Jedi / Light Side Blue "Ghosty" Jedi Costume

Oh, very cool! I'll help with pics!

 

Well, I finally downloaded my camera and put a couple of pictures up from DragonCon. The blue ghostie costume went very well.

[image=http://home.earthlink.net/~kjaneway/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/pict0095_fghost04_c_lr.jpg]

[image=http://home.earthlink.net/~kjaneway/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/pict0092_fghost01_c_lr.jpg]

Ugh, I forgot about the boards displaying everything as a square. Anyway, here's what I did:

- Started with an older, complete Jedi costume. Good costume, but it had little bugs and odd seams that I learned not to do in my later Jedi costumes, so I wasn't going to miss it.
- Got 15 yards of mirror blue polyester organza (60" wide, $4/yd). 'Mirror' organza is important for getting the right 'ghosty' look. Don't use the sparkly organza; shiny works best. I used about 12 yds of it, but I'm about 5'3".
- Cut out simpler, larger versions of each item (using each item for a pattern):
- - - robe
- - - pants (actually only the legs that show under the tunic)
- - - undertunic (actually only the ends of the sleeves and the collar that shows)
- - - tunic (just a big, V-neck version that went over the wrap-around tunic
- - - obi (just a cover layer over the outer side)
- - - tabards (just a cover layer over the outer side)
- - - boots (made booties for boots (had to approximate and drape the organza over the boots to figure out the patters)
- - - belt (just a 'tube' of organza that the belt went into; I could still fasten it through the open ends of the tube and then fold the open ends over each other)
- - - lightsaber (just a little case to go over saber on the belt)

I did not cut everything out at once! I sewed each item until it was done and went on to the next one.

I used a serger to sew everything together and I serged all the raw edges on everything. This made the project go MUCH better than it would have using just a sewing machine. The organza frays like mad. The serged edges made everything go much faster and the organza much easier to work with.

There were a few seams that I just used a regular sewing machine on but most of it was serged. And I make use of all the salvage edges of the organza that I could.

I wanted the outer, organza to be a bit loose on the costume clothes to make it move more, so I did not have to fit everything to the clothes. Just loosely worn over everything looks best.

I attached the organza clothes to the costume pieces with a regular sewing machine. The robe and tunic needed to be attached at the sleeves and edges and shoulders, but that was it. The obi and tabbard organza needed to be tacked down all along the long edges. I also had to tack the organza down in a few places where I have hidden pockets so I could still have access to them.

The booties had elastic along the top and bottom to keep them in place.

I made a somewhat primitive 'wig' to put over my hair with unfinished organza fabric strips. For the wig I wanted the organza to fray to make the shimmering look more spread around. I didn't get the 'wig hair' very evenly distributed, but it looked OK in the photos.

For my face and hands, I used lots of pale make-up base, shimmering blue eye shadow and other shade of blue eye shadow.

I got a lot of good reactions and it was not as hot as I was afraid it might be, covered up with all that polyester organza. And it turned out to be a good way to recycle an older costume. Oh, and DragonCon was a lot of fun, too.

Thanks, Kai, for taking the pics!

And thanks to greencat and her sister for the original post!

 

It is an awesome costume! The effect really worked, especially with flash photography at night.

 

I like it!
It's a different idea!

 

It looks fantastic! I really like the look of the organza over the tunics and the 'wig' (*grin* I'm going to have to get Sister back on the boards and make some updates to my costume)


Well done.

 

Aaaah, I just realized that you replied. Glad you liked it! I think I could have used more make-up and the 'wig' was never very evenly distributed, but it turned out well.

It helped a lot that I already had a complete Jedi costume to work from. I just had to make the organza pieces over it and it looks better if they don't exactly fit or lay flat since that gives you more of a ripply effect with the organza. And using a serger on the edges of the organza really helped. What awful fabric! Looks great, it's cheap, but it frays as soon as you look at it.

Someone else also saw the post about this costume and made a holographic Leia, since the 'blue ghosty' look is very similar to holograms. The things you can do with mirror blue organza.

 

Great job! looks cool!!

 

Ahh, two force ghosts, and I saw both of you at Dragon Con. Great job.

Isn't that hot though?

 

Surprisingly enough, it wasn't that warm to wear. But I don't have problems wearing my woolly robe for the parade in the Atlanta morning heat in summer either, so that might be a consideration. The organza is 100% polyester, but still very thin. Also, the undertunic and pants were not completely covered, having only organza on the parts that would show and they are cotton. The biggest problem I had was with the obi slipping because the organza is slippery, but the belt held it down and otherwise everything stayed put reasonably well.

 

Cool.