Costuming

Behold The Acolyte’s Sick Costumes Ahead of Its Finale

Costume designer Jennifer Bryan goes into the process of making fits for the show's principle cast.

Altered Carbon‘s Costume Designer Talks About Designing Gods and Fetishizing Superheroes

Making Altered Carbon was no easy feat, by any means, and that includes in the costume department. Over 2,000 actors and extras were featured on the series, with up to 600 unique costumes that ran the gamut from near-celestial beings to synth fight club owners. In this interview with io9, costume designer Ann Foley talks…

How Sansa’s Development Is Mirrored in Her Fashion Throughout Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones isn’t just a pricey show because of all those CGI dragons, British actors, and exotic locales. It also has some of the most thoughtful creatives building props, sets, and costumes. Especially costumes. Redditor fusionesque has already done an comprehensive examinations of the costuming choices for Tyrion, Cersei, Jorah, and Daenerys, and now…

So You Want To Join The Empire: The Final Lessons

Over the past year, I’ve been documenting how to build a suit of Stormtrooper armor, and a little on how to go about wearing it once you’ve completed it. This week, I’d like to close out the column by taking a look at the bigger picture: what have we learned from this little journey? In…

You Will Soon Be Able to Suit Up As A Force Awakens Stormtrooper 

If you’ve been looking to dress up as a Stormtrooper for any of the Star Wars films coming to theaters in the next couple of years, you’re in luck: Costuming company ANOVOS has opened up pre-orders for their First Order Stormtrooper, with orders expected to ship later this year. The order pages show off images…

So You Want To Join The Empire: The Public and Safety 

Over the course of this series, we’ve talked a lot about how to construct Stormtrooper Armor, but we haven’t talked a whole lot about what to do with it once you’re done. You might be itching to throw the costume on and share your love of Star Wars with the world, but there’s some things…

So You Want To Join The Empire: What We Learned About Those Rogue One Troopers in 13 Pictures

So, the Rogue One trailer hit the web earlier this week, and it looks awesome. There’s all the hallmarks of the original trilogy, on a war footing, and that means plenty of Original trilogy stormtroopers. We’ve already spent some time poring over it frame by frame, but I want to look closely at one thing:…

Even The Empire’s Elite Soldiers Fall In Love, According To Bara Heiða’s Video For ‘Stormtrooper’

In Bara Heiða’s track ‘Stormtrooper, an Imperial stormtrooper is left behind in a strange world and finds love. It’s a cute, entertaining music video. Bara Heiða is a folk/pop band that hails from Reykjavik, Iceland, and they’ve produced a bunch of great songs with some fantastic music videos. The band describes the song as a…

So You Want To Join The Empire: Oops, I Did It Again

So, the other day, a big brown box arrived on my doorstep. I might have bought another Stormtrooper kit. This one is the latest product from ANOVOS, a company that manufactures “quality in screen accurate uniforms and prop replicas accomplished by the manufacturing and marketing of limited offerings from movies, television and contemporary media.” This…

This Tiny First Order Stormtrooper Just Stole Our Hearts

Last October, we found that you could take one of the Jakks 48 inch First Order Stormtroopers and turn them into an amazing costume for your kid. Since then, costumers have been snapping them up for that very purpose, but Jim Brock just outdid them all. Seriously, we’re dying from the cute. It’s a fantastic…

Here’s How Complicated It Is To Don A Kylo Ren Costume

Kylo Ren has a pretty neat costume for The Force Awakens, and there’s a lot of costumers out there who are looking to replicate it for their own fun. While it looks simple, the costume is way more intricate than you’d think. Dawn Bright, SL-13377 of the 501st Legion has been working to construct her…

So You Want To Join The Empire: Buckets On!

So, I have a confession to make: this project isn’t done yet, and I don’t have final, full kit pictures yet. I’ll explain in a bit, but I do have pictures of something else: the helmet. I’ve held off on doing the helmet because it’s probably the most important part of the suit, but also…

In my regular ‘So You Want To Join The Empire’ column, I’ve gotten the question a bit: why dress up as the bad guys of Star Wars, given the iconography? The LA Times goes into how the 501st Legion went from a Geocities site for Stormtrooper enthusiasts to a world-wide charitable costuming group.

So You Want To Join The Empire: Accessories & A Side Project

So, the Stormtrooper is almost done. The armor is trimmed, assembled, and wearable. Now, there’s a couple of final things that need to be picked up. Additionally, I’ve embarked on another project: refitting my original Stormtrooper. Let’s get started for what you’ll need besides the armor: Undersuit Under their armor, Stormtroopers wear form fitting clothes,…

This Cosplay Music Video Highlights BlizzCon’s Extraordinary Cosplayers

If you missed BlizzCon last weekend, Sneaky Zebra has put together one of their fantastic cosplay music videos, highlighting some of the really awesome costumes that they spotted throughout the weekend.

So You Want To Join The Empire: Sun’s Out, Guns Out

Over the course of this column, we’ve been looking into the armor and how it all fits together. This week, let’s talk about something that goes along with Stormtroopers: the famed E-11 Blaster Rifle. There’s the long-running joke that Stormtroopers can’t hit anything. I have my own theories about their aiming in A New Hope,…

So You Want To Join The Empire: Break A Leg!

When we last left off a couple of weeks ago, we were finishing up the legs, and it’s proving to be a bit more complicated than originally anticipated. The first problem was rectifying the screen-accuracy with something that’s practical to wear and regularly use. I’m not the same size or build as the actors who…

So You Want To Join The Empire: A Leg To Stand On 

We took a short break from assembling things last week, focusing on some of the tools that you might use when you’re assembling a set of stormtrooper armor. This week, it’s back to business as we start to assemble the legs. The legs are pretty simple, especially now that we’ve done the upper arms and…

So You Want To Join The Empire: Tools Of The Trade

It’s occurred to me that I while I’ve been working on constructing Stormtrooper armor, I haven’t actually gone into what I’ve been using to allow me to do the building. So, let’s take a look at what tools are useful when it comes to armor construction. There’s a bit of a disclaimer here: this is…

So You Want To Join The Empire: Arm Up, Part II

After last week’s misadventure with a couple of components, it’s time to get back on track with finishing out the arms for the Stormtrooper. This week, we’re finishing up the arms. To recap, here’s the 501st Legion’s Costume Reference Library entry for the upper arms: Upper Arm Armor For 501st approval: Armor is fully closed.…