Throw Back Thursday - Han Solo costume for Celebration Europe 2016

This week’s throwback is to the Han Solo costume I made for my Son, to attend Star Wars Celebration Europe back in 2016.

Originally he wanted to go as a Stormtrooper, but I persuaded him it wouldn’t be very practical or that it would last to be worn again. After I showed him a pic of Han after they escape from the trash compactor scene & him wearing a Stormtrooper's belt, he was sold.

The boots were off eBay second hand, but in perfect condition & the trousers were bought from Tesco’s. The shirt, jacket (vest) & scaled blaster, were made by myself with help from Karen.

Here are some of the links to the making of his outfit:

• The beginning
• Never tell me the odds
• E-11 scaled blaster build begins
• The vest work begins
• Boots
• Trousers

Hope these help if your thinking of making something for yourself or your kids.

Flashback - Star Wars heels 2014

These came up on my time line the other day, so thought I'd share this flashback to 2014.

Back story, for those who haven't been following my Blog since back then lol. A friend had seen some decoupaged Star Wars shoes and had paid for them to be commisioned, but was ripped off by the seller and never recieved them. So I looked into how difficult it was to be able to do.

This was an interesting project to work on. Artistic still, but no wood lol. After completing this I was asked to make a few more, different designed shoes for other friends.

Star Wars Heels 2014

So to check out the work done, click on these following links.

Star Wars Shoes 1.0

Star Wars Shoes 1.1
Star Wars Shoes 1.2
Star Wars Shoes 1.3

After these, check out the other designs I created.

Star Wars shoes - Wedges Revenge

Chippenham Sc-Fi Day 2016 - Event Report

R5 was loaded up into the car and my Son was attending with me again, in his Han Solo costume. Also, Karen was a volunteer helper for the actual event.

The drive from Bristol to Chippenham is not a long one & we arrived earlier than I had planned, due to there being no traffic.

The short distance from car park to the Hall, R5 attracted a few stares and 'oooh look, R2' lol :D. Inside people were set up & setting up still, I missed Paul Felski with his awesome B9 Robot from the Original 'Lost In Space' tv show, along with other film classic Robots.
Lost the photo of Paul with his B9 robot...but there are pics on the Chippenham FB page.

The event is spread out over a wide'ish area, to include not just indoor, but outdoor too. There was Jedi training in the Emery Gate shopping centre, with Andrew Lawden, and fellow Astromech builder Mark Enright with his Batmobile Steamer, along with other prop cars.

Chippenham Sci-Fi website link

The event opened at 10am and was busy straight away. The Milton Keynes Garrison, Southern Troopers were just a two of the groups attending. Marvel characters as well as Predators & Dalek's roamed the halls.

R5 had lots of fun with kids big and small lol. And entertained all day, even with his 'bad motivator' (more on this in another Blog post).

R5 with some fan's of his lol

what are the chance's of R5 meeting BB8...?

R5 entertaining two new friends (just in front of him)

Late afternoon, Pam & Clem had a walk around and posed graciously for pictures with guests and Cosplay'rs alike.

Pam Rose & R5

A Wookie, Han JJ Solo, R5D4 & Clem So

Pam Rose & Clem So with the MK Garrison

Imperial Officer - Pinup style
Karen told me she wanted another outfit that was a bit informal for events, yet hopefully instantly recognisable.

She had seen a 50's 'pin-up' style outfit that she was able to create without it costing the earth. So after buying the recognisable Imperial belt & buckle, teamed up with a grey pencil length skirt, black body & the hardest item to find.....a short length, plain, grey cardigan she was happy with the look. Black stockings & black heels.

She also found the insignia badge, that she sowed onto the cardigan.

3D printed Imperial insignia

Her outfit for the day drew quite a few admires & lots of positive comments.

She wasn't to happy with one pic I took, but was defo smiling when Andrew Lawden commented on her outfit and happily posed for a pic with her lol.

We had to leave early, due to pre-arranged family commitments. But we had a great time & got to meet up with friends. Roll on next year.

R5D4 gets some screen time.....

 .......on 'Sky's Star Wars Greatest moments'

I was away at the time, but my friend Karen, recorded the program for me. She had already watched and posted up on FB about seeing R5 on the program lol.

I mentioned in my post 'Celebration Europe 3 2016 event-report PT3' about the mini film crew & Alex Zane and was a little thrown when he was stood next to R5. I did get a very quick picture and video. Mark Cox took this great pic of the filming.

Filming for Star Wars Greatest Moments 2016

Also in the shot is R2 & Mike's yellow R2

Here are my screen grabs, lol...

This takes me back, I was just rolling R5 around and these guys asked if they could have R5 in their pictures. Then R4 & BB8 roll past and join the now growing photo opportunity for the first wave of attending visitors as the doors opened in the morning.

If you watched the programe, you'll also see R2-M80 (Matey, yellow) roll in front of us.

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Trousers 1.1

Blood Stripes!

This has been THE most fiddly, most time consuming, frustrating part so far!!!

If we'd of used the correct width material to start with, life would of been slightly easier lol [this was my fault]. It was double the width needed. So it was folded over and stitched, then the ends [to stop fraying] were stitched, all by hand, as the machine was pulling the material. Next comes sewing onto the trousers. This was done with the sowing machine.

A few hours work and still have at least five more stripes to sew on this side alone.....

Still have the other side to do too....

PS: Big thanks to Karen

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Vest 2.0 - lining

This weekend has been a very busy one, lots of sowing, cutting and stitching. I was starting to worry that the costume wouldn't be finished in time! But thanks to Karen giving up her free time to guide my sowing, help and advice, I'm still on target lol, for completion.

So, last week's work, since last post, was to sow in the lining. Easy you might think. In hindsight, the lining would of been better sown onto each panel BEFORE stitching them together, but hay ho. On the plus side, doing it this way we combined the hemming correction of the rear neck, which needed re-stitching anyway.

cutting out using a template

sewing the first front inside lining in

First inside front lining finished

Working out the neck hem, ready for sowing.

neck hem pinned

Karen picked up material at the weekend for the shirt and leather look material for the Stormtrooper wrap around belt.

This weeks work, Stormtrooper belt, shirt, trouser modification & Blood stripes!

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Vest 1.9

Managed to get back on with working on Jay's costume for Celebration Europe [Sunday 17th July].....thanks Karen.

First off was cutting out the three remaining loops and these along with the rear pocket, were hemmed.

I next added the stitch lines to the upper chest and across the rear, along with the stitch line around the lower waist line.

Next was then machine sewing on the pocket. flap & loops.

A stitch was added to the opening edges of the pocket to help the flap sit flat

Next for the Vest is the lining.....

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Vest 1.8

Front pockets complete......

....................almost

Last night's work consisted of adding lining to the two pocket flaps and stitching them on and the two pockets themselves.

I wasn't going to do this, but Karen suggested it and it does look better with the lining on.

This all took about three hours, which seem's a long time :D but there is a lot involved and am still learning. Also the thread kept breaking, which meant having to re-do some of the stitching.

Lower pocket & flap sewn into position

Side on view of pockets

Next will be the rear loops and large rear pocket.......

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Vest 1.7

Pocket Flaps

My 'assistant' Karen suggested the other day about using fabric stiffener for the pocket flaps. To help keep there shape.

She had some already, so I cut it to size, hem material was folded over and ironed to help it stay flat & then sewn inside of hem flap edges.

Second of the three flaps I made

Front three done, Sunday night.

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Vest 1.5 'Pockets'

So I finished up the test pieces for the pockets.

Sized them to fit the smaller size Vest.

Front layout

Rear layout

I then got on with making templates of the pockets with folds for material to give them the full/expandable look. I gave each fold a half inch around the pockets.

Note: that these are just guides and extra material around the edges is needed to hem the pockets to prevent fraying!

I then got on with cutting out the material for the pockets.

Still have the large rear pocket, pocket flaps & loops still to cut out of material.

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Vest 1.4 'Pockets'

Got around to measuring up and scaling the pockets etc, to fit onto the Vest.

Started scaling the pockets to suit Vest size.

Next will be to add extra for the folds to make them actual pockets.

~~~~~~~~~

Just for ref. purposes:
There's a lot of Fan Made, stuff out there, and some of it is top notch stuff, other stuff is Halloween/just for fun/one night only, stuff. By this I mean only that it's not 'screen accurate' enough to be of use in making your own outfit. If your going down the 'authentic looking route'. So if you want your outfit to be 'right', you need to look out the forums that really count!

Being on Forum's helps you to find the correct info from people who know there stuff!
One such forum is the Rebel Legion. Here you will find all the info on all the  'Rebel' characters from the Star Wars films.

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Vest 1.3 'Hemmed edges'

Karen came over around 8pm, Jacob test fitted the vest. We marked position of where the pockets etc should roughly go and sized them accordingly.

Well, we didn't get round to cutting any pockets, as after taking in the sides, permanently stitched, I then added the hem to all the edges. Sounds easy, but takes some getting used too, and these were just straight lines!! The tricky parts were the arm holes and the rear neck/collar. This I did slightly get carried away with and will need to be sorted, next time....

Might not look like much, but edging, ironing the hem lines, sowing hems, curved sections (arm holes) does take time, tonight was another two and a half'ish hours work.

The Vest work so far....

Next time......after the collar fix.......will be looking at the pockets etc.

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Vest 1.2 'Cut & stitch'

So last night, our friend Karen came over with the Vest material & her sowing machine etc.

She showed me how to set up the machine, explained a few things to remember and then let me loose on some off-cut linen material lol. I tried out a few rows of stitching, made a small mistake of pulling/pushing a little bit which then bunched up the fabric. The knack is to just let the machine do the work, you just guide it. But saying as I've not used a sowing machine in about 30 years [cough] I don't think I did to bad a job...... :D

test run stitching

Once I'd got this out my system, we decided to get to actually cutting out the material for the Vest. So after I'd cut out the three pieces [two front, one back] I then went on to stitching them together.

This is just to hold the pieces together and we also used white thread so to be able to un-stitch if alterations are needed.

The neck area and arm holes are still to be done.

Tonight, Karen will be back round to help test fit the Vest on my Son and then onto the next stage.

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Vest 1.1A [mini update]

Thursday evening I took my Son round to my friend Karen's house to test fit the template Vest. All went great. Alterations were made to the template, details were marked up etc.

The plan was She was brining her sowing machine round on Saturday to give me a practice on it...with scrap material of course, but plans change.

But once she's happy with my work, It's onto the making of it!

She has also said about making the Shirt, she's looking for suitable material already, and what to do about the trousers too.

More next week.....

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Vest 1.1

Over the weekend, Karen picked up the material to be used for the Vest & also then got on with making up the template for it.

we went with the wider ribbon on the right.

outer material, inner lining & blood stripe material

~~~~~~~~~~~

Template work began.....

And pics of it stitched and modeled by her Son.

More work to come.......