Cosplay / Lightsabers / Obi-Wan

My cosplay for NZ’s 2018 Armageddon event was a lot easier than my previous efforts and I managed to be complete it with the same last minute panic as my previous offerings!

It all started with a friend telling me that he was going to 3D print his first lightsaber. Completely by chance I was already mid-process and so we decided to compare our outcomes. He had only recently purchased a 3D printer and I was keen to give him a run for my money.

As it turned out we finished the print at pretty much at the same time, but to my envy his print quality was much higher than mine.

Then I began thinking… having a beard and looking a bit dishevelled it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to give cosplaying Obi-Wan a go!

So as the story goes I dug out my wife’s sewing machine from the cupboard it had been hiding in for the last fifteen years. Next, I watched a dosen Youtube clips on ‘how to thread a needle’ only to have to lower my self sufficient expectations and call my ‘ex-sewing machine serviceman’ neighbour Phil over to help me set up the beast.

The ‘beast’ had been gathering dust in a cupboard for 15 years so it was no surprise that we first had to give it a simple service… Once that was done I looked for and purchased a few patterns of cloaks similar to the original but in the end settled for copying my own dressing gown by tracing it out onto butcher paper and then adding a bit extra for overlapping.

All in all the build went relatively well. I learnt a lot about working with a sewing machine but perhaps the biggest and most enlightening lesson was discovering how conditioned I had been into thinking a ‘sewing’ as only used as part of a woman’s work!

Now hold on…. don;t roll your eyes. I know that was a very sexist statement these days but I can clearly recall peer pressure in my youth to steer clear from even touching a sewing machine because that was for females!

Well I am a maker and it’s all about using the right too for the right task…. so, “Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead.”

It wasn’t long before I had a basic cut out finished and a costume built.

I have added some of the photos to the bottom of this post.