Rey's Scavenger Staff
The final touch for Rey's Jakku look was her scavenger's staff and it was by far, my favorite part.
I hadn't done some good old fashioned prop making for a project of my own in a long while and it was so nice to be back at it. After a quick Google search I had some great resources to work with.
Primarily, I used a shopping list from Instructables user kylegilbert (http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-Reys-Staff-Star-Wars-The-Force-Awakens/), screen shots of the actual prop, and the detail breakdown from Sellfy user Ian Henry( https://sellfy.com/p/f9NU/) to build mine.
As per the Instructables list, I hit Home Depot for showers heads, faucet heads, electrical connectors, wire, and a pipe. I went with a metal pipe for my staff base instead of the PVC used in the Instructables tutorial - it adds weight to the finished prop, but it won't warp over time.
I started with the end details - first off, the shower heads. Now, I ended up with a slightly different shower head than what the Instructables shopping list called for because, retail. Our local Home Depot didn't have that particular shower head in stock and I wasn't going to pay more for shipping on $1 shower heads than for the product itself, so I settled for an equally cost effective option.
I wasn't able to remove the ball joint from this shower head, so instead I hot glued the ball joint into place and used some air-dry Cloud Clay to sculpt an end cap over the joint. Because Cloud Clay can crack pretty easily (particularly if it's thin or attached to a hard surface), I allowed it to dry before coating it in two thick layers of wood glue to seal it and hot glued it onto the ball joint.
After the shower heads were taken care of, it was just a matter of drilling through the end of the facet heads (very, very carefully - the cheap plastic cracks easily), cutting some fins from wood, and slicing the electrical connectors into two, before it was time for assembly.
I worked from the center of the pipe outwards, starting with just a wrap of craft foam (left from my Elsa Dress bodice) secured with E6000 and electrical tape. This was followed by connector pieces (also E6000ed) and the wire wraps. I did hot glue the ends of the wires down before I wrapped them tight around the pipe, but they were ultimately secured completely with electrical tape. I did detail these a bit wit my leather off cuts on the end (also hot glue and electrical tape).
The larger details, such as the faucet and shower heads went on the both E6000 and hot glue. Contact cement might have served a bit better, but so far, my staff has survived the Academy of Sciences Halloween party, Halloween night, Wizard World Sacramento, and SF Comic Con with only the need for a paint touch up. I tried to keep as many of the details as possible slotted over the pipe itself for stability - anything just glued onto the outside without a tape cover increases the risk of something breaking off. I did have to glue the shower heads at the ends directly onto slotted pieces - I wasn't able to drill into them with my cordless, though I imagine a drill press and a more sophisticated clamp set up than I have in my living room would get the job done. Three small foamie details, a larger Cloud Clay detail, and the wooden fins were also glued straight on with again a combination E6000 and wood glue, though the fins were also secured with electrical tape.
Once my staff was assembled, it was time for paint.
I'd never used spray-on Plasti-Dip on a metal surface, so I ran a few tests to check and ultimately, I based my entire staff first with two coats of Rustoleum clean metal primer before three coats of the Plasti-Dip, just to avoid any peeling or cracking. I painted the entire staff with alternating black and rust colored matte spray enamels from Rustoleum.
The final touch were strips of muslin and brown felt, just hot glued onto the body of the staff, over the large section of foam and small leather straps with d-rings for a shoulder strap (my strap came from my grandmother's sewing stash I inherited - I can't even begin to guess where or when it may have come from).
And that was Rey!
Ultimately, I was really, really pleased with the way this turned out. I still need some formal photos, but it is by far the most comfortable costume I own and I'm so pleased with the way it all looks!
Jakku Rey - Part Two
The Wraps
I picked a cotton crepe for the drape and arm warps mostly because of how easy it would be to dye.
The finished wrap.
I bought three yards and decided to gather before the dye bath. I divided my crepe into thirds and cut down the grain so that I had three, three yard lengths. I could tell just three yards wouldn’t be long enough for the drape effect I was looking for so I went ahead and sewed two together to give me one massive six yard run.
Then using reference photos, I draped around my dress form, pinning directly to the form at the shoulders when I was happy with the proportions. The six yards, unsurprisingly, was a bit long, so again with extensive help from my reference photos, I trimmed up the ends to even out.
Shoulder gathers facing out.
I decided to go ahead and gather the shoulders, for a cleaner, more consistent finish and so I wouldn’t confuse myself every time I tried to put the wrap on. I did this entirely by hand and stitched the gather down to a strip of bias tape to secure it.
The final bit before the dye bath was the arm wraps. Using the left over three yard crepe, I cut two, two inch wide strips down the grain. I didn’t hem any of this or use pinking shears - any fraying would just add to the overall look I was after.
I used Rit’s liquid dye in taupe for all the crepe. Everything got a short fifteen minute bath before a run through the washing machine. I trimmed up some of the frayed ends and then I was happy.
The Leather Details
The leather wrist cuff was a quick and easy one, though admittedly not the most beautiful.
Should gathers face down.
I don’t usually purchase real leather simply because of the price, but I had found a pretty cheap bag of leather cord and off-cuts at Michael’s which had an off-cut roughly the diameter of my skinny little chicken wrists and enough width to give the effect I was looking for. I had enough of the leather for a rectangle in the dimensions I was after for the main portion of the cuff, but I had to improvise for the strap.
Rolled cuff
This is where my cuff got a little less lovely.
The remaining off-cuts were much smaller than the one I’d used for the main portion of the cuff and very irregular in shape. There was one in the proper length to secure the cuff, but it was one of the odd shaped ones. I cleaned it up as best I could with a pair of scissors, but it still ended up a bit of a crooked triangle shape. I centered and hand stitched the wonky strap to the main cuff before using a razor blade to slice loops into the main cuff so the strap could secure.
Unrolled cuff
The completed cuff was still a little bit stiff all around, so I finished it off with several coats of Saddle Soap, leaving the cuff rolled and secured with rubber bands to a width slightly smaller than my wrist after each Saddle Soap rub down.
Vinyl belt before paint job.
The final cuff is still a little crooked, but tough enough to stay secured around my wrists without any addition snaps, clips, or d-rings.
The belt was my next big challenge.
I didn’t have enough off-cuts or spare cash to build one of real leather, but I did have some taupe vinyl I bought for an in-progress Princess Mononoke cosplay.
I used a pattern found on Google. The original image and creator of the template appears to have been buried in Google results or has been removed. I was only able to recover the image as saved by other makers who’ve used it too and wasn’t clever enough to have saved the original link myself, so while I cannot credit the original source, I thank them. Whoever you are, pattern maker, you saved me a shocking amount of time.
I drafted out the found pattern onto my vinyl before cutting it out and painting it to match my references. I didn’t have the proper primers and time was running short before the Academy of Science Halloween party, so I just made do with the Rustoleum primers I did have and painted it in acrylics, knowing would chip and crack in the long run. The belt survived both the party and Halloween with minor cracking in the paint, but storage has since destroyed the paint job as expected. This was a quick finish only and I do not recommend it.
I do recommend using real leather. I have since remade the belt using the same pattern and real leather in the correct color and I am much happier overall with the look. I did use a very fine and soft tanned leather that I found on sale and I did have to add a seam, as I didn’t have enough for a single piece, so my current belt is much thinner than I would ultimately like, but it stores better and there is no risk of cracking and looks much cleaner overall.
I detailed both the old vinyl belt and the newer leather one with two sets of d-rings and hemp cord left over from my macrame necklace phase back in high school.
The final piece in Rey’s scavenger accessories collection is her bag and this I did not build at all - I owned.
It isn’t quite film-accurate, but I own a small purse my step-mom got me for Christmas the same year she suggested making Rey’s scavenger look in the first place. It has a stamp of inspirational quotes on one side, but the little canvas bag is the size, shape, and texture I was hoping for and I only needed to remove the strap and add attachments so I could clip it to my belt, but I love the way it looks without any serious alterations, as long as the stamp faces in.
Next Time: The Staff
Wizard World Sacramento 2017
Kaylees and a Deadpool!
It's been over a week now since Wizard World Comic Con in Sacramento and despite being over 100 degrees Fahrenheit every since day, it was a successful weekend of cosplay and panel going!
Friday was mostly a bust - traffic on the the way up from the Bay Area was a massive headache and, even though we expected it to be a mess, it still took us over three hours to reach our hotel and all the panels for the day had finished. I'd brought my Merida dress for Friday, but it was late enough and so unbearably hot, I decided against it and instead we just popped over to the venue in street clothes to pick up wrist bands and then headed off into the heat for drinks.
Saturday panels of interest didn't start until noon-ish and we'd planned to get in some photos of both my Merida and Shindig dresses at the park in the morning, but the heat was so ungodly, even at 8 AM, we decided against it and just lounged in the air-conditioned hotel room. Around 10 AM, I went ahead and steamed and pressed my Shindig Dress for the day and we wandered over to the show floor around 11.
Of course I had to say hello to the puppy!
I was so pleased with how the Shindig dress wore. It was a little stuffy on top, even in the AC, and I was unable to sit easily in chairs (it can be done, but not particularly gracefully), but otherwise I was really, really happy. I was asked if I was Princess Peach perhaps a dozen times, but everyone who identified the Shindig dress was super excited to see it.
We wandered in between the floor and panels for most of the afternoon before I went back to change for dinner - the cage crinoline wasn't really appropriate for the restaurant and I was able to steam my top again before we jetted off for food.
After dinner, it was costume contest time. I re-curled my hair and headed over to line up. I'm not much of a judge of contest size, but it was a fairly efficient sort of thing and I was asked about the ruffles on my dress and didn't fall, despite not having my glasses on (can't do contacts and my vision is just this side of blind), so that was successful. The Shindig Dress didn't place, but I wasn't terribly surprised - there were some seriously impressive makers there that night.
Sunday was mostly a day of panels. We packed the car and I changed into my Jakku Rey cosplay before we headed to the venue. It a nice and relaxed day of sitting in the lovely air conditioned rooms in my most comfy of cosplays and listening to excellent folk be excellent. We did end up ducking out before the last panel of the day to beat some traffic. (Spoiler: We didn't beat traffic and sat for ages off the bridge waiting for an accident to clear).
It was a great weekend over all and now it's time to repair and recover for SF Comic Con in September!
Spell Eternity with Quantum Dragon Theatre!
So many purple lines on the boxes and the walls. Photo by Alandra Hileman
We interrupt your regularly scheduled cosplay walkthroughs for some theatre!
I know it's been radio silence here on this blog and most of my social media accounts for awhile, but I've had to pause my personal builds while I worked with the excellent theatre makers over at Quantum Dragon Theatre on our latest production, Spell Eternity!
I’ve been working with the super awesome folks at QDT since June of 2016 and this is my second production with them. This San Francisco-based theatre company focuses on promoting the excellence of science fiction and fantasy in live performance (visit them here: https://www.quantumdragon.org). We've just debuted the world premiere of Alandra Hileman’s high fantasy, Spell Eternity at the Mojo Theatre, here in San Francisco. It's been a long road of burning myself with thermoplastics for fake weapons, boiling borax for glowing crystals, and painting lots of purple lines, but we're up and running. I'm so lucky to be apart of the magnificent team that put this show on the stage and I'm so very pleased with how it's turned out!
Borax crystals not glowing in the bottom right corner. Photo by Alandra Hileman
Official production photos, plus some of my personal shots of some of the nifty things I built and painted are now up here on my projects page, but I thought I'd share some here too. :)
If you're in the Bay Area, you should come see the awesome thing we've made! Spell Eternity runs April 21 to May 6th 2017 at the Mojo Theatre in San Francisco, CA. Tickets are pay-what-you-can and are available here: https://www.quantumdragon.org/buy-tickets