Eowyn's Shieldmaiden Dress

Character: Eowyn
Costume: Shieldmaiden Dress
From: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Made: 2002

This beautiful dress first appeared in promotional images for The Two Towers and was almost immediately dubbed the "Shieldmaiden" outfit. Unfortunately, it didn't make an appearance in TTT, but we finally got to see it in Return of the King! Ngila Dickson, the costume designer for the LOTR trilogy, has said that this outfit is meant to convey a "sense of [Eowyn] fighting in her underwear." I think it does a good job of that, and it's very pretty besides!

I didn't make this dress for myself-- I made it for my best friend, Amy, whose favorite LOTR character is Eowyn. After making my Arwen chase dress, I was eager to get my friends to start dressing up as well. Amy liked the idea, so we looked at all of Eowyn's outfits, and she chose this one. This was my second full recreation, and in some ways it was harder than the chase dress, because at the time there were only a few good images of the dress and no tutorial to help me.

Someday I'd love to make this one for myself! I've still got a fair bit of the cream silk left, and it's such a beautiful dress...

Going to see The Two Towers at our college, spring 2003

Construction

Arwen's Chase Dress

Character: Arwen
Costume: Chase Dress
From: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Made: 2002
Awards: Judges' Choice (2004 ConDor Masquerade)

This was the first movie costume I ever tried to recreate, and it remains one of my favorites. It was (mostly) completed in time for Halloween 2002, and improved for the premiere of the Fellowship extended DVD in November 2002. All of Arwen's dresses are of course beautiful, but I think this one is the most functional, which makes it pretty easy to wear for long periods of time (except for those pesky sleeves!).

The dress is based on Simplicity 9891, everyone's favorite generic elf pattern. I literally could not have created this costume without the amazing tutorial from alleycatscratch and their associated mailing list.

Condor XI Masquerade, February 2004 (Winner, Judges' Choice)

GenCon Indy, July 2003

Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition DVD Premiere in NYC, November 2002

Construction

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!)