Costume parties are fantastic. I now a lot of people say “oh crap… what will wear? I’ll have to hire something. It’s going to cost me money and it won’t fit right”… moan, grizzle, bitch, crap…

Well I say “Break out the paint and the craft knife! Point me to the hardware store and the overdraft be damned!”

But then I am a bit mental.

Anyhoo…. a few months back a mate of ours who we shall call “Jamie” as that is his name, had a Star Wars themed birthday party. Now we know Jamie is a mad keep Star Wars fan cos we have seen the chewbacca undies hanging on his line and he makes light sabre noises when he cuts his food…. SO.. we thought we could go a little overboard with the costumes an not look like the only geeks there.

Originally I was going to go as a White Trash Jedi “Billy-Bob Kenobi” and Glen, (the wife) was going as a rebel sniper. But at the costumes progressed Glen decided the sniper wouldn’t look girly enough. I kindly pointed out that it was mainly her physical appearance at fault rather than the costume. Luckily we have a comfy couch. So Glen got to be the Jedi, complete with vintage light sabre. (For those of you who don’t know yet, I like thing to look a bit buggered and worn. I reckon it gives them a sense of history).

The main parts of the light sabre are a hose tap fitting, a penlight torch and a paint roller handle. The rest is just bits and pieces picked up and wangled to fit. A lot of the detail comes from the corroded metal type paint job. The light sabre was supposed to look like it had been heavily used and passed down through the generations, lost, found, dug up, kicked about, busted, lost some of its housing panels… you get the picture.

Glen sewed up the robes and I added Jedi belt to complete the outfit.

My costume had a few more bits and pieces to build. the most notable is the huge sniper rifle. I was lucky enough to find a broken Clone Trooper gun at the Warehouse for $10. This became the base of the weapon. The barrel was extended and a butt and sight were added. I gave the whole gun a “modified while in the trenches” look by incorporating bits of wood and metal strapping to make it look like parts were scavenged from broken items in the war zone. The idea was to end up with a gun that looks like someone has spent a lot of time with it and altered it to suit themselves - not just picked it up from the local guns-r-us store.

The whole gun has a wooden dowel shaft running through it for strength. The barrel housing is PVC pipe with cooling fins made from window wipers. (Window wipers were used as grips for light sabres in the original SW movies!). The business end of the gun is a standard light fitting collar glued to a hose connector. The butt is a plastic spade handle and the scope is a telescope from a $2 pirate costume. The wood is machined skirting timber and the iron strapping flooring vinyl. The whole gun received my typical worn out paint job.

The gun has a wicked presence and people can’t help but play with it when ever it’s out. Mark waves it around the office about every 30 minutes.

Glen sewed up some material to be used as camo gear complete with the over-the-top colour used on the original costumes from Jedi. I whipped up a wrist communicator, goggles, utility belt and some shoulder pads to complete the look.

Anyway, it was a great party with copious amounts of blue milk drunk. Don’t know what blue milk is? Well then you are no true Star Wars fan!!

UPDATE:

Check out some more awesome home built star wars goodness.

Jango Fett Costume:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chansplace/sets/72157608358091659/

Zam Wessell Costume
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chansplace/sets/72157608357474525/

Mos Eisley Cantina
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chansplace/sets/72157608357297777/

You know the world is a great place when you stagger out to your lounge in the morning, rubbing the sleep from your eyes and searching for coffee when you see - A Hiro Sword gleaming in the light of the new day.

Nothing beats it…. there it is.. all 1.2 metres of glistening goodness making your hand itch with need and your mouth wanting to scream “i diiiiiiiid iiiiiiiiit!!!” with a bad Japanese accent.

I am a big fan of the show so the sword has me tickled pink.

I’ve always been of the opinion that Tuesdays are a bit of a nothing day. Monday is eventful … Wednesday is the middle of the week .. and Thursday is the day before Friday. Tuesdays on the other hand are generally a bit bland.

Not this Tuesday though because instead of doing customer work and getting a pay check, we decided to kick the day off with a bit of fun and complete our first Ponoko project; The Boomerang.

We had a huge amount of fun working on this project. The Ponoko system is fantastic. It’s easy to use and gives a brilliant end result.

Below are some photos of the finished Boomerang and above you should be able to see the Boomerang in the Ponoko Showroom. Needless to say we can’t wait to create our next piece of Ponoko goodness. :)

Back in 1984 I remember going to the Dannevirke movie theater and watching Alex Rogan playing an amazingly cool video game called “Starfighter”. He was fighting Xur and the Kodan Armada in a brilliant movie called “The Last Starfighter” and he was kicking their asses!

Now back in 1984 I was 12 and I didn’t actually realise the video game in question wasn’t real and after many fruitless visits to the local video arcade I gave up looking for Starfighter so went back to riding my bike and sliding down the big hill behind our house on a piece of orange plastic (simple times in 1984).

However I am thrilled to report that Starfighter is a now a real, actual, proper video game. Check out this amazing work over at Rouge Synapse. These chaps have created what could possibly be the ultimate 80’s movie prop. Ricky from Silver Spoons may have had a cool train set but he sure didn’t have one of these.

Anyway … in honour of all that is “The Last Starfighter” we popped together a slightly obscure t-shirt the features the design found on the side panel of the Starfighter cabinet.

No one but the true Last Starfighter fan will have any idea what this design is … and that’s the way it should be.
Get yours here.