Jedi Knight: The Costuming




The KJO: Allowing nerds like me
to dress up like a Jedi Knight
since 2007...

  This week I return to my work on the Jedi Knight...okay, maybe not the Jedi Knight Career that I made for the Edge of the Empire system.  No, I mean a Jedi Knight costume.

I really wish this was a progress post on my Jedi Shadow costume, but it isn't.  My recent, major setback (in that I've misplaced a box that contained 40% of the costume and over 30 hours of work) has derailed the costume significantly and sapped my motivation to complete it. It's going to be difficult to find the right material for the robe again, and the skirt had over 30 Mylar-thread-embroidered aurebesh runes in it. The thought of doing it all over again (or rather, ask my wife to do it all over again)...well, I'm just not ready for that.

We also made the discovery this week that the wife's good Fiskars shears were in the box too...bollocks.

Changing Gears...er, Eras




Corran Horn makes
green Jedi robes look good...

I'd really like to get a Jedi done and approved in time for the 5-Year anniversary of the Knights of the Jedi Order group (they're the Jedi "detachment" of the Rebel Legion). I'd also like to finally have a soft costume for the Rebel Legion, so I don't always have to "Represent!" covered in hard, restrictive plastic. So, I've shifted focus for now from the Jedi Shadow and will be working on a generic Jedi costume.

Now, I wouldn't say I push the envelope of approvable costumes and color design, but I certainly want to be unique and interesting in my outfits. Most Jedi are in earth tones, more specifically various shades of brown.  Brown is fine for leather and desert camouflage, but I want something with a little more style.  I'm thinking green, mostly to match the lightsaber hilt I made.  While I don't want to make a pure-green "Corellian Jedi" outfit, I was intrigued by a shade of green I found at the local fabric store. A nice, deep hunter-green that had a darker tone to it.



That's going to be the fabric for the tabards and the obi. Don't let the flash fool you, I swear it's got more earthy tones to it. It's green, but not the GREEN! that the photo presents. It's one of the things that really gets to me about digital photography, and that's how a lot of casual photos (like these) don't really grab colors right. 

My 3-years of college-photo classes is screaming at me to fix it, but I don't have the time for that.  Besides, back then, we worked with this archaic stuff called "film". 

The outer tunic is going to be this fine material. 



It looks like its brown-grey here, but the fabric has a faint mint-green tinge to it (again; stupid digital flash photography).  The pieces have been mapped out, and cut out, based on the recommendations by KJO temple master Roger Allen.  My wife actually drew them out by hand right onto the fabric.  No need for this "tissue paper pattern" tom-foolery for us!  We did a placement fitting of the pieces last night.  The tunic will come down to just above my knee, and the shoulder tabards will come down just beyond that.  I'm designing the shoulder tabards to tapering down to points, so when they're together they make a chevron.  It's a little more style than just having them end at a right angle like a scarf.

The Other Stuff

I have a pair of khakis for my jedi pants (yes, that's what most people wear for Jedi pants.  Works just fine).  I've got the Preacher boots I mentioned last week.  I've got the leather belt, it just needs a fresh coat of dye to make it closer to the boots in the shade of brown.  I think I only need to get the belt accessories (pouches, food capsules, commlink; I need two to get the Formal rating, I believe).

I will eventually make a cloak for this, but that's going to be a little ways off.  Besides, summer is coming.  Last think I want is to put on another layer of clothing.


Lekku Master Molds by Twi'lek Pam


I'm also doing research to get a pair of lekku to be a twi'lek Jedi when the opportunity allows. We keep seeing all these human Jedi in the various bases, and I feel we need more aliens represented. Not a huge fan of a full latex mask, I'm opting for the less-prosthetic wearing alien races. I might also want a set of zabrak horns too, because with my frequently-shaved scalp there's a lot of real estate up there for some good zabrak horns...

Elegant Weaponry For An Elegant Era

It dawns on me that I have yet to talk about my lightsaber.  No, not the double-bladed one I got from Ultrasabers for my Jedi Shadow, I mean my own, custom lightsaber that I mostly built for myself with parts from The Custom Saber Shop.  Back in the summer I decided I wanted to really get this custom lightsaber thing going, and build my own saber.  After all, you can't be a Jedi Knight until you've built your lightsaber.

I poked around with TCSS's java-based saber design program, that utilizes the parts from their "Multi-Hilt System".  It's a fun little program and quite a time sink for making a million lightsabers with.  After some debate I came up with this design.

For six months I had been picking up various parts from TCSS.  As my ebay sales would complete, I'd occasionally pick up a piece of the hilt, or part of the electronics.  I ended up going with a larger pommel, and the switch box is a trapezoid, not a rectangle.  My wiring diagram was poor, and I couldn't get anything to work.  I feared that I fried the sound-card, and the speaker.  Fortunately a trip to my local sabersmith helped me discover that the wiring was wrong, but the sound card and the speaker were fine.  We got it set up and working like a champ.

After throwing the electronics into the hilt, it ended up looking like this...

It's a serious beast of a hilt; almost 16" long.  A bastard sword of lightsabers, it begs for the less flashy styles of sabercombat like Ataru and Makashi, and more for the beatstick end of the spectrum like Djem-so and Juyo.

It's at this time that you can scream "NEEEEEERD!"  It's okay.  I get it a lot.

 

Serious Fat Nerd is Serious