What better way to celebrate May the Fourth than to take a trip down memory lane and our family’s Star Wars costuming through the years.
Star Wars means so much to our family in so many ways, but costuming is one of our favorite ways to show it. Not only are we full-time professional costume and prop designers and fabricators, but costume and prop making is a big deal in our family.
The very first cosplay I ever did with my son, which was also his first con and just shy of his birthday, was Endor Luke and Wicket. This was actually the real beginning of my career as a costumer as I had no idea what the costume and cosplay scene at conventions was really like until we went together in costume. Our costumes were mostly pieced together found items with just a bit of crafting involved, but we both had such an amazing time and loved it and started us on the road to costuming and a joint love of Star Wars.
When my daughter’s first Halloween arrived, I let my son choose their costumes, and he chose Chewbacca and Han Solo. They made quite the pair and was a great way for him to bring his little sister into the fold. These costumes were almost completely scratch-built. As a side note, I was very happy and proud that he had no qualms about his little sister dressing up as Han Solo versus choosing a more traditional role for her!
While my daughter enjoys Star Wars and knows plenty about it, she spreads her love around equally among all the things she likes. My son however LOVES Star Wars and has seen every film that has been released in theaters since he was born, in the theater with me (and he’s also seen every movie and show released before and since). So while my daughter’s costuming has varied quite a lot, my son continued the Star Wars trend. His next costume was a store bought Kylo Ren because, just like when I was a kid, children always seem to be drawn to these all black “scary” villains.
At the same time, I had made my own costume from scratch of my favorite jedi – Kanan Jarrus from Star Wars Rebels (which is, and I think always will be, my favorite part of the Star Wars universe).
Then my son learned all about The Clone Wars and wanted to be a Clone Trooper for Halloween. Of course by the time he’d decided that, I didn’t have time to make an entire Clone Trooper from scratch, so opted to go store bought again. However, he didn’t want to be any clones they actually made costumes for. His favorite color is red and so he wanted to be Commander Fordo. Fortunately, he looks pretty close to Rex, so I bought a Rex costume, did a few upgrades in the time I had and repainted what I could. This guy already poses better than I do!
Star Wars costuming has allowed me to continually improve and build upon my skills and also just have a ton of fun. I’ve done everything from store bought costumes, like Jyn and Cassian, to fully scratch built screen accurate builds like the Armorer and to even get creative in the SW world like designing my own custom Mandalorian (in the works) and a 332nd Armorer helmet to honor two of my favorite amazing Star Wars women – The Armorer and Ahsoka.
And sometimes, as a cosplayer, you get invited to do something really cool with other cosplayers. I got invited to be Kanan in this re-creation of one of the final scenes from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I am honored to have been a part of it and hope you enjoy it!
Have you done any Star Wars costuming either as a family or even solo? We’d love to see it! Share it with us on social media!
Lastly, you can always see more of my costume and prop work, which includes a lot of Star Wars but also plenty of other stuff, on my site, Sionnach Studios.
