Sith Costume and Lightsabers Part 1

Hello! Some of you may remember that over the summer I made a Wikus (District 9) costume for Stockton-Con and Halloween. Being the nerd/weirdo that I am, I've already started work on my next costume. My girlfriend and I have decided to create our own original Sith characters from Star Wars, that way we don't have to pull our hair out over accuracy, but can still have a set of guidelines to go by (the costuming seen in Star Wars). For this, I'm going to also need an original lightsaber, so I'm also planning on putting together a few lightsabers: one for me, one for my girlfriend, and my sister's boyfriend said he's willing to commission me to do one for him, so I'll be building 3 working lightsabers. I've decided to avoid sound, since I struggled a lot with that during my District 9 costume and this is my first time building lightsabers. Perhaps later I can mess with the sound. So, let's get into the plans!

With the latest Star Wars film, I've sort of become re-obsessed with the series. Kylo Ren has become one of my favorite characters, so quite a bit of my suit will be influenced by his design.

That being said, I wanna be my own Sith, so I won't exactly be copying Mr. Ren there, just taking the bits that I like. For example, the helmet. For some reason I really like a good bad guy with a mask or helmet (Darth Vader, Joker, Yokai) so I'll be going back to that good old Insta-Morph to make myself a mask. I've discovered Pinterest is a good place to get some pictures for inspiration (I know Pinterest is old news, forgive my ignorance).

Also a good place for the lightsabers, which I've decided to build out of PVC.

I've actually already done a bit of work on this costume. I wasn't originally planning on writing a blog for it, so I don't really have any pictures of the first few steps. I apologize greatly. BUT! I'm still in the beginning stages, so I still have plenty of stuff to show the process of. Pictures of what I have so far will come later, as I'm in the process of moving back into my apartment in San Francisco to begin my last semester of college.

Finally, if I'm gonna be an original character, I'm gonna need a backstory! Part of me wanted to wait until I got the costume together, but I couldn't help but develop some sort of a backstory based off of the plans I already have. Here's a look at what I have so far (yes, it's a bit long, I'm sorry). It's also subject to change as the costume comes together.

(Time period: Pre-Darth Bane)

Kajj Napeel grew up on a planet in the midst of a civil war. He'd been surrounded by fighting for pretty much his entire life. When he neared the end of his teen years, he discovered he was more attuned to the Force than others. He gave up everything he had to travel to the Jedi Council and ask to be trained. Once he got there, they told him he was too old and unstable, and could not be trained to be a Jedi. Devastated that he now had nothing, Kajj ran off, but then "happened to" bump into a mysterious man that promised him he could train him in the ways of the force. The man turned out to be Darth Lehr, and, by the will of the Force, renamed Kajj to Darth Kajjak. During his training, Kajjak found himself in a fight with the infamous pirate, Ressum Glumk, known for wearing a helmet that amplified his voice for intimidation. Kajjak lost the fight and left with a scarred up face and a whole lot of rage. Once Kajjak had finished training and built his lightsaber, he hunted down Ressum. After locating him, Kajjak attempted to behead him, but missed and cut off the front of his infamous helmet. After a quick scuffle, Kajjak succeeded in killing Ressum. After the assassination, Kajjak retrieved the sliced-off front of Ressum's helmet, and now wears it as a trophy to hide his scarred face.