So that’s all how it came about — but what exactly is it? It started as a set of photos but has sort of grown into a multimedia collective of Jacen/Tenel Ka related works and things we’ve made. Costumes, photos, fanmixes, gifs, alternate universes — there’s a whole number of things we added into our planning/ideas list and began to work on when we decided we were definitely starting this whole thing.

To stay updated with the project, you can check out the main site for it or follow the tumblr, pinterest or instagram!

Here’s a glimpse into just a small part of what we’re doing for this project — the alternate universes!

  “You know you absolutely cannot post this photo anywhere, correct?”
“Ugh, I know. Political matters, families, blah blah blah. Just let me pretend we’re allowed to be normal for once. And it’s not just any photo, it’s called a selfie.”
“That sounds ridiculous. Who came up with that?”

Yesterday In A Galaxy Next Door is a modern AU and includes Jacen the photography nerd plus his pets as well as his super-secret girlfriend TK – both of whom would rather not be in the public eye but usually are thanks to the politicians in their families.

“Some called her Lady Caedus for a time until there were whispers of a new designation, which came only after rumors of traitors in the Hapan Council. Those against her went after the most important things: first, her daughter, then the control of her court and finally the safety of her people. She had been a force to reckon with as Tenel Ka Chume Ta’ Djo, but now with supposed new powers and Darth Caedus – often rumored to be Allana Djo’s father – on her side, her grandmother’s supporters finally began to do what they should have done from the start. Fear the Queen Mother.”

The Galaxy Can Burn is a Sith AU and gathers some highlights from some odd timeline where Tenel Ka joins Caedus after something happens to Allana. We know that TK would never go dark/give scrublord Caedus the time of day at this point but it’s always fun coming up with this crazy stuff so why not have a Sith AU?

   “I know you aren’t really big on jewelry, but I figured this might hold some value to you. Somehow. Maybe.”
“Is that a piece of gort eggshell?”
“What else would it be? Come on, Your Majesty.”

I’d Give You The Galaxy takes a look at some universe where Jacen didn’t go on his five-year journey after the war with the Yuuzhan Vong and instead helped rebuild around him — physically from all the devastation and emotionally with everyone close to him. Also, he visits Hapes a lot for some reason??? Really though, Hapan traditions be damned — these kids are gonna get married somehow (most likely in secret) and this is the AU where it’ll happen!

    “You know you terrified Allana, right?”
“I know. When I see her–”
“If. If you see her.”

The Galaxy’s Good is a what-if of epic “Jaina not killing Caedus and him possibly being redeemed” proportions. Allana’s with the Solo family (as Amelia), Isolder is dead and the Queen Mother of Hapes wonders if there is a chance that the Jacen she knew could fully return. Ruling the Hapan people for so long though, has stifled any optimism she might have had over the years, so who knows? Maybe Jacen Solo will be a scrublord FOREVER. ETERNAL SCRUBLORD DAMNATION.

That’s just a small peek at all the stuff we’re working on for this collection. Keep an eye out for updates at the links listed up above if you’re interested! (Also, woo-hoo if you’re interested! More EU & J/TK fans! <3)

I was honored to be a guest on Tosche Station Radio (Tosche-Station.net‘s always entertaining Star Wars & Geek Culture podcast!) the other night talking costumes and cosplay with hosts Brian & Nanci as well as White Hot Room‘s Bria. Favorite costumes, how to get into cosplaying/costuming and how we go about working on things are some of the topics covered, as well as the usual Star Wars related shenanigans you get when all of us start talking!

Check out the podcast and related show notes here!

I had fiddled with both scales and wonderflex thanks to the fanart outfit and the Tempest cover outfit and knew I wanted to incorporate at least one of these things in the new YJK costume (I thought the aluminum scales might not be organic enough for this outfit, so I’ll be using them on another TK outfit I’m working on :D). The old version of this costume was basically the shorts, bodysuit, and two boleros of differing sizes layered on one another (I had absolutely no idea how to attack that armor). When I started costuming, Tenel Ka’s YJK outfit was one of my dream costumes and I never had any faith that I could pull anything like it off so when I actually was able to put something together for the first time, I was really proud of myself! Now I wanted to challenge myself again and try it once more (I’ve wanted to do so for a couple of years now, I just never got past the planning stages, haha XD). She is definitely a favorite character of mine from any form of media and has been since I was a tweenbot derp reading the Young Jedi Knight books. This is probably a duh thing though since I always gush about her when the topic of Star Wars comes up and I keep making costumes relating to her, whether it’s a new Queen Mother outfit or a really obscure jumpsuit that’s mentioned once in one book. I can’t help it! She’s the tough, brave girl I always wanted to be when I was younger! :3

When I started looking at redesigning the outfit, I knew I wanted to use the same green fabric I used for the shoulder armor in the fanart-inspired outfit. I loved the shade and the texture was perfect. It’s never really said where she’s made (or received) her armor from, but it’s been described in a couple of places as lizard-hide and/or rancor-hide, depending on sources. So I sort of went with both. I figured the texture of the green fabric would work with the lizard hide thing – I had a copperish-brown fabric that was the same texture so looking at the images of her armor, I planned on putting the copper on the green together. These colors resembled the image of her armor on the cover of Young Jedi Knights: The Lost Ones.

When trying to decide on what shape to make the armor, I debated between a few things – from the pointed shoulder pieces of the image from the Essential Guide to Characters, to the rounded ones of the Lost Ones cover, and even checked out some medieval armor, trolling numerous websites and looking at old school defense and protective covering. The one thing I knew I was going to do was have the two layers – the top copper and the bottom green – and then have the top layer wrap around my neck and then spread out over my shoulders. With the fanart-inspired outfit, the top layer of the armor went all the way around the neck and rested comfortably on my shoulders. I aimed to do something like that with this one as well. The bottom layer of the armor (the green layer) is built into the green bolero, like the image of the armor from the Essential Guide to Characters.

I made the bottom layer a bolero with Wonderflex under the shoulders to give it some stiffness, then the whole top copper part is a piece of wonderflex that’s slightly smaller than the copper fabric over it. For the shape of the shoulders, I ended up going with something in between the two shapes I debated between, having the edges a bit rounded and the tips pointed. The fanart-inspired outfit I did had round edges all around, as does The Lost Ones image, but I did like the way the pointed ones in the EGtC looked. I made sort of an indent in the copper shoulder pieces and cut out scale shapes in a different reptile-textured fabric, using them to fill in the cutouts in the shoulder piece.

When designing the shape of the top set of copper armor and Nate was helping me pattern/cut it out, he mentioned it going down further in the back. It would give more protection in between the shoulderblades, plus give me a place to use all the extra scale shapes I cut out! The back of her armor has never been shown so I figured it would be cool to have some fun with it! I still need to shape the copper piece of armor to fit tighter and have it attach to the green bolero better, but in the time frame this was finished, we were both pretty happy with it (we had to put off certain bits of costume work we were jointly working on for a few weeks or so before D*C thanks to a problem with my foot – I couldn’t stand at the big worktable we have or work with the dress form D:) — we’re going to be fixing it up for a Star Wars: Expanded Universe photo project we’re doing soon though!

The fabric I used for the scales started out green, but I painted it with three different shades of spraypaint to begin with, then went over the edges in rust and copper colored paint. You can’t really see the detail on them unless you’re close-up, but I had a lot of fun making them and painting them. I also went through a lot of glue to keep them all on!

One of the main things I wanted to keep in mind with this outfit was comfort – the first version I made of it was a breeze to wear and I had a lot of fun in the woods getting goofy Yavin IV shenanigan photos. I knew that it would be more difficult to keep that aspect with this outfit, since it would be more detailed/made out of harder fabrics – but I was determined! Comfort is a huge aspect when I make most costumes because I goof off a lot in costume (if you’ve seen The Derp Collection on our Facebook page, you are aware lolol). XD That leads me to the shorts! With the fanart-inspired outfit, I made the shorts out of a shiny snakeskin vinyl sort of material. It was a bit stretchy but they didn’t breathe well. With the fabric I used for the armor, I knew I would have the same problem. In the EGtC image of her armor the shorts match the bottom piece of the armor/bolero… so I knew I wanted to try to find a way to match them. The material used on the armor is upholstery fabric and doesn’t stretch or breathe one bit (naturally, since it’s upholstery fabric! XD) — so I had to be very careful when patterning/cutting them out and then sewing them.

I had originally made them all out of the green fabric and they fit well enough, but I wanted to add some color in somehow. I ended up making uneven panels (I was going to make them even first but figured just randomly cutting the fabrics and putting in two panels down the sides of differing sizes would add to the organic/cobbled-together-lizard-skins look) and cutting the side seams of the green shorts, then sewing in the panels. I liked having the copper color in somewhere besides just the top armor (plus I had more of that fabric sitting around!) and figured that would be a good place to work it into the shorts.

My original plan for the bottom of the shorts, after adding the copper panels, was to do the same thing I had done on the top shoulder armor – I was planning on making a cutout on the outsides of the shorts and adding some of the cut scales in, but once I cut the shapes out, I thought they would work better as “vents” of a sort and I ended up stabbing some holes with an awl and lacing them up with extra suede cord I had (after using it on the stick and necklace, which we’ll get to in a bit!)… it might not seem like a lot but the vents were extra helpful with keeping my legs somewhat cool!

Other big details include the bodysuit/leotard and the hair. The leotard was a dark gray one I had for the original version of this costume – I ended up wearing another one I had (more of a earth-tone one) then but decided to switch to this one for the new version of this outfit. It matched the EGtC image better and broke up the green and copper and brown better than the other one. A friend of mine, Bria (of White Hot Room), had learned how to do fishtail braids a month or two beforehand (due to us nerding around on a hairstyle site one day, hehe) and practiced when she was over for BasementCon II a couple weeks before Dragon*Con. She came over to our hotel room the Friday morning of con and did them again (which I am extremely grateful for)! <3

The bag is the second bag I had made for an earlier version of this costume. I kept it for this one and made a new belt out of a fabric I thought looked slightly rancor-ish in texture. I need to fix up the belt since hers gets smaller up on her waist and bigger behind the bag (somehow! XD)… in the EGtC picture she has some sort of cord or rope on her belt on the side without the bag, so I actually ended up tying bits and pieces of suede cord I had used on different Tenel Ka costumes I had made in the past together and attached them to my belt. Kind of a nerdy callback to other TK costumes I had worked on, plus the fact that they were all rugged and worn made it look like the rope/cord had been used for jungle shenanigan climbing stuff, hehe. I made some last minute shinguard pieces from the same fabric I had used for the scales on one side and the same fabric as the belt for the other. I had originally planned to use a pair of boots that went up my legs more, but the shorter boots gave my legs more air, so I went with those instead. Plus, the shinguards I made ended up fitting them perfectly! Got lucky there!

I had a few different pieces I could’ve used for the focal point of the necklace, but I went with a green stone piece that matched the armor colors somewhat. I strung the piece on more of the suede cord that I had used on the short vents, holding the faux closure on the bag and wrapped around the stick. The stick was one I found in the woods on a walk one day and I wrapped more cord sort of around the places she had cord wrapped on hers in the EGtC image. I used a lighter cord on the upper part where I would be holding it most of the time (to look more worn since that would be the most used “handle”) and darker parts around the two prongs and the lower handle, for when she used the stick two-handed like on the cover of The Lost Ones. As far as the lightsaber, there’s a whole post on that!

I knew I would be wearing this for the first of two Outlander Club shoots at Dragon*Con 2012 and I was really excited because there would be a Teneniel Djo and a Ta’a Chume at this shoot as well – as you can see above! They are both absolutely darling people and amazing costumers and I was honored to be able to get number of “three generations of a family that is really uncomfortable with each other” group shots!

Jesse, the Teneniel Djo, made an awesome necklace she gave to me (momma to daughter Dathomirian gift, b’awwww) and I put it on the stick and kept it there throughout the shoot. It is my favorite thing from D*C 2012 and is hanging up near my computer where I can nerd over it every day! XD

It was also a lot of fun taking photos of the Jedi Academy kids we had there – Tenel Ka, Jacen Solo, Raynar Thul and Tahiri Veila! There were a lot of shots of us throwing– err, “LEVITATING” rocks with the Force. You can find all of our Outlander Club photos here!

I had way too much fun in the costume and am looking forward to fixing it up a bit and wearing it again – both for future cons and the Jacen Solo & Tenel Ka Djo photo project Nate and I are going to start soon!

My current costume project at the moment is remaking/reworking some of the pieces of my Tempest cover Tenel Ka Djo costume. The scaled sleeves have always given me trouble and since I’ve started working with aluminum scales (I was so excited when I discovered them), I figured I could try something relating to Tenel Ka with them. First up, the sleeves that have always given me trouble! ;D

Here are a couple of shots of what the sleeves were originally. On the left was when I pinned them to the bodysuit I was wearing under the costume – as you can see they didn’t stay where they were supposed to and it ended up looking completely odd once I moved around a bit. After that, I sewed them to a piece of base fabric to pin to my purple top and bodysuit. The looked better but now they weren’t long enough.

So I knew at some point I wanted to remake parts of this costume but I wasn’t sure how to at that point so I set it aside. A couple of years later I decided to hit up those crazy sleeves with scales. There was talk of a small Star Wars gathering at Katsucon (February in National Harbor, MD) so I figured I could try to get it done for that. Nate said he could bring his Caedus costume (which he is only wearing part of in the picture below, haha) and another friend of mine (my dear Natalie) was going to put together a Jaina costume so it was all going to work out! The thing here is that I was so focused on trying to get the sleeves the right shape and size that I didn’t have too much time to think about how to actually keep the flipping things on. Natalie and Nate helped me basically tie them on with some black cord. It was last minute, but it worked!

Since Katsucon, I’ve decided to do a couple of things to the costume. I’m fixing up the sleeves so they fit better and sit nicer on my shoulders, I’m remaking the purple top to accommodate for the scales on the shoulders and I’ve made a sort of two-part belt to hold the front and back waist capes on (or asscapes, as I lovingly always call them). Normally I sort of just shoved the unfinished end in my belt and waistband so this is much nicer, haha~

A couple of weeks ago I finished up the things I wanted to redo on this costume (the waist capes and sleeves, mostly) and Nate/Draetheus snapped some pictures of it out at our favorite park (Green Spring Gardens Park <3!)~ I want to bring it to a convention in the near future since I fixed all the stuff, but I’m not sure when/what con yet.

Normally, it’s easy for me to hide the bottom of my left arm sort of behind my back, but because of the scaled sleeves (there’s an identical set on the left arm which you can’t see since I keep showing my right side, haha XD) I had to sort of just hide the whole thing here. I might figure something out later, but for now, this is my good side, I guess – as the saying goes!

Besides the shots above, I put some more up on the TK costume page on our site and hope to get some more when I finally bring this to a convention. I always loved the shots of Tenel Ka on the Tempest cover and in the Essential Atlas so I’m excited that I was able to get this put together (after all these years and versions of the costume I’ve been through, haha!)~

Tenel Ka Djo has been one of my favorite characters for well over a decade and I’ve always adored her lightsaber (the one after her accident!) – she made the hilt out of a rancor tooth because she is pretty badass. There’s also the fact that she’s half-Dathomiri and it’s part of her heritage and all that jazz, but it’s mostly because she’s a badass. XD

When I was first going to do a Tenel Ka costume at Celebration III (the NJO/Strike Team version and the first Queen Mother version I made), I knew I would need to figure out a way to make something that resembled a tooth. I had absolutely no idea how to do this though. There hadn’t been any pictures of her saber released and I wasn’t good with anything prop-related (not that I am now, lol). Enter my sister and a trip to Home Depot. We fiddled around in various sections and ended up getting some bits and pieces, a length of pipe, and some spraypaint that made whatever you’re spraying look like stone. It was a tannish-beige color and I thought it could pass for a tooth well. My sister helped me throw it all together and I was pretty proud of what came of it. It didn’t have a point at the end (it had a decorative little swirly trinket that was actually a drawer handle XD) – but the texture and leather-wrapping and stuff gave it toothy/Dathormiri-ish sort of feel, which I was happy with.

Fast-forward to a couple of years later, when I had the urge to make another version of this saber! I ended up with another thin piece of pipe and gray stone spraypaint this time, along with black leather wrappings. I had a plastic replica of a T-Rex tooth that was cut and whittled down to fit into the pipe and I loved this version as well. It was after I finished this version that Tenel Ka got her own book cover (Legacy of the Force: Tempest)! And look, her saber! Besides that image of it, another one popped up in The Essential Guide to the Force. I was so giddy that there was more art of her as well as her saber. That was when I stumbled across Nocturne Armory! They had made a version of her saber that looked exactly like the one in The Essential Guide to the Force and I fell in love with it and emailed them about ordering one. This one actually had a blade and lit up too! They had toned down the blue and added a bit of yellow to give it a more turquoise shade and I was so nervous every time I was in costume with it cause I was afraid I would mess it up (I am so clumsy, it’s not even funny). It is definitely a prized possession of mine since I am a huge nerd. ;D

 To the left are the three versions I have had in the past, two made (top – 2005, middle – 2006 and one ordered in 2008).

In the summer of 2010, the stupid bug bit me again about making another one (I don’t know what it is with me). And I was told about ultrasabers.com! Nate was looking for a saber he could use for his Jacen and/or Caedus costumes and my brain started working at a way to make a Tenel Ka lightsaber myself by modifying one of the ones from the site (even though the closest they had to her blade color was bright blue). The idea hadn’t really formed, it was just sort of hanging in the back of my mind – but when I saw a few weeks later that they had two new blade colors, one of which being Sunrider’s Destiny (which was a lighter, slightly more greenish shade), I knew I had to go for it. I had a vague idea of what I was going to try so I bought all the supplies I would need and then ordered the Rifter hilt from Ultra Sabers. (Unfortunately, the Rifter hilt isn’t on their site anymore.)

When it arrived, I played around with it like a dork (you know, the norm: making lightsaber noises, hitting furniture, the whole nine yards) and then detached the blade and started to attempt to figure out how to get the idea that was in my head out. I used paperclay to cover the hilt and start shaping a sort of tooth texture. I knew that I wanted to keep it as thin as possible – I knew it wouldn’t be as thick as the picture from The Essential Guide to the Force – because I am short and have small hands, hehe. I wanted my hand to be able to fit around it comfortably, but besides comfort, I didn’t want it to look SUPER GIANT when I was holding it. XD I knew it would be longer than the images as well since I had to cover the whole hilt and then add on the tip of the tooth at the end. I was fine with that though, as long as it wasn’t awkward to hold.

The paperclay worked so much better than I had hoped. It was lightweight and dried on its own (I wouldn’t have been able to put it in the oven to dry since it was around the saber). After the initial part of the hilt was covered, I had a grand old time trying to figure out how to make the tip of the tooth and then be able to remove it to replace the batteries when they ran out of juice. I finally settled on making the tip out of paperclay and fashioning the other end to fit into the opening where the batteries were. I covered the end in felt so it had a snug fit and then made some touch-ups with leftover paperclay to the main part of the hilt. I also added some details here and there – scratches, marks, wearing, etc.

The three blue crystals I added above the switch are for decoration (and fall in with the whole half-Hapan thing as well, since there was talk of gems of Gallinore when she made her saber – even though those were the focusing crystals, lol ;D) and were chosen for their colors. I thought they matched the blade well and I sort of fell in love with them when I found them. In one of the images of her saber, there is a dark orange gem near the blade, but I ended up going with blue because none of the orange ones I looked at caught my eye. Plus, if I had an orange gem then I would have orange/blue (in the blade) and those were my high school colors. Somehow in projects I always subconsciously avoid putting those together because it just reminds me of high school, haha~ XD I just ended up going with all blue. I added the crystals while the paperclay was still moldable and then waited for the whole thing to dry.

After that came the part I was REALLY worried about. I’ve never been good at painting things!

I had three shades of acrylic paint I was planning on using to paint the hilt: unbleached titanium, raw umber & raw sienna. The one I ended up using the most was the unbleached titanium shade. I gessoed the whole thing first (the main part of the hilt and the removable end) and I used a small brush to paint the whole thing with the titanium shade. Then with sponges and other brushes, started adding little details in the scratches and ridges and so on. I didn’t really have a plan on what parts to paint specifically, I just kept adding some here and there until I thought I needed to change colors and so on. When I had finished painting it late one night, I set it down and went to bed not really thinking about it. That seemed like the best thing to do though because the next day when I looked at it with a fresh eye, I really liked how it looked. For a project I had been so worried about (who am I kidding, I worry about every project), I was really proud of the way it turned out.