Hera Syndulla - Star Wars Rebels (WIP)

[Bhelia]

Hi there,

I'm currently working on my Hera costume for Celebration Europe in London this year (the husband promised to accompany me as Kanan). My ultimate goal is to become a member of the Rebel Legion.

I read some how-to-posts in the Legion Forum but tend to keep to myself in trial and error. So here I go:

I started with the vest which I made of craft foam (my first attempt with this material). I taped my mannequin, drew on the shape of the vest, from that I made the pattern, you know how it works. To check the pattern I transferred it to cardboard. From that I made the first vest which didn't work out. I repeated the process three times before I found a pattern that worked for me.
Once the foam vest was done I thought about priming it with white glue, but decided against that. I used a (glossy black) rubber dinghy paint that stays flexible, covered that with a very thin brushing of brown and beige acrylic paint. I took care to highlight the areas where the light hits the vest. Next I used a light brown leather dye and a transparent wax leather finish.
Rebel Legion & Dave Filoni say the vest is leather. In my opinion the vest doesn't behave like leather in the series, but who am I to argue? Flying helicopter lightsabers, anyone? ;-)



The vest closes on the side with magnets and two hidden straps of velcro. I thought about closing it on the back but wanted to be able to dress and undress myself.
There's no picture yet but in the front and back there are straps of velcro to keep Hera's flight pants in place.

Apart from the foam I didn't buy anything, just used the stuff we had lying around from previous costumes or household items.

 

[Bhelia]

Next I made the flight pants. I used the pattern of some belly dance trousers (I used for my twi'lek dancer outfit three years ago), so I had the basic shape of the pants. I created the complete pants with cheap test fabric (Bomull from Ikea) before I used this one as a pattern for the real fabric. I didn't care about "the one correct shade of orange" because I couldn't get my hands on that many different shades anyway and didn't want to order.

I got a decent priced, slightly elastic cotton fabric with a nice, subtle shine.
The final pants open with two hidden zippers on the sides. One would have been enough to get in and out but the two of them make dressing so much easier!!! The fly in the front is a dummy.

After the basic pants were done (first picture) I added the details such as pockets (those aren't dummies, one of them is actually a huge pocket that is hidden inside the leg!), the dummy fly, the leather-application on the front (which I transformed into a pocket, too) and the knee pad applications. The buttons are real buttons which I covered with elastic fabric that I used for the waistband cuffs of the pants' legs.

The loops for the belt are still missing!



The belt in the last picture is not final, neither are the boots or top (or skin colour for that matter)

 

[Bhelia]

And final post today: In the last few days I have been working on Hera's boots - they're driving me nuts!

I got some nice real leather ankle boots (good find on amazon for 20€!). For the foot guards I covered them with tape and drew on the shape for the pattern. I transferred the pattern on craft foam, primed the foam with rubber dinghy paint and painted the "leather" part the same way I painted the vest. The round rivets on the sides are made of a plastic wine cork that I cut into pieces. The foot guards are glued to the boots.


For the spats I put on the boots and covered my leg up to the knee in tape and once again made a pattern out of that. The spats are made of real leather, which I primed with dark leather dye and next the same brown and beige acrylic paint and light brown leather dye and wax leather finish I used for the vest. I did this with the boot, too, so it's all the same colour.



They look nice so far, but: I can't reach the boot's zipper anymore when I get dressed, so I had to remove the zipper and put in an elastic band
The leather of the spats is too thin so it crinkles especially around the ankles. I decided to stabilize them with another coat of leather inside, but I haven't got enough leather at hand. However, I had (barely) enough worbla left so I used this on one spat and it worked but took me hours.

 

[Bhelia]

Spats are done as is the belt around the legs. The belt around the waist doesn't close yet.

 

[E Williams]

Wow! I was wondering how her costume could be translated into reality (the "waist" of the pants is very unique), and your interpretation is really fantastic! The attention to detail on everything is impressive too.

Oh, btw, if you need a blaster, there's a nice printable model on Thingiverse here http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:992301 (check the remixes for the missing detail part)

 

[Buckethead]

Excellent job, good to see some rebels costumes

 

[NightShine]

WOW fantastic job thus far!!! lovin' this!!!!

 

[Bhelia]

Thanks!!!

I just had a nice little chat with the husband. He's going to get the blaster done for Celebration Europe (I doubt that I'm allowed to wear it in London, we'll see); in turn I have to do the soft parts of his Kanan costume. Thanks for the print download, though. Might help!

There won't be an update in the next few days. I need to put some work into my Mara Jade. She's suffered some battle damage over the last few years and the annual Legoland Star Wars event in Denmark is coming up... :cool