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Home Made Star Wars Costumes
What's New?
02-17-2000
There won't be any more new costumes started or any additional information put on
this website for the foreseeable future. The following is a recent email to Jeff
Allen explaining why this is so. Some of you may recognize Jeff's name, he is
founder of the excellent website DH2:
The Difinitive How To Thanks for everyone's encouragement during these
last several months. Here's the message:
Actually is was your website that inspired me to create my
own. The
website and Thurston James' book led me to a lot of experimentation with
molding and casting things. It was fun.
I haven't done anything with the website or my hobby since
last fall. You
see, my father was a great craftsman; he was a genious at working with
wood, metal, fiberglas, anything. After I got my pilot's license in the
early 90's, he started training and got his license as well. Then he
started the 5 year process of building an airplane from plans in his
garage. This isn't as rare as you may think, there's several magazines
like Kitplane and Sport Aviation that are devoted to this hobby. The
airplane project fed on all of my dad's skills in engine work and related
systems, electrical wiring and a lot of woodwork. He developed some new
skills in applying the fabric covering for the wings and fuselage. He got
additional flight training in a similar aircraft. And the plane was
beautiful, he had very exacting standards and used top quality supplies and
it showed.
But in the end there was one oversight. According to the FAA,
the propellar
blades were not set at the correct pitch angle. The thrust that was
produced was enough to get the plane in the air, but not enough to maintain
controlled flight. He crashed and burned off the end of the runway on
August 25, 1999.
Two weeks after the funeral, my girlfriend of 3 1/2 years left
me. When I
get to this part of the story, it all sounds pretty pathetic, but I think
that I was unbalanced more than anything. I was focusing too much on what
I wanted and not paying attention to the goals of others. I thought that
since I had a intellegent, beautiful girlfriend, it was proof that I had my
life's priorities right. I found out too late that I was wrong.
After the funeral and the endless string of relatives and
friends and the
funeral home and the insurance forms and the police report, NTSB report,
FAA representatives, etc....after all of this, I took a good look at my own
life. My apartment was filled with metal shelves and workbenches. I had a
wide variety of power tools, building supplies, sandpaper, paint, ulta-cal,
(you get the idea) all within ready reach - right there in my living room.
It was a workshop more than a living room. In my bedroom I had
a stand for
all of my Star Wars masks and helmets and a rack to hold all of the
costumes.
One day I looked at all of this. My dad spent a large part of
his life
alone in his garage building things just like I had spent a large part of
the last 2 years building costumes. What if I would have spent some more
time with my dad and my girlfriend when I had the chance? Well there's an
endless amount of what-ifs, but the real question is how am I going to live
my life now?
Jeff, I took away all of the masks, costumes, tools and
supplies and
packed them away. My apartment now has nice furnishings and is comfortable
for people when they come over. I don't stay home much any more, I'm out
interacting with people, I'm taking a couple of fun classes now, I got in
touch with some old buddies from High School, and I meet people (meaning
that I talk to people I don't know and strike up a conversation with them).
Instead of hardware, I buy clothes now. I exercise, eat right,
all that
good stuff. Now all of these things were part of my life before I started
the costuming hobby, I'm just getting back to them now.
Anyway, I know that you didn't ask for all of that, but
because of your
research and your website, I consider you to be the top of the home made
Star Wars costuming movement. I just felt like I should give you my
explanation as to why my website and hobby will not progress past its
current state.
Once again, it was a pleasure meeting you.
Take care.
Matt
01-22-2000
The Communiversity Home Made Star Wars Class is cancelled for this semester.
There will be no class on February 29, 2000. The Class will be back for the
summer semester. In the mean time, we will be moving all costume materials to a
house and will have a lot more room to work (play).
10-15-99
It's that Halloween time of year and we will be at the Kansas City Station Casino
on October 30 for the costume contest. After being an X-wing pilot for the last 2
years, I'm going to be Captain Hook for this particular event. My sisters will be
Peter Pan and Wendy. Look for us and say "Howdy!"
By the way, let's keep Halloween safe and sane: don't blow all your money now.
Remember, all the great Halloween stuff you see in the stores will be half price on
November 1. . . a great time to stock up.
9-6-99
New email address!
[email protected]
Please note the change in your address book! Stay in touch!!
8-30-99
You may now register for the Fall 1999 Home Made Star Wars Costumes Presentation.
We had a ton of fun with the last one, and expect an even better one this time.
Details are here.
8-24-99
My Stormtrooper Armor came yesterday and it is FANTASTIC ! The kit is much more
complete than I expected. It even has the leather holster, metal breath screens, and
perfect stickers. I can't wait to get started on it. !
8-21-99
I went garage sale shopping today, lots of folks in the neighboring community had garage
sales all on the same day. It's just amazing the things you can get for cheap.
8-18-99
I made the big plunge and bought my STORMTROOPER ARMOR from GalaxyTrading !
It should be here in a few days. Also added some cool links!
8-11-99
I've been spending a lot of time on the upgrading the website and looking for a place to
move it. I've found a couple of places where I can have about 100 MB of space. I'll
be sure to keep everyone informed if we move. The next Costume Class will be at the
Plaza! I'll have some new stuff to show off. We may be participating in the
Halloween parade sponsored by the City of Independence - stay tuned for more details in
mid-September!
8-4-99
Now I'll be fixing a lot of things on my site, and adding thumbnails for a lot of the
pictures. Today I fixed the Ackbar page.
7-29-99
I have MS Frontpage 98, but I don't know how to use it yet. I'll be studying
that in addition to my other website problem - I've almost used all 20 megabytes of space
at Fortunecity.
7-26-99
The class was great!! We'll do it again in the fall.
I've finished the Cantina Band Player and my Treadwell. I'll be getting back to the
vacuum form table soon. I've also bought materials to start on a GONK droid!!
Pictures of these plus some miscellaneous aliens will be in the next batch of
pictures. Will be buying a stormtrooper costume in August.
7-5-99
I finally bought a Dremel tool, and I've started building a vacuum form table!!
I will post pictures of the building process after I finish. I took a look at where
the costume class will be held next week, it's nice. I'm also going to start
building some droid costumes from mostly "found" parts.
6-18-99
The plans for Luke Skywalker and TIE pilot go up today, as well as some more
links. I ordered Cantina musician mask and hands three days ago from Galaxy Trading.
6-10-99
I finally got back to building! TIE pilot and Luke Skywalker are on the
way! Also set up the website counter last week and expect to top 1000 hits in a
couple of days!
5-29-99
My costumes were featured in the Kansas City Star a few days ago. I'm almost
completely move in and I suspect that I'll start building again within the week.
I've had many requests for Jedi costume patterns.
5-9-99
I am moving all of my costume supplies and projects to a new apartment. I won't
be able to build for a little while and I'm not taking it well. The UMKC
Communiversity reports that the Summer class schedule is out.
5-6-99
I got a call from the Kansas City Star newspaper today. They want to do and
interview on Saturday.
5-5-99
I'm still recovering from the Denver Trip. I'll have the pictures tomorrow!
4-23-99
Read this email I recently received, it sums up the whole reason I put this site
together:
Hello,
With the help of your page, mainly the messurements of the chest controls,
and my fathers jumpsuit (An orange costguard/test pilot, jumpsuit), I won
first place at the Denver Starcon with it.
Thanks for the help,
Tim
4-21-99
What if they threw a Star Wars and nobody came? My class on Star Wars costumes was
deserted. A possible reason for this could be that the Winter mini-issue has limited
circulation, and that I did no advertising what so ever. The video I produced for
the class is 40 minutes long and I'm going to see if it can be played on a local cable
access television channel.
4-19-99
Tomorrow I'm putting on a class about Home Made Star Wars Costumes through the UMKC
Communiversity. I made a video to show at the class. It's been really busy
lately, as I am looking for an apartment and I've been getting things together for the
class.
From Durham's putty, I casted several X-wing chest boxes and they turned out great.
I also casted a muzzle for my Rebel Blaster. I also finished 2 X-wing flak
vests. I can't wait to get into a new apartment and get my workshop going again.
3-30-99
I built a new latex mold for the X-wing chest box and tried a cast from Durham's putty
- it turned out great. I'm gong to use Durham's putty, it's heavy but durable. The
latex castings of the belt pouch turned out fine, I'll build larger pouches next.
I decided to scrap the TIE pilot chest box project. I was going to get latex
castings from my beautiful ultra-cal mold. BUT,
I'm only going to make two TIE pilot costumes so it's crazy to to through the trouble of
molding and casting. I'm going to build the chest box from wood and a plastic
"FOR SALE" sign.
3-17-99
Wookie.com is now GalaxyTrading.com!
I bought the Don Post standard X-wing helmet the first day it was introduced for
$40. It is awesome!
The second flak vest has been casted.
Durham's putty turned out to be a bit too heavy for the X-wing chest box so I'm going to
try lightweight Hydrocal. I'm also working on a new latex mold for the chest
box. A TIE pilot chest box was built and an Ultra-cal mold was started. The
TIE chest box will be casted from latex.
A belt pouch was sculpted from clay and an Ultra-cal mold was made from it. It will
be used for several costumes. (maybe Jawa's sometime).
3-10-99
Bought my airline tickets to Denver, Baby!
2-26-99
A new camera, tripod and scanner have been purchased so pictures will get on the page
faster in the future! Plans for the TIE pilot's chest box are completed as well as
the flak vest. Work continues on the X-wing chest boxes casted from Durham's putty.
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