Rogue One: Chirrut Imwe research and build thread

Hi all, I thought I would start this thread here as I haven't seen one exclusively dedicated to this character and his costume and props all in one place.

Chirrut was BY FAR my favourite character from the movie. As a life long Star Wars fan, it was also great to see some more ethnic diversity in Rogue One and the Star Wars universe in general. I am currently planning and building his costume and props.

But asides from that, let's get started on the costume and his props!

The Star Wars cardboard standees have some great detailed imagery



Costume displays from Celebration and other events




As far as I can tell from photos so far, I would break the costume down as follows:

Top:
- faded slate blue suede shirt with left ribbed sleeve first
- faded slate blue suede short sleeve jacket with left shoulder revealed (unknown if this is the same on the right shoulder?)
- faded blue outer tunic covering right side of torso and right arm (no inner sleeve inside)
- the back has a strange fabric cape that drapes over the back of the chest belt / bandolier. It has small ties on each side. *I can't tell if it's part of the outer tunic or some separate piece? I thought it might be the left side of the outer tunic draped over for "hot" weather, but it's hard to tell.

Bottom:
- dark blue bloused pants over boots
- dark blue lower leg wraps with at least 2 ties on each leg
- red under skirt that hangs right over left
- dark blue outer asymmetrical skirt that has 3 seams or pleats in the front and side panel or pocket

Footwear:
- Chelsea style boots with ribbed outer sole

Accessories:
- chest belt with 7 belt loops for flares / rod shaped greeblies
- bet hanger mount
- camera accessory
- left arm bicep hoop greeblie
- staff
- lightbow with sling

Close up of his arm detail. The bicep greeblie is quite odd. The ends seems to be attached with some kind of pivot and cable?


Boots. After further research I believe these are slightly modified Cole Haan Lunargrand Chelsea boots.


Great view of the staff and "lightbow"


Close up of the staff. You can also see a close up texture of the fabric of the skirt, which I had a local costume designer / wardrobe person identify as "2x2 basket weave".


Closeup of the bandolier and belt device which I think has already been identified: Sankyo 8-cm 8mm camera. I bought a nice one off ebay. I'm going to mold and cast it with the other side flat and thickness reduced, as it doesn't look as thick as the full camera or perhaps it was cut down.




The upper left jacket is made of suede (per the descriptions at Celebration) with the shoulder detail, 3 pockets on the left chest, and the 3 padded sections on the upper left arm. The lower left arm has approx. 16 visible stitched lines around the arm. They are not pleated folds, they look like ribbon or think webbing sewn on before the arm is sewn together.



Good view of the left "impeller gauntlet". It's 2 parts, the gauntlet itself is attached to the sleeve of the "shirt". The hand plate on top of the hand is held in place with 2 elastics around the wrist / palm area. You can see it in some shots. I'm going to model and 3D print one and rotocast it.


Based on the scene in the movie where Chirrut and Baze follow Jyn into the mountain base at night, you can tell he twists the handles of the bow (the front one is perpendicular to the bow, the rear grip rotates and pulls back) extending the limbs of the bow. Per this diagram, the the rear grip is from a Star Wars universe E-11 Stormtrooper blaster, which we already know is from a Sterling machine gun. I have a genuine grip and stock assembly I can use for my build. I'm guessing the rest was scratch built for the production.

You can see there are gear cogs and a gear rack that move to allow the limbs to extend.

There is an rpf thread specific to the his staff. Perhaps these comments are better suited for that thread but I will add them here. One photo which you have not yet included provides what I think is the clearest image of the staff endcap.



Also when I look at the organic portions of the staff, its shape and texture remind me of old grape vines. If anyone is looking to sculpt or cast this part of the staff you might find inspiration in looking at that type of growth.

smithjohnj said:

There is an rpf thread specific to the his staff. Perhaps these comments are better suited for that thread but I will add them here. One photo which you have not yet included provides what I think is the clearest image of the staff endcap.

View attachment 691731

Also when I look at the organic portions of the staff, its shape and texture remind me of old grape vines. If anyone is looking to sculpt or cast this part of the staff you might find inspiration in looking at that type of growth.

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Thanks Smithjohnj! I'll keep that in mind. I'll be making the whole costume and building the staff and lightbow.

I think I've found the boots after a few hours of searching.

Cole Haan LunarGrand boots. They are a Chelsea style boot with a Nike Lunarlon sole. I searched on a hunch as my own Nike running shoes have a similar sole.

Unfortunately these are from their spring 2014 collection and came out before then. I can't find any online for sale.

These are 95% accurate. The only different details are the heel and rear upper pull strap, there seems to be an extra panel sewn in. I wonder if the production added these themselves or if they had the manufacturer do it.

My guess is they took the light tan ones with the light colored sole and had darker uppers sewn on or dyed them. There are obviously multiple pairs used in production as I have seen almost new ones displayed with the costume to worn and war torn versions used by Donnie Yen.

Nice! Those black ones look spot on.

After taking various images of his staff into photoshop and scaling them to a ruler, I made some interesting discoveries.

I am sure they used different lengths for various stunts etc. as well as different materials.

In some of the promo shots and some fight sequences, the staff is shorter. In particular the one where he's fighting the troopers at Jedha. It looks like they simply cut several inches off the staff at the bottom, after the large "nub".

I found that I am the same height as Donnie Yen! Taking that into account and having the staff stand at about my shoulder height (full length staff version) it measures about 53.5 inches long. Which means the diameter of the wood is about 1 1/8" thick. I also got the 1 1/8" measurement by measuring staffs at my martial arts Kung Fu school (I've actually been taking Wing Chun for a while!).

I might be able to figure out more once I have the camera belt prop in hand, and maybe I can cross reference and measure the greeblies on the staff.

Some one is selling this staff on Etsy

If the staff is only 1 inch thick, maybe it was shorter during some sequences because it broke?

in looking through reference photos, I found one that shows Chirrut with a cloak or fabric over the left shoulder and arm, covering the suede jacket, left sleeve and "impeller" for the lightbow. I guess the idea is he's in "disguise" as a blind beggar, then whips the cloak off and kicks some ass.

This might be what the fabric thing hung over the bandolier is on his back. But I'm not sure if that is permanently attached to the right side of the jacket or if its an entirely separate garment just attached to the rest of the top.

I did some research on the "impeller gauntlet".

I have a 3D model I have purchased and am modifying to be more accurate.

In most photos, I can see 2 different gauntlets. I am sure they had different versions on shoot like most props and costumes.

I have identified an A and a B version. You can ID them from the weathering patterns.

A is a cleaner version, but it also has a little indentation or damage at the wrist end. B is dirtier and has more weathering and wear and tear. There is a lot more weathering on the B elbow rod.

The gauntlet is simply velcroed to the costume, you can see the velcro sewn on the sleeve.

The hand guard is attached to the inside of the sleeve of the jacket, and is secured with an elastic loop around the thumb, and another around the wrist.

Subscribed! Chirrut was my favorite character too - I can't wait to see what you come up with, especially for the staff and gauntlet!

Great work done on research so far! I'm Chinese, so I was super thrilled to finally see Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen being a part of the Star Wars universe, and not to mention them being a part of the main cast!

I really want to make Chirrut's costume as well, and this thread just pushed me into the right direction! Thanks!

Great research! I started a Chirrut a couple months back and am currently updating it since there's a lot of better reference out now and this thread. I bought a good 3D print of the gauntlet and the bow I need to assemble. I made the first costume in a black charcoal. Guess I'll have to redo in dark blue.

I found the following links to fabrics that are a pretty good match. I ordered some samples to make sure. The weave seems not dark enough and not a perfect match. Going to keep looking for a better match. My only reservation is that they all feel a bit too light colored. Thoughts on these?

Dark Blue Suede: https://www.onlinefabricstore.net/navy-blue-microsuede-fabric-.htm
Dark Blue Tunic: https://www.onlinefabricstore.net/hsearchresult.aspx?keyword=Navy Blue Polyester Linen
Dark Blue Weave Skirt: https://www.fabric.com/buy/0342839/cotton-pique-navy
Red Skirt: https://www.onlinefabricstore.net/red-poly-cotton-twill-fabric-.htm

drcane said:

Great research! I started a Chirrut a couple months back and am currently updating it since there's a lot of better reference out now and this thread. I bought a good 3D print of the gauntlet and the bow I need to assemble. I made the first costume in a black charcoal. Guess I'll have to redo in dark blue.

I found the following links to fabrics that are a pretty good match. I ordered some samples to make sure. The weave seems not dark enough and not a perfect match. Going to keep looking for a better match. My only reservation is that they all feel a bit too light colored. Thoughts on these?

Dark Blue Suede: https://www.onlinefabricstore.net/navy-blue-microsuede-fabric-.htm
Dark Blue Tunic: https://www.onlinefabricstore.net/hsearchresult.aspx?keyword=Navy Blue Polyester Linen
Dark Blue Weave Skirt: https://www.fabric.com/buy/0342839/cotton-pique-navy
Red Skirt: https://www.onlinefabricstore.net/red-poly-cotton-twill-fabric-.htm

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Nice work, Drcane!

Some suggestions:
- suede looks good
- blue tunic material looks good
- dark blue weave skirt (could be more coarse? Depends how picky you are)
- red could work, but I found some interesting reference below

Keep in mind that everything looks weathered on the screen used costume. So although it looks like the fabric is blue, it's very faded in some pieces and or weathered. Eg: the suede upper jacket looks sanded etc.

In this image from the Ultimate Visual Guide book, we can see that the red inner skirt fabric is quite thin. I'm not sure if this is just because of the lighting or perhaps they used a thinner fabric for the stunts, but you can clearly see it lets light through. So it's likely a lightweight cotton weave.


You can also see in the above image, he's wearing "stunt" shoes! He's not wearing the Jedha boots, he's clearly wearing sneakers with black laces. Probably more support for stunts?

Second discovery, the left sleeve is not suede with webbing sewn, it's actually navy leather with suede strips sewn on as the bands. You can see the leather areas have a gloss to it, and you can make out the leather texture. The suede strips are sewn on using contrast colored thread.



I received my original camera for the belt device. in the Ultimate Guide book it's called an "echo box transmitter". So I guess it's like an echo location emitter like Batman uses.

I'm building up a box for it and molding it. I only need to cast the front 3/4 of the camera as the screen used one looks like they did the same thing (one part mold).

watching....

After some extensive research and a day on the computer, I have finished my version 1 model of Chirruts Lightbow! I will be posting build pics as it progresses. Before people pounce on me it has been modified to be more accurate, this screenshot isnt the current version

Is this thread this going?

I am currently having someone making the lightbow prop.
My question is where can I find the patterns to make the red skirt and dark blue wrap he wears on the bottom?

qwerty32 said:

Is this thread this going?

I am currently having someone making the lightbow prop.
My question is where can I find the patterns to make the red skirt and dark blue wrap he wears on the bottom?

Click to expand...

I've been working on a Chirrut costume now for about a month or so. There are no patterns from what I can find for the red and blue kamas. Both of these I just drafted myself and did by hand. The bigger thing is that both of these pieces have flat feld seams rather than just normal seams. Also, be sure to take a look at LOTS of the photos. It looks like there are two sets of them - one set that is less detailed that was used for action scenes (doesn't have all the seams) - and one that is the close up shot detailed set. The latter has some elements on it, like a hidden pocket on the red kama, that are tough to spot without really checking out many of the photos. Hope this helps!