Cosplay Day in Avesta, 2020

 There was an actual cosplay event this year! Traditionally the small AvestaCon is held last weekend of October. With the current situation it would not be possible to have proper convention and follow the restrictions on attendance and distance. The municipality of Avesta was still eager to organize something, and instead of a convention they decidedto host theme days, one for cosplay and one for boardgames. It would be small, since only 50 guests would be allowed, butit would be something after everything had been cancelled. It was obvious that people are eager to go out in costume again, and we had a record attendance with the Nordic Legions when two person from Västerås and three from Stockholm wanted to join in as well. The whole day was really casual and fun. All the troopers were free to be out in costume as much as they wanted, Andrew spent the whole day building on his sandtrooper backpack in public and at 12 we had a small presentation where we talked about what the Nordic Legions is and how you can become a member. 

Darth Nihilus and Darth Vader had a raffling game of air hockey

The group photo with members from Nordic Reel Icons, Nordic Garrison and Nordic Base

Vader made sure everyone kept their distance and used the hand sanitizer

For the trooping I wore my Mon Mothma. It's easy and comfortable. The cheap fabric in the underdress has shrunk since I made it, so at midnight the night before I made a quickfix to lengthen it again by ripping up the waist seam and inserting a wide piece of fabric between the bodice and the skirt. It doesn't look good, but it's not shown so it doesn't matter. I also realised when I was there that the stitches holding the white overgown together at the sides had come undone, so intead of a gown it looked more lika poncho. I don't think anyone except me noticed though.

The reason why I've been stressing to finish the court gown though is that I had scheduled a time with the professional photographer that was there, to get some really nice photos of it. The huge slagbrick walls of Verket work fine as medieval stone walls. I haven't gotten those photos yet, but here are the photos that I took with my phone.

I am going to work on getting posts up about the finishing of both the gown and the hood in the coming days or weeks. I did take photos, but I didn't have time to make posts.

The skirt was a monster to make and hem, but I just love how it moves when I walk, and when I twirl.

ComicCon Stockholm 2018

ComicCon Stockholm took place the weekend 14th to 16th of September. It bills itself as the largest popculture event in the Nordic Countries, and that is probably true. It has grown out of an earlier game convenction (Gamex) and it has had problems finding a balance between games and general popculture. It's still not perfect, but I felt that it was better than some years, unfortunately it's also now sponsored by one specific store, which has lead to other stores selling popculture stuff not being invited. The merchandise is limited to the one sponsor (and now special con prizes) and smaller independent traders.

Anyway this year I wasn't motivated at all for the convention. If I hadn't booked my hotel in May I would probably not have gone. I felt that I only had my old costumes, nothing new to bring. The dye for my Melisandre coat and hood didn't show up in time so I would not be able to bring the full costume. I stressed to get TLJ Leia done, got it into a wearable but not finished state, only to forget the undergown at home.

In the end it turned out to be one of my best conventions in a long time, and a big part of that was that I had people around that could take a lot of funny photos during the weekend.

Cosplay Dalarna had it's biggest group photo so far on a convention.

 On Friday I wore my X-wing pilot first, and I couldn't resist climbing on the the big airplane wing that was in the main hall. Ingeli, who took the photo, said she was a really good friend since she didn't film what it looked like when I tried to get onto the wing. (I basically needed to be pushed over it by two people)

Looking S-foils in attack position

 AFter my stint in X-wing I quickly changed to Mon Mothma, and of course I had to take my photo on the Iron throne that HBO had in its area. If I can't rule the galaxy I guess Westeros will do.

The real reason I switched was because Mads Mikkelsen was there and got inducted as an honorary member of the 501st legion, and I wanted to wear a costume that was a bit connected with Rogue One.

The day after I also made sure to have him sign my "A Royal Affaire" DVD.

The three days of ComicCon all have very different atmospheres. On Friday it's quite easy going and you have time to check out all the stands, and if you are interested in games that's the day you have time to test play them without any lines. Saturday was really crowded though. The Nordic Legions had their stand outside the main hall, and after I had gotten my autograph I didn't go in to the main hall for the rest of the day. I did my shifts in the stand and walked the parades, but there was too much people to do anything else.

The R2 builders had invited Simon Wilkie as C3P-0 and I got my photo with him, as you can see the stitches on my white over poncho had unraveled so I need to fix that before the next time I wear it.

Sunday is a family day, with less people, but a lot of kids everywhere. I had brought my Melisandre costume and I used the time to take photos in the HBO area.

As a child I dreamt of a red motorcycle, here I could at least mount a motorcycle in a big red gown.

I finished the con in my X-wing pilot costume again, and finally we managed to be three orange pilots in costume at the same time, thanks to Aiwei from Norway. It was really fun to be in a group and goof around.

So it was a really fun convention, and it shows that you don't need new costumes to have fun, the important thing is to hang around with fun people.

Mon Mothma approved

When I woke up in the morning the 14th, at 5 am in order to drive to Stockholm and see the first Rogue One viewing at 10:00, I was greeted by the happy message that my Mon Mothma had been approved. Even if I thought that I had done my best I still get very nervous when I send in costume applications.

The trooping in Stockholm was quite chaotic, but I got the chance to see the film twice, and had fun taking photos with the audience. The Leia, R2, Mon Mothma combo was quite popular.

A little bit due to the chaos I didn't get any photos taken at the troop, so I can only show the official RL costume frame.

Of course a 2017 project will be to make the Rogue One version, and a friend has told me that there are full body photos of her in the Visual Guide book, so I will have to buy that one.

Some details that I picked up during the film was that the Rogue One version doesn't have a cord in the back, just in the front, and she's wearing a sleeveless undergown.

As for the film itself....






....without spoiling anything I can honestly say that I loved it. I cried both times and just wanted to rush home and watch Episode IV. It is a war film more than a space film, so I would not recommend it for young kids that have grown up with the animated series, or at least I would recommened parents to see the film first and then judge if it's appropriate or not.

Mon Mothma approval photos

This is just an upload of the photos that I used to send in my RL application for this costume. I did my best considering that it's December, so very dark outside, and I only have myself and my mobile phone to work with.

Mon Mothma - attaching cords and jewellery

With the outer tunic done it was time to finish the ornament she wears.

I used one long grey ribbon to form all the large loops. The round pieces on the shoulders allow the ribbon to twist around it itself and go back the same way. I sewed the round piecec together and only used a bit of glue to make sure that the end of the ribbon, where I had cut it, didn't start to ravel.

I glued a magnet on the underside of the jewellery pieces that I had made out of fimo clay.

The knob was put over the ribbon roundels, with the magnet peeking through to the underside. I also attachted a magnet to the underside of the outer tunic.

The magnet keep the whole thing in position, but it's easy to take off .

For the round centerpiece I used several pieces of string in yellow and silver to bind the frame of the centerpiece.

Those strings were glued on to the shoulder knob.

So with that I'm done with Mon Mothma, I hope I can take some photos of me in the costume the coming days,

Mon Mothma outer tunic

The Mon Mothma outer tunic was a bit of a challenge. Or rather I definitely overthought the construction. In the end  went back and decided to do it as simple as possible.

This is the original costume. Looking at it there are two features that I felt were really important, and both those features were confusing. In the middle of the sleeve there is a front from the hem and to the fold, but it doesn't continue all the way up to the sleeve. Then the tunic itself is clearly square, there are no rounded corners like on a poncho for example.

The whole tunic doesn't have any visible seams, except for the small sleeve. That meant that I had to find a fabric that was wide enough to provide full length sleeves, even if I just folded the fabric and cut a hole in the middle. I used a wonderful linen/rayon blend, after turn in the washing machine it's wonderfully soft, with a texture of linen but not as many wrinkles as a pure linen.

I started by simply folding the fabric in half.

Then I folded it in half again, but in the other direction, and cut out an angular neck opening. The neck opening is in a diamond shape so no rounded corners.

To get the visible seam on the sleeve I made a dart at the top of the sleeve and pressed it flat.

The neck opening was strengthened with a piece of cotton tape.

The big challenge was to get the hem straight. In order to look straight it needs to be shorter at the sides than in the middle though.

Then it was just to hem all the sides, make the fold in the sleeve and tack it in position.

Mon Mothma undergown

Today I finshed Mon Mothma's undergown.

It's nothing specially complicated. I used my most simple jersey bodice pattern and my standard sleeve pattern that I just lengthened. The skirt is simply a full width of fabric gathered to the waist. It's not the most flattering, but it's just an undergown. Since there is quite a lot of fabric I stabilized the neckline by binding it with bias tape. As a bonus I know have a gown to wear if I ever want to dress up as a gingerbread woman.

The problem with having spent so much time looking at the reference photos is that of course you realize that a lot of the assumptions you had made were wrong. I have ordered new fabric for the outer tunic, since I just couldn't stand my first choice. I wanted something that was a lot more drapey.

The good thing with ordering new fabric is that I have some time to figure out the outer tunic, it's a lot more complicated than I first thought.

Mon Mothma jewellery pieces

Tonight I started on the jewellery pieces for Mon Mothma. A first look at a reference picture and reading the Rebel Legion standards made them look fairly straight forward.

A necklace consisting of two dull gray twisted cords, with a round, silver pendant, detailed as it appears in the movie, suspended from two smaller, twisted cords in the center. The necklace should be attached at each shoulder and end with the gray cord wrapped around a small, domed object, such as a button, with single strand of the large gray cord around the back of the collar.

I would do the main pendant as a solid piece and then somehow attach the cords to is, and the round things at the shoulders could be anything dome-like. All painted silver.

Then I got hold of some reference pictures in higher resolutions and started to realize that there's a lot of things that are not correct in that description.

 The main thing is that the pendant is not silver, and it's not solid. The silver appearance comes from the fact that the silver cord is twisted through the pendant. Where the silver meets the "branches" of the tree or twig or whatever it is, there is a clear contrast. Instead the colour of the pendant blends with one of the light gold cords.

As for the colour of the shoulder pieces, well that's harder. If you see the grey thinner cord coming up towards the piece there is once again a difference in colour between them. The dome looks to be closer to the wider cords in colour, but it might also be that they are being reflected back since the dome is quite shiny.

This detailed photo also shows that the thinner cord goes up and circle te top of the dome, and that the dome has a small red bead on top of it.

With that information I started on making the pendant.

I measured out a ring and heated a strip of worbla with a heatgun until it was soft. I pressed the strip together to give it a twisted look and attached the ends to each other.

I then put on the center bar. As you can see the outer ring got distorted by the heat from the heatgun when I attached the center, but that's easy to fix when all the pieces have been attached.

I then attached two strips to form the arms/twigs or whatever they are. I looked at it and was not happy with the result. It felt too big, and the arms were too narrow. So I started over and redid it all but smaller.

This time I was much mor happy with the pendant, so I just let it cool down while I formed the shoulder domes and beads in fimo clay.

Then came the issue on what paint to use. I feel as if it's some kind of light gold or brass colour, but definitely not silver or dark gold. I looked in my paint collection and in the end I used metallic gold, mixed with some off white paint. To give it both a more grey colour and more sheen I finished them off with a transparent silver paint. The beads were painted with a nail varnish.

Now I'm off to the Rebel Legion boards to argue that the jewellery is not silver...

The difference is in the details

I've decided that for the Rogue One premier I'm going to make Mon Mothma's costume. Mon Mothma shows up in Return of the Jedi, and her costume is in the Original Trilogy costume book. For Rogue One we saw her already in the first trailer, and it seemed to make people really happy online. At first glance she was easy to recognize because it seemed to be the same costume, but of course there are enough differences in the ROTJ costume and the R1 costume that it will not be possible to combine them, even if 95% of people will think it's the same.

If we start with this side by side shot we can spot a couple of differences between them. The R1 Mon Mothma, to the left, has a bigger collar, and the collar has piping between the outer fabric and the facing or lining. That silver piping is a big difference. The necklace that she wears is also different. The cords that hold the pendant form a a frame around the R1 version, but they simply go behind the pendant. The R1 Mon Mothma's bigger cords go further down towards the waist, and are made of a shinier cord than the ROTJ Mon Mothma.

The sleeves are also quite different. (both pictures from RL member jedibarriss)

The top is the ROTJ one, the bottom from R1. Looking Close at both pictures I get the feeling that the R1 costume is made from a lighter and more drapey fabric than the ROTJ one. In the middle of the R1 sleeve it's obviously a seam, while the sleeves of the ROTJ Mon Mothma look to be cut in one with the main piece. The ROTJ sleeve has a simple fold about half-way up. The R1 one also has the sleeve but it's also pleated up at the shoulder. The two round emblems that hold the cord are also different. The R1 one button has some kind of pattern on it but is flatter, while the ROTJ one is higher.

So yes, the costumes are very similar but with enough differences that I can't combine them. My plan right now is to make the ROTJ costume, since there are still more references for it. I don't think I've seen anything on what the R1 costume looks like from the waist down. Also when I bought the fabric I did it with the ROTJ costume as a reference, and it's too heavy for the R1 costume.

I also find it a bit ironic that when I finally find a costume with the exact hair colour that I'm currently using, then it's a costume with short hair. I still need to get hold of a short wig, since I'm not going to cut my own hair off for a costume.