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

After the crazy monstrosity that was Captain Barbossa the year before, this costume seemed like a breeze! It's trickier than it looks, though, and Kay Dee's account of how she made her husband's Han costume was a huge help to me when I was working on this one. I shudder to think how I'd have fared without her!

Shirt

The shirt is made from the same stretch glitter fabric as our dresses and lined with plain white stretch material. I started with Kwik Sew #2530, view C, a men's polo shirt pattern.

Since Kay Dee had forewarned me that the armscyes on modern men's polo shirts were very large, I went through several mockups where I experimented with raising the bottom of the armhole, shortening the shoulder seam, and adjusting the sleeve cap to create a more set-in sleeve. The sleeve's still not quite as fitted as I'd like, but it's much better than it was at the beginning. I do need to make the sleeves a little shorter, though. Following Kay Dee's advice, I also made the collar shorter, squared off the ends, and extended it to the ends of the front placket.

Vest

The vest fabric is black glitter denim that I found at a local fabric store. I bought Dawn Anderson's Falcon Jacket pattern-- I used View A and just left off the sleeves and back pocket. Like Kay Dee, I ended up making the armholes much deeper to accomodate the larger sleeves of the shirt. I also made the neck opening deeper at the center front because it was interfering with the shirt collar. I didn't get a chance to add the decorative topstitching or make any pockets.

The back of the vest is plain-- except for the big rhinestoned Millenium Falcon! I printed out this diagram of the Falcon and traced the outline and key details onto the back of the vest. I then stoned over the lines with 4mm hot-fix clear Swarovski crystals. (I buy all my rhinestones from The Rhinestone Guy-- but do take his advice and buy the Czech Preciosa crystals rather than Swarovski. Cheaper and just as good-looking!) It took about 350 rhinestones to do the whole Falcon, making it the single most expensive thing on any of our Dreamgirls costumes! If you're considering rhinestoning something in the near future, here's my advice-- don't buy the silly little applicator tool. Buy yourself a hot plate and a pair of angled tweezers, and you'll be much happier. (You pop the crystals on the hot plate upside-down, and as soon as the glue bubbles, you grab them with the tweezers and press onto the fabric. Goes much faster.)

Pants

The two words that originally sold Rogue on this costume were "sequined bloodstripes," so of course those are the focus of the pants. To start, we bought a pair of navy blue Dickies work pants. The Dickies have a double layer of fabric at the knees for reinforcement, so I first removed that with a seam ripper. I then used those pieces as the base for the bloodstripes. I calculated that the stripes needed to be 1 1/4" wide, so I added half-inch seam allowances, cut 2 1/4" wide strips of the fabric, and sewed them end-to-end to make two long strips. I then cut a zillion 2 1/2" pieces of the string of red holographic sequins I'd bought from Jo-Ann (and I had to go back to the store for more!) and marked lines 3/4" apart all the way down the fabric strips. I used Aleen's Jewel-It glue to attach two rows of sequins along each marked line and let the new bloodstripes dry thoroughly.

The Dickies pants fit at the waist, but they were too wide-legged, so I tapered both side seams a bit. When I tapered the outseam, I just measured another 5/8" (half of 1 1/4") further in and used that as my new seamline, so I could insert the bloodstripes into the seam instead of topstitching them on. I figured that would be the easiest way of dealing with all those sequins. Fortunately, the sequins proved easy to sew through. I ended up removing the front and lower side pockets entirely, and for a neat finish, I unpicked the waistband above the side seams and reattached it once the bloodstripes were in. The final step was to add stirrups to the bottom of the pants to keep them from pulling out of the boots.

Boots & Belt

The boots came from 911costumes.com. Not too bad for how cheap they are-- they held up through years of conventions before disintegrating. I no longer remember where I got the belt, but Kay Dee got hers from beltoutlet.com.