Han Thunder Solo

Character: Han Solo
Costume: Sparkly soul singer
From: Star Wars by way of Dreamgirls
Made: 2007
Awards: Part of a skit that won a Lucasfilm company award (2007 San Diego Comic-Con Masquerade)

I made this costume for our 2007 Comic-Con Masquerade skit, "Rebel Dreams," a Star Wars/Dreamgirls mashup. (Lots more pictures, plus video, are available on that page!)

I had so much fun designing and making a James Thunder Early-style Han costume! I kept coming up with ideas that involved more and more sparkly and shiny things, a few of which Rogue wisely talked me out of. I'm very pleased with the final product, although I still want to add all the front pockets to the vest, and my husband really wants a gun belt. (A SPARKLY gunbelt, I say!)

San Diego Comic-Con 2007
(thanks to grimreaper4u, Kel and Corli, red_tzar, and Eurobeat King for the pics!)

Dragon*Con 2007

(thanks to Michelle and Kay Dee for the pics!)

Construction

Dreamgirls Leia

Character: Princess Leia
Costume: Sparkly diva senatorial robes!
From: Star Wars by way of Dreamgirls
Made: 2007
Awards: Part of a skit that won a Lucasfilm company award (2007 San Diego Comic-Con Masquerade)

I made this costume for our 2007 Comic-Con Masquerade skit, "Rebel Dreams," a Star Wars/Dreamgirls mashup. (Lots more pictures, plus video, are available on that page!)

We had quite a lot of discussion on how to best Dreamgirl-ize the Leia costume. At first we thought of doing three different Leias, one from each movie, but then decided it would work better if we all did the same outfit, and of course Senatorial Leia is the most recognizable. Gentle Giant has a cool animated Leia maquette that provided some good inspiration, but we worried that the sleeves might not work with the choreography, so Kel and Corli came up with the halter-top-and-gloves idea. We each "claimed" a different Dreamgirl-- I was Deena, by virtue of being the shortest!

San Diego Comic-Con 2007
(thanks to grimreaper4u, Kel and Corli, red_tzar, and Eurobeat King for the pics!)

Dragon*Con 2007

(thanks to Michelle and Kathy for the pics!)

Construction

Masquerade: Rebel Dreams

Entry Title: Rebel Dreams
Fandom: Star Wars/Dreamgirls mashup
Convention: San Diego Comic-Con 2007
Awards: Lucasfilm company award (a giant R2-D2 drink cooler)
Cast Members: Caitlin, Corli, and Kel (the Leias), Rogue (Han Thunder Solo)

We were brainstorming for the Comic-Con 2007 Masquerade via email, and Kel and Cordelia said, "Hey, we've got three girls and a guy, so what about Star Wars Dreamgirls?" I replied with "Spangles on the Leia dresses and sequined bloodstrips on Han's pants?" and we were off and running. Cordelia whipped up a parody medley, we all recorded our parts, and I endlessly rewatched the movie to learn the choreography and teach it to the others. We had a great time with it, and we were very excited to win an industry award from Lucasfilm!

Performance and Photostage Pictures courtesy of rickpickett and insearchofheroes.com:

Lyrics

Senatorial Leia

Character: Princess Leia
Costume: Senatorial Robes
From: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Made: 2005

Ah, the iconic Leia dress, the one costume any casual fan would recognize. I made this dress to wear as Leia in Star Wars: Musical Edition at Star Wars Celebration III. Although the material is heavier than I would have liked, I'm very happy with how the dress turned out. This dress was auctioned off for charity during GenCon 2006, and now my friend Jennifer owns it!

Star Wars: Musical Edition at Celebration III
(thanks to Rosamunde and Steve for the pics!)

Construction

Sith Cheerleader

Costume: Sith Cheerleader
From: Star Wars and our crazy brains!
Made: 2004 (original version), 2007 (official version)

When they announced the title of Episode III at Comic-Con 2004, and then started selling shirts, I was thrilled. I thought they looked awesome. However, by the time I got one, all they had left were extra-large and extra-extra large. So I got an XXL, figuring I could cut it down to a sort of mini-dress, as I'd done before with a huge T-shirt.

And then the idea sort of...mutated, as I started thinking about modifying the skirt and adding some color and suddenly it became the most obvious idea in the world-- I should clearly be a Sith cheerleader! It fit perfectly with our group's Friday activity at GenCon Indy 2004, a sort of silly mock-Olympics. I had lots of fun brainstorming ideas for evil Sithly cheers with my teammates. ("That's all right, that's okay, we're gonna kill you all someday!")

Right around that time, unbeknownst to me, another group of ladies were getting "official" Sith cheerleader uniforms made. In summer 2007 I finally took the plunge and bought one so I could join the "team" photoshoot at Dragon*Con 2007. I love my super-sharp cheerleading outfit! It's even more fun to wear it as part of a big group.

Dragon*Con 2007, "official" version
(thanks to David for the pics!)

GenCon Indy 2004

(thanks to Brian for the pics!)

Star Wars: Musical Edition

Several years ago, at a college many miles away...

...two friends had been challenging each other to write increasingly complex Star Wars song parodies, or "filks." And after they had written a number of these parodies, they looked back at what they had done, and said, "Wow, we've actually put a pretty big chunk of the movies to song. I wonder if we could do the rest?"

And so the Musical was born. For years, it sat in a big fat binder, occasionally oohed and ahhhed over by fellow Star Wars fans, and while a few of the songs were sung individually, in informal performances, the Musical as a whole had never been performed.

Then one of the friends moved to Boston to be near his girlfriend, who was a student at MIT and a member of their Musical Theatre Guild. And as he got to know the members of MTG, he thought, "Wow, these people are pretty weird. ...They might just be weird enough to think that putting on the Musical is a good idea!"

And lo and behold, the good people of MTG did think it was a good idea, and so they set about making it happen. One member took it upon himself to compose the entire score, since it seemed like more fun than writing his doctoral thesis. Others worked on designing the set, the lighting, the sound effects. And one member-- the aforementioned girlfriend, in fact-- said, "Well, I love Star Wars and I love costuming! I'll costume design-- how hard can it be?"

Two months, 75 costumes, and $6000 later, she'd found out. Luckily, she had an amazing costume crew of about a dozen, as well as an experienced makeup and prosthetics designer, who did a huge amount of work and helped her keep what was left of her sanity throughout the ordeal. She owes them everything.

And the Musical? Well, it was a huge success-- it ran for eight performances in January-February 2003, five of them sellouts, and people had to be turned away on closing night. Some of the costumes were sold on Ebay to recoup costs, but the rest were boxed up and stored, awaiting the day when the Musical might be performed again, someday in the future...which it was! In 2005, A New Hope was re-staged at Star Wars Celebration III in May, and the entire trilogy was performed at MIT in the fall.

Here are a few pictures from the original 2003 performance; more are available on my website. Many photos from the 2005 Trilogy production can be found on MTG's website.