Costumer's challenge... Interested?

I was just visiting the fan fiction boards, reading the OC challenge thread when I had an idea- what if we had a costuming challenge every few weeks like the fan fic challenges? I played around with the idea and thought it would be a good way to hone our skills as costumers, an excercise in research, illustration and maybe even construction.

Like the fan fic challenges, the costume challenges could be something specific meant to give us practice in a certain area. For example: Many of Amidala's costumes are based upon Chinese and Mongolian traditional dress. Design an Amidala outfit based upon Aztec/Maya/Inca traditional dress. Throughout the series, Chewie and other Wookies usually wear nothing more than a bandolier. What would they wear if they had to put something on? Etc, etc.

As for entires... I really need to practice my sketching and design/presentation board making skills, and since making costumes can get really expensive, I think the best way to do something like this would be to limit the entries to illustrations (pencil/ink/water color/Photoshop/etc.) and maybe some swatches that have been scanned or photographed into .jpg/.gif format and posted on an outside site. I own two domains, and I can post pictures for others. The way the fan fic challenges work is that the challenge is posted, people have x amount of time to respond and then readers vote on their favorite entires. The winner then gets to pick out the next challenge. I think that could work for us.

If you want to see what the fan fic challenges are like, look here: http://boards.theforce.net/fan_fiction_resource/b10304/19871809/p1/?1018

I will appologize if someone has already posted this- I have a dialup connection that makes searching the site really slow. I would like to see what everyone else thinks about this. Please post your thoughts, ideas, comments, etc. I think this could be really fun.

xo,
Lisa

 

Hi Lisa, thanks for the great idea!

We tried this last year, but after a couple of design challenges, interested seemed to peter out rather quickly.

If there is enough interest again, we could revive it - anyone have any topic suggestions?

Here's one of them from last year:

July's Challenge

 

That sounds like a cool idea a way for for us to use our imagination.

 

Hmm... well, it's a thought. We'll see if anyone else is interested. I just need to get my butt in gear and really design something. Thought it might be fun with other people... Ah! I can't seem to get anything going... very frustrated right now. Too many interpersonal relationship problems.......

 

I remember last time around we tried this, what actually was submitted was some good stuff. Personally, I know I just didn't have a means of getting my stuff into the computer.

Interesting that you mention swatches and sketches and such, I love making my costume plates and am in the process of doing that for a theatrical show at the moment.
Just because I like to share:

http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a36/peorth559/

only one album (RUR) is complete.. the rest are in progress.
It so fulfilling to work from a paper script into sketching and then finally finding the costumes. Actually sitting and watching a completed show that you helped conceptualized is such a great feeling. =)

 

I think this is a good idea. I love desgining costumes, but if there's a specific challenge then I have something to actually work on. Usually I sit for hours trying to think something up. Definately try it!

 

It's a good idea. If it was some thing like Rebel Alliance trooper armor, I might be interested.

Maybe this type of contest could be done with prop designs. For example: "Design a SW blaster with something extra on it (flamethrower, grappling hook, etc)."

 

Yeah, or a new ship or something. Perhaps even hybrids of SW weapons. There's rumors that Dooku's lightsaber was also a blaster. Anyone able to back that up?