Spock's Pickled Brain

In the Last Jedi, there was a background prop on Ahch-To. A very small prop in the quarters of Luke Skywalker. Who cares right? It's just a cool looking necklace with a crystal in it, no need to get caught up in-- *Nerd alert* All hands on deck* --but in the Last Jedi Visual Encyclopedia they call it a "Jedi crusader pendant"! What does that mean? That a Jedi took a trophy from a dead Sith is unthinkable considering what we know in the prequel films. Unless they're referring to the Revan era of the Old Republic. Maybe it's an Easter egg for a new movie trilogy? For the love of the Force make this from the Revan era! WE NEED A REVAN MOVIE-- * Resuming normality* --wait what? Sorry, I must have slipped into Expanded Universe mode. Anyway, it's a cool prop and I thought I'd try to recreate it with some basic hardware and crafting materials. Here it is! Loonatic's build of crusader pendant (upper left), closeup of Jedi crusader pendant (upp...

As with any Star Wars news, I got really excited to see that Disney is producing a live-action series called The Mandalorian . Given that the project is in the hands of Jon Favreau and is said to feature episodic directors like Taika Waititi ( Thor: Ragnarok ) and Deborah Chow ( Jessica Jones ), it has a lot of promise. Here's the summary from IMDb: "After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the Star Wars universe. The Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic" ( IMDb ).  More and more intriguing. At this point, mystery and theories far outstrip what has been revealed. All the better for wild speculation. In that case, I hope you like that sort of thing because I've got a lot of speculation. From the brief description quoted above, I can pin a lot of random ho...

So in making the E-11 blaster for the Iden Versio build, I've been looking for a good guide on making a matching holster. I'd post the blaster build first, but I've been having a slight weapons malfunction in the paint job. Like the blaster, there's a fair number of templates and tutorials out there targeted at stormtrooper cosplay. On this one I decided not to reinvent the wheel, though instead of using leather I'm going for black "leather" vinyl, which is cheaper and somewhat easier to work with. This build is based on an excellent holster tutorial by Ayen_s of 1st Imperial Stormtrooper Detachment, but some of the rivet details are inspired by Shepperton Design Studios .   My interpretation of the Ayen_s build (left), original holster by Shepperton Design Studios (right) Materials -Black "leather" vinyl -Thin, flexible plastic (3-ring binder, $1) -Snap fastener kit ($5 a package, snaps and too...

One part of the Iden Versio build is creating her shirt. The main change is to add a starbird symbol to the right shoulder, so if you have the right shirt it's a pretty simple project. Materials -Grey 3/4-length shirt ($4.50) -Red felt ($1.50 for .25yd) -Red thread ($1) -Fray Block ($6) Tools -Scissors -Needle/pins -Measuring tape -Paper for template Step 1: Get the materials For the base shirt, I went cruised thrift stores. In the reference photos Versio's shirt is a medium grey with a simple color. It's always shown pushed up to her elbows, though it looks to be a 3/4-length shirt. You could probably get away with a full length sleeve though. It also isn't super skin-tight, otherwise the scrunch of the pushed-up sleeves would look different. The shirt I bought was a bit darker than reference, but I figured everything else about it fits. As suggested by Lady Mary, I'm using red felt for the starbird on the shirt's right shoulder. In the...