Hey folks! I'm getting ready for Emerald City Comic Con, and trying out my most ambitious cosplay yet: Rey from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. On one hand, you'd think she'd be easy to replicate, but her costume has a lot of small touches that are hard to find at thrift shops, and I hate the way the officially licensed ones look, so it's been a lot of small steps to put this one together. I'll do a full run-down of the costume after ECCC, but I thought I'd do a quick check in on how I'm working on the accessories.
1) Shoes. I honestly thought that Rey's shoes would be the hardest piece. However, I followed through on my pledge after the Sonic cosplay and went to Lifelong Thrift before making any other stops. Behold, I found shoes that were perfect on the first stop in! And on the crazy Lifelong sale, they were only $2.99!
2) Belts. The two leather belts Rey wears are easier: get two brown belts, position and glue-gun them together so they keep their iconic shape. I found one at Lifelong for $1 and the other for only $0.50.
3) Arm bandages. Also pretty straight forward: I picked up some ACE bandages at the grocery store. At home, I mixed coffee grounds, oolong tea, and very watered down black acrylic paint in order to give the bandages a more distressed look.
4) The wrist cuff and pouch. Okay, this one was harder. I looked at Lifelong, Goodwill, and a few other thrift shops and found nothing that looked quite right for Rey's pouch and leather arm cuff.
I even looked at Target's dress-up Rey set... but that looked nothing like the pieces. Can I mention again how much I hate the licensed products for Rey? Anyway, it was time to take a page out of my Jason Todd cosplay book: when all else fails, use duct tape.
I bought some brown duct-tape and broke out my spare felt and glue-gun in order to make what I think is a pretty passable bag and cuff. They're not perfect, and in fact look a tad silly on their own, but they look pretty passable when combined with my other pieces. Definitely better (sadly) than anything I found in any store.
5) Lightsaber. I'm going with Rey's lightsaber rather than her staff both because it is a bit easier and because lightsabers are awesome. Here's a fun money saving tip though for those who want to do Force Awakens cosplay: don't buy a Force Awakens' lightsaber if you are cosplaying Rey or Finn. Just don't. Why? They're over-priced because they are new and in demand. But in the context of the film, that blue lightsaber is the same one Luke uses in the original Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back... and in that plot, it is his father's lightsaber passed down to him via Obi Wan. Meaning it is also the same lightsaber that Anakin Skywalker uses in the prequels. I found a correctly modeled blue lightsaber from Revenge of the Sith for less than half the price of a current Force Awakens one.
Now I can stand awkwardly in front of people and try to hand them a lightsaber for four minutes, just like Rey! Yay!
There's still more distressing and planning to do, and I'm actually (gasp!) changing my hair for this cosplay instead of wearing a wig. But so far I feel pretty good about how it's all coming together.
Look for more updates soon... and may the Force be with you. ~ LK
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