Endor trooper vest

With all my planned project for the year done I felt it was time to go back and do some updates on old costumes instead. One of those updates that I've been thinking about for quite a long time is the Endor trooper. I consider that I have the bare basic trooper, but I've always wanted to add more things to it. Since I prefer to sew the easiest thing to do in order to upgrade it was to add the Endor vest to the costume.

You can see the vest on at least three of the guys in this picture, two are wearing it over the snow jacket, and the bearded man in the front is wearing it directly over the long sleeved t-shirt. There aren't a lot of good pictures online of the vest, but there is a full body picture and some concept sketces of it in the Star Wars Costumes - Original Trilogy book. It is basically the same vest as the one Leia is wearing under her poncho.

There is also a tutorial for the vest available here, and the pattern pieces that are used in the tutorial can be found via the Rebel Legion forum. I decided not to use the tutorial or the pattern though. There are some inaccuracies in the pattern, and the tutorial is made for a lined vest, while I decided that my with the fabric I had a fully lined vest would be too bulky and heavy.

The fabric is a quite heavy cotton/poly twill in beige.

I started the pattern by tracing the pattern off my Endor jacket, since the vest will be worn over it I figured I could just as well do that.

With the back and front pieces up I pinned tracing paper on them and simply freehanded where I wanted the sleeve, pockets and details on the front to be.

Up until this point I had followed the instructions on the tutorial I linked to above. Looking at  more reference pictures there were a couple of things I realized I needd to change. The vest is a lot shorter than planned, and the gap between the padded section (the pattern tissue at the front top) and the pocket is very small. More importantly though is that the padded section isn't just an added decoration on the right side, it's a yoke that goes all around the neck, the only thing is that he left side isn't quilted.

This is my pattern for the joke. Going from just a right front piece to a full joke led to some fabric issues though. I had bought enough fabric to be able to line the vest, but when I decided not to do that I had promised to make a vest for a friend out of the leftover material. I did manage to fiddle with the fabric, and by making one of the yokes in two pieces, with the seam hidden by the quilting, I did get two yokes out of what I had left of the fabric.

I cut out a piece of batting with the same pattern as the yoke and basted it to the main vest. I then sewed the yoke piece on over the batting and on to the vest.

In order to hide the batting at the bottom edges of the yoke I turned the yoke fabric in under the batting and sewed it on.

Since the quilted part of the vest goes from the back over the shoulder and on to the vest it was hard to figure out the placement of the seams with the pattern flat. In the end the easiest thing was to pin a piece of tape where I wanted it to go, from the back to the front, and use that as a reference line. Then 

I marked out where I wanted the seams to go, as you can see they look curved when flat but they look straight when the vest is on. I quilted the right side, but the left is just the padded. One thing that happened with the padding was that the whole vest got really stiff, I feel like a hockey player with really large shoulder protections in it. I think that I would recommend a batting that is thinner, or simply use a layer of felt rather than padding. My Endor Leia vest is a lot thinner and uses felt instead.

While working with the vest I kept having a feeling that it looked to shiny and new, and the Endor trooper is supposed to be dirty and worn. At this stage I also happened to have a full day of doing laundry, so while doing my regular laundry I threw the two vests and all the pieces of fabric that I had left into the zink with some mild bleach. After two rounds the colour hadn't changed much, except on the wrong side of the fabric, but the whole look of the fabric was a lot more faded, it simply looked more worn. I am thinking about actually throwing the vest in for yet another period in the bleach, but I haven't decided yet.

In order to finish the vests I had to use the scraps that I had left. In hindsight I think the vest would look better with lined sleeves, but there wasn't enough fabric for that. To finish the sleeves/armholes I cut a straight piece of fabric as a facing, and the same goes for the front facings as well. I did get manage to piece together two smaller bias cut strips for the neck facing. The waist band is simply the leftovers that I cut off from the vest when I shortened it. That means that there are seams in the waistband, but it was the only way I could get a strip of fabric that was long enough.

This is the finished vest.

Comic Con Gamex 2015, Stockholm, Sweden

The Stockholm Comic Con Gamex was held for the second year, well Gamex is older, but the adding of Comic Con was made last year. I definitely think this is the main pop culture event of the year in Sweden. It's a great mix of film, games, panels, cosplay shows and a lot of people. I would say it was even too many people on Saturday, wen this picture was taken. Then it was almost impossible to move around on the floor. This year it was held in a new venue, the Friend's Arena. The Arena is the national football stadium, so the convention was built on a floor over the pitch. This also made for interesting stages for the panels, since they used the seats around the pitch for the main stages and jsut had them separated by temporary walls from the rest of the arena. Overall I thought it worked really well actually.

I had gone to a friend outside Gävle, Valbo to be exact, already on Thursday evening, so on early Friday morning we drove off so that we were at the arena in Stockholm by 8. The Nordic Legions were there with a stand and I trooped by being in the photostand and take part in the parades. On Friday I wore my Endor Leia, with the helmet since I didn’t want to fuzz with the hair. The Comic Con audience is a bit different from the regular sci fi cons though, so not too many people wanted to pay for taking a photo with us. It was planned that I would be in the stand quite a lot in my handmaiden together with an R2 droid and Queen Amidala. The girl doing Amidala had suffered an allergic reaction though and couldn’t wear any face make up. So we tried to just have the handmaiden and droid in the stand, but people were totally uninterested. For the rest of the weekend my handmaiden was switched for Wall-E, since he’s a lot more popular.

On Friday I also had a panel about make-up and hair. It went ok, but people were clearly more interested when I had my wigs with me and showed how you could style them, rather than going through the Amidala make-up. I think if I’m going to do a panel like that in the future it would be best to just concentrate on hairstyles, and try to show some more example than just the cinnamon buns.

I also had time to look at the qualification for the Swedish Cosplay Championships, or at least the run through of the contestants. I watched the different cosplay competitions all days, but this is where I really show my total illiteracy when it comes to games and manga/anime. I hardly recognized anyone, except for the Elsa.

It was interesting to see a competition where performance is an important part of the competition, but to be honest I thought it was more interesting to see the competition on Saturday when they just went up to the stage and showed some poses. 

Saturday was really crowded, I didn't have any scheduled trooping to do, except for the parades, that meant that I had time for just some fun. I had brought my Rarity costume with me, and in the crowds it was nice to have a costume that is quite cool, except for the wig.

I had even remembered to bring Opal with me, I forgot her at Närcon this summer, and I met a really nice looking Dischord on the floor. I had hoped for more MLP cosplays though. 

For shoes I used my Leia boots, and I thought they looked great for Rarity, and they are comfy so that's always a plus for a cosplay.

On the con floor I also found a really nice looking Rey from The Force Awakens.

We quickly recruited her for the The Force Awakens photo shoot that me and Björn, the Nordic Base’s Han Solo, wanted to do at the end of the day. We had to wait until the end of the day since he needed to put some grey in his hair, and had to wait until after he was done in the photo stand. Micke of the R2 builders in Sweden had done a BB8, and Sigge also had a droid from TFA, so together we quickly gathered all the TFA characters and droids we could find.

Me and Björn also took the chance to recreate that one Han/Leia shot from the TFA trailer.

On Sunday we were all quite tired, the after troop dinner on Saturday had been a really quiet affair and we were all in bed before 22 I think. It's great to have a really comfortable costume to fall back too on the third day of trooping, so I went as Endor trooper the whole day. 

Me and Ingeli, the CO of the Nordic Garrison, had a talk about "Ladies of the Legions - Star Wars and female cosplay" and I think there were definitely a couple of seriously intersted people, the kind that might actually think about joining the legions in the future.

As I've mentioned I'm really not into games, but it's impossible to not notice that the game Star Wars Battlefront will be released in a couple of weeks, and it's produced by a Swedish company. This also had the effect that for once people thought that a lone Endor trooper was pretty cool as well, I heard a few "wow, that's a costume from Battlefront" around me. The Battlefront stand, where you could play the beta of the game, had a huge backdrop, with an Endor trooper facing an ATAT walker, so I ended Sunday with taking my chance of making the backdrop three dimensional.

All in all this was one of the funniest conventions in a long time. I don't think I've ever had so many fun photo oppturnities, both as Rarity, Leia and Endor trooper. The Comic Con Gamex is definitely turning into one of my main events of the year.

My costumes at Celebration Anaheim

Costumes are one of the best things about Celebrations, it's just wonderful to see all the talent and creativity that are out there. My main costume was the gold handmaiden costume, and I did manage to finish it in time. I will try to do some more posts about finishing it, but since I was stressed at the end I didn't take a lot of photos.

I wore the handmaiden on the first day, so that I could bring it to the Rebel Legion Galactic Senate Detachment photo, that's the subgroup for senatorial and royal costumes.

I was happy to have my photo taken with "my" Amidala.

Wearing a corseted velvet hood and robe in the sun and heat was too much though, so even if I had planned to wear it the whole day I changed into my Endor Trooper for the rest of the day. It also wasn't easy to walk in it. The round circle held it's shape pretty well when I was standing, but I need to make it sturdier to I can kick it away from my feet when walking. I have an idea on how I can manage that though.

That evening the Rebel Legion and 501st Legion had a social event in the evening, and my Celebration/Convention companion David had come up with the idea that we should really dress up for the occasion, and so we did. It was a lot of fun, and that ballgown is a bit heavy, but it's perfect for travelling since it doesn't wrinkle at all.

On Friday it was the main Rebel Legion photo, and I wore the handmaiden for that, but then quickly changed into the Endor Trooper again. I love the Endor trooper at cons, it's so comfortable and has a lot of pockets for all the things you need to carry with you. In the afternoon I took part of the Rebel Legion Trooper march, where we trooped all through the convention centre in formation. I hadn't brought my backpack, and I have lost my wrist comm so I felt a bit underdressed, compared to the other troopers, but I got inspired to continue to add things to it.

Ready to march

On Friday it was also the Cosplay Contest, but I didn't go to it. I was part of a panel called "Ladies of the Legions" - about female Star Wars costuming and it was scheduled against the cosplay contest. In the panel we talked about opportunities, challenges and problemsolving revolving around female costuming.

The Running of the Hoods crashing our panel

 
Saturday was the day for the 501st photo shoot, so I had slated Saturday to be jawa day. Then I got scheduled to do a Queen Amidala make up presentation for Saturday as well. Then Del Rey, the publisher company for Star Wars books, had declared Saturday to be Aaron Allston appreciation day, and they were having an Aaron Allston tribute panel. Aaron Allston was a wonderful authour and person that passed away too soon. Since he was known for always wearing awful shirts one way of honouring him was to wear a hawaii shirt. That total mash up made me run around like this all day. The tiara was added when I looked myself in the mirror in the morning and I realised that I looked really silly and needed something to just top off the look, thankfully there was a Disney/Souvenir store in the hotel.

It was really comfy though, the jawa costume isn't very hot when you don't wear the mask, so this is definitely a costume that I'm going to develope for future cons. Well the Queen I'majawa look, not necessarily the hawaii shirt.

Here is me and Joslynn after our make up presentation, where I basically went through the tutorial from this blog, while Joslynn was putting on her make up live. I had removed the shirt and the hood for that.

After the presentation I dashed off for the 501st photoshoot, only to realize that it would take too much time, so I would miss the Aaron Allston panel. I chose to go to the panel instead. Being with friends talking and hearing stories about him was brought both tears of sadness and joy, which is exactly like Aaron did when his wrote his stories.

On Saturday the group that I spent most of the time with were pretty tired, and they were going to line up early to get into a specific panel on Sunday morning. I went up to my hotel room, but wasn't tired, so I decided to try and roll up my hair and do pin curls for the first time. I could actuallly sleep on the curls, unlike when I've used rollers, and even if I only did a fast and dirty job with them,  I can definitely see that it will be worth practicing doing them. I did roll up my hair because on Sunday I had decided to not wear a costume, but my Star Wars cocktail dress, together with a fabulous pearl necklace with an R2 pendant that I had picked up from Her Universe. There were definitely a lot of dresses made from Star Wars fabric, but I think I was the only one with  a tight skirt. Most others were variations of a corseted or tight bodice and a poufy skirt. Once again I was actually glad that I hadn't bothered to bring the can can trooper, since there were so many corset/skirt combos there.

When lacking a hyperdrive, some greenscreen magic can bring you to Bespin

I had a great time in Anaheim, but with more than 100 000 tickets sold there was a lot of people there, and the only sad thing is that I didn't meet all the people that I wanted to meet and talk to.

Merry Christmas

Happy holidays to everyone that reads this. And thanks to Fredrik for the help with photoshopping and creating this Christmas card.

Endor Rebel Trooper

Original Endor Rebel Troopers

After having worked on detailed costumes, it's always fun to do something totally different. My project for the spring 2013 was the Endor Rebel Trooper, from Star Wars Episode VI Return of the Jedi. Ok, it was really my autumn 2012 project, but I switched it for Endor Leia instead. These are the strike force that beats the Empire, together with the Ewoks. Funny enough some of the original costumes were made from snow jackets from the Swedish military in the 1940's. Not so easy to get hold of today, but I had a friend who managed to acquire a pair.Not many people in the Rebel Legion go with the snow jacket version though, because it's almost impossible to find them outside Sweden today.

A big differernce with this project, compared to my other costumes, is that this is a costume where you more or less buy ready made parts and just put them together with some finishing touches. The one thing that involved a bit of construction is the helmet. It consists of two parts, a soft inner helmet based on the WW2 AN-H-15 flight helmet. I own one such flight helmet, since it's used for the A-wing costume, and that was a really good help when I needed to make my own version of it from scratch. To make the soft helmet I used this pattern and tutorial.I don't know if it has to do with the pattern being made in American measurements, and then printed on a printer with European measurements, but the size is gigantic. I had to more or less remove most of the middle section, thankfully the ugly seams that were the result of that are hidden beneath the ribbed part that goes over the top of the head. That ribbed part and the bill are differences from the original flight helmet, and the reason why I didn't use my original helmet for this costume. The hard part of the helmet, "the donut" was bought from a maker on the Rebel Legion. This project was a good example of how costumers help each other. I'm a seamstress, so I made the soft inner helmets, and in exchange another costumer gave me the snow jacket, and painted the hard plastic helmet for me.

April 2013

The only thing except for the soft helmet that I made myself were the gaiters, the tubes of fabric that go from the shoes and up the lower leg. Everything else was found, and most of it on ebay since I don't live close to any military surplus store. I've heard of people simply walking into such stores and more or less coming out with all the parts needed for a costume. The gun is a repainted and slightly modified Hasbro rebel blaster nerf gun.

Even if I didn't construct the costume parts, I still had to camouflage paint them, to get a proper pattern. Pre-made camouflage fabric is wrong both in colour and when it comes to the patterning. I bought a couple of cans with spraypaint in different green shades, from olive to light green. I then covered my whole bathroom with plastic and started to spray. I had also teadyed the snow jacket before starting the camouflage painting.

I debuted the costume at Model Expo in Finland 2013, where the Fins had built a whole Endor set, including a speeder bike and an AT-ST in life size.

This is also a fun costume in that now I have the basic configuration, but then you can basically add as many bags, pouches, guns and other details as possible. I hope to one day have a proper, big, rifle for example and I want to make a vest to go over he snow jacket as well.

Status: active

Me vs. AT-ST