Female tusken photos

 So as usual it was so much fun finally being able to try your new costume for the first time. The weather was lovely, so I brought my husband and decided to go to work for some photos.

It was fairly easy to get into the full costume, even if it of course helped to have someone help you with things like holding the gloves and wraps, since those are put on after the mask when your vision is quite impaired.

After the more formal photos it was time to have some fun with my tusken baby

Taking the costume out for a spin, before it's time to actually wear it to an event is good. For this I learnt that it's quite light and comfy, and I feel more mobile than in my old costume. A bad thing though is that when I lift my arms the bodice of the undergown shows, that's in another fabric than the skirt. I need to fix that someone, but since the skirt is quite long it will probably not be a problem to shorten the bodice quite a lot and raise ths skirt. I also need to do something about the sash and belt that keeps the bag on, I need to combine them into one piece so that the bag belt is always hidden under the sash. The final thing I need to fix is the bump on the back of the skull, I still ned to take in the top part of the hood to make it lie more smootly against the head.

And a final thank you kiss to my husband, who hasn't even seen all Star Wars film, but was nice enough to come with me as a photographer.

Reusing my old parts for the female tusken

 With a new shawl, new gown and new mask and bracelets it was time to go up to my storage and retrieve the parts from the old tusken to see what I could use.

I found a plastic box with quite a lot of stuff in it, both for my jawa and tusken. Except for the old shawl and hood, jawa scraps and fabric strips I found quite a lot of things that I can reuse.

The armwraps and gloves. The armwraps are sewn on to a loose sleeve of stretch fabric, so I can just pull them on and don't need to rewrap them every time.

A gauze sash and a long strip of fabric to use for holding up the bag.

My old boots. Strips of fabric wrapped and glued to a leather boot. I think the extra strips of fabric that I had in the box are in case I wear these out.

The bag was actually not from the old tusken, instead this was the first piece that I remade when I wanted to redo the tusken, so still more than 10 years ago. It is still the most complicated leather work that I have done, and back then I thought I would like to learn leather work, so I also found a pair of leather scissors and some other leather tools. The bag lacked the tusk decoration, so I made one out of foam clay and added it on to the bag.

I also had kept my tusken baby waiting to finally get a day out.

The final things that I will keep are these shoe covers. I made them for a journey to a Celebration in Orlando, I'm thinking it must have been 2012. I didn't want to pack my whole boots, so I made shoe covers that I can use over any shoe when I need to be mindful on how much I can pack while travelling to an event.

And with all these old parts down from the attic I felt that it was time to get it all on and take new approval photos for the 501st and Rebel Legion

baby tusken

Original uli-ah costume

As an accessory to my female tusken I have also made a uli-ah, a tusken child. My first wish for accessory was a big tusken rifle, but unfortunately I discovered that that was impossible since I can't lift my arms enough in the shawl to be able to carry a rifle. I'd like to get a gaffi stick one day though. Anyway, since I am a seamstress I figured that I could sew something instead of building or sculpting a weapon.

I didn't have a fully grown child to go with me, but instead I took one of the dolls I had saved from my childhood. The doll that I still had left was my favorite doll, which meant that for sentimental reason I had to make the clothes fully removable. One day I'd like to buy a cheap doll and dress it in the costume so I can return the original doll to its cute clothes it had when I played with it. For the materials I simply used leftovers that I could find in my stash.

Step one was to make a pair of tights for the doll I used a doll pattern that I had from making doll clothes to my nieces and a piece of sand coloured stretch fabric. It was the same stretch fabric that I had used to make gauntlets to put my arm wraps on for my female tusken.

Then I added a skirt made out of crinkled cotton. The dirt is simply watered down hobby paint that I've sprayed on to the fabric. I also wrapped the feet and hands with small strips of teadyed cotton to make it resemble boots and gloves. The fabrics for these were all leftovers from my own female tusken costume

Then came a tunic made from the last remnant of the wool coat that I had used to make the flak vest for my A-wing pilot costume.

The last thing was a little pouch and belt, made from what was once a suede bag I found for 10 SEK at a second hand store and that I have used when I needed strips of leather.

I didn't do a fully constructed mask, but rather a hood that I sewed some casing into and put a bit of wire so that it could hold its shape. The vest and the hood are made from the same cotton as my female tusken shawl, and then teadyed.