Anakin Skywalker Inspired Cosplay: Construction and Pictures

After making this costume, I have discovered that Anakin’s costume (and any other Jedi costume) is basically the most impractical outfit for fighting that I know of. XD

It is almost intolerable to wear it in any temperature over fifty degrees, and those tabards fall off the shoulders so easily that I can’t even do one lightsaber flourish without it falling off! Before I wear it again I want to find some way to secure the tabards to the shoulders. But it came out pretty darn awesome.

This costume was completed right before Halloween, but I was not able to get the pictures until now! I’m pretty happy with how it fits, except for the armhole seams at the under-tunic. Those were a little tight due to fabric constraints. But I guess now I’ll start at the very beginning.

As it turns out, one yard for the inner tunic and two yards for the outer tunic were barely enough! I barely had enough room to cram two front top panels, two front bottom panels, a back top and back bottom, and all the sleeves, into one yard for the inner tunic. Sane people with more money probably would have gotten a yard and a half! It’s a good thing I’m a “fun sized” person. Aside from the small amount of fabric I had to work with, it was relatively easy to draft the pattern. I just had to use measurements from the waist, bust, lower hips, distance from the waist to the neck, and the length I wanted for the tunic “skirt.”

This is what the second tunic was looking like as I stitched it together. Didn’t take any progress pictures of the first tunic, because I was in rather a hurry, and they’re basically the same thing anyway!

As you can see, there is absolutely nothing there to emphasize the bust. No darts or anything. And that’s because this is a genderbend cosplay, so I don’t have to fake a full bust like I do with the Edwardian costume.

One nice thing I did for this costume was, I took the time to “faux serge” all the interior edges. I do not have a machine that can serge (make a really nice professional stitched edge to the fabric), so I just did a fine zigzag stitch and trimmed off the raw edges. See the before and after pictures of this:

This way, if you look at the interior of the costume, it doesn’t automatically scream, “IMMA CHEAP POLYESTER COSTUME!”

Also, for that neckline on the inner tunic, I hemmed it using an invisible stitch by hand. I didn’t want ugly stitches showing through that neatly-pressed fabric. On the inside:

On the outside:

Sorry for the awful picture quality. You can kind of see where I made the stitches on the outside, because the fabric is so thin, but it’s way better than having obvious dark brown thread showing through! On the outer tunic, however, my thread matched it much better, so I just topstitched it REALLY close to the edge, and it looked very neat and clean.

Sewing the armhole seams was a pain, as it always is for me. I can just never get it to look right in that part where you have an intersection of like 4 seams! The circular seam that goes by the shoulder meets with the seam at the bottom of the sleeves AND the side seams. No matter what I do in any project that involves attaching sleeves, I always get ugly folds in weird places! Maybe sometime I’ll try to look up how to do those better on YouTube or something. Thankfully, the Edwardian dress will not have sleeves like that…

After those tunics were both constructed, here’s what they looked like worn together. From there I just needed to clean things up and finish all the seams.

If you look really closely you can see how I hemmed the neckline and sleeves of the outer tunic. You can barely see the stitches because they are so close to the fabric edge, and I love how that looks! I was also quite happy to have the layered, crisscross look of the two tunics worn together.

Next, I came to the most epic part, the part that I am most proud of…. THE GLOVE!

For making it, I used a tutorial from Deviantart (link: http://eightohsixtythird.deviantart.com/art/Gloves-Tutorial-Part-I-Making-a-Pattern-325404354 ) to create a glove pattern from your own hand. It was difficult because I had to draw the pattern for my right hand, and use my left hand to draw it! (I’m right handed in case you didn’t deduce that already. 😛 ) But the pattern worked out so nicely! Here’s an early experimental progress picture. When I made a practice glove at first it did not work out…. good thing I practiced, so I was able to do it correctly later!

That faux leather I used was very coarse and scratchy on the other side, so I lined it with scrap material from the inner tunic. Really, the most tedious part was sewing all the gussets that go on the side of the fingers.

Throughout this whole process, I felt like Shakespeare and his family. They were glove makers. I got to see his house when I went to England, and there was this windowsill where they put all these glove making supplies… ^.^

Anyway, here’s the glove as it was mostly done. It just needed one or two more gussets.

After all the fingers were functioning properly, I made a simple part to go on the forearm.

Then came the really fun part… attaching the buckles! 😀 Those things I got from Amazon were dead accurate to the actual costume. Here’s what I did: I cut some strips of faux leather, topstitched the edges to make them look nice, and then inserted them through the gaps on the edges of the buckles. My machine handled it surprisingly well, sewing through multiple layers of faux leather! And then they turned out really adorable. Like little Anakin glove bracelets!

Then I just hand stitched them to the glove and BANG! Keep reading to see pictures of the final thing, I want it to be a surprise. >:3

Then, all I had to do was the tabards. I read some forum posts from costuming groups like Rebel Legion, and they mentioned how you want to cut the tabards in a Y-shape so they hang on the shoulders better. That’s exactly what I did. You can see how it looks kind of like a letter Y.

I barely had enough of the faux leather to do this! Good thing I’m short!

Also, I did do the shoulder seams. Mainly because I couldn’t have cut this piece on a fold.

From there, I just had to hem it with a close-to-the-edge topstitch, and quickly make a simple belt out of scrap from the outer tunic…… and it was DONE!

We took some pretty cool pictures on a lava-red backdrop and low lighting. My hair was really easy- I just sprayed it with water so it would dry curly, and let it down. 🙂 The curls and everything are all natural. For makeup, I did it dark and intense so that people would get that I’m not actually trying to be a dude, and to match the vibe of the character. The makeup included smoky dark brown eyeshadow, thick black liquid eyeliner, and contouring at the cheekbones (but you can’t really see that, oh well). Sadly, I don’t have those amazing cheekbones that Hayden Christensen has. 😦

Oh yes… and how can I forget… the final touch was to do the iconic scar out of brown eyeliner!

It sure was awesome to wear this to Halloween and blow all the little kids’ minds as I did lightsaber tricks. (I spent the whole summer learning how to do lightsaber twirls and flourishes!)

Some various reactions to the costume:

People at school: Lol you look cute!

Me: D: I’m a character that murders people, I am not cute!

99% of people in the neighborhood on Halloween: Who are you supposed to be?

The remaining 1%: Oh, are you Rey? Or Kylo Ren?

Me: *internally screaming* *smiles* No, but I really do need to give my grandson a good talking-to.

Someone at a party: Oh, I like your makeup, it looks kind of sexy!

Me: Yay! Finally someone gets that I’m not trying to look “cute.”

It was really sad that no one seemed to know who Anakin Skywalker is. Even when I explained it to them, they’re like, “Oh haha I’m not that deeply into Star Wars, to know who that is.”

He is the PROTAGONIST OF STAR WARS!!

Well, despite the disappointing lack of awareness from the general public, this costume turned out awesome. It’s my first genderbend cosplay, and my first time making a glove. And wearing that glove makes me feel really tough, lol! Like I want to punch somebody! ^.^

Thanks for reading!

 

 

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