

Developing the Rebel Persona – 1: Groundwork

After getting my AgriCorps Jedi impression mostly ironed out last year, I started kicking around the idea of picking up a second persona, something Rebel Alliance-related during the Galactic Civil War period (because that’s Where It’s At, of course!). Eventually, after some quality research time and a bit of creative synthesis, I came up with something that I think works just fine. Continue reading “Developing the Rebel Persona – 1: Groundwork”