It has been a desire to move into the Star Wars realm for a time and we have been pecking away at the Mandalorian Merc, however, it has been hard to stay motivated when there is not a strong community of support around you and honestly, the Mando presence is not as strong as the 501st and Rebel Legion. Having trouble finding somebody to mentor us with stormtrooper building, we moved on to a new outfit and wanted something more rare, we would enjoy and would be good for charity visits. The only requirement is that it had to be unique because we believe in keeping the illusion of characters with children who don’t know people are inside the suits. From there…a generic wookiee idea was born.
It took about four months to get the colors approved because we, or I should say I, wanted something a little different…BUT…still following the costume regulations of the Rebel Legion. There became an agreement I could work with grey just avoid white. To avoid a complete standstill I agreed to avoid white and go with a monochrome wookiee. Colors you don’t see, but are easily logical, especially with older wookiees. We may be considered semi-albino to some, elder or old to others, but either way, we will have a wookiee we have named Dewkazza, or Dewy if he allows it.
The process started with a buying lots of hair…as in 11lbs, which was not even enough in the end! Using a pattern for pajamas for the mesh suit with some liberty in the construction near the hands and feet to allow for costume needs. In addition, hockey shoulder pads were used to broaden the shoulders. The photo below shows the sleeves before they were cut. The end of the sleeve stops at the finger tips.
The legs cover the stilt buckets that are also used to give needed height. A wookiee must be 7′ tall to be approved. The stilts must have hair added also and the pants lay on top of the stilt. No bump should be seen on leg indicating where your foot or stilts are. The shirt also, is latch hooked with hair is not as time consuming as the pants, but still takes plenty of time. The shirt below is hanging on a microphone stand.
The mask has a fiberglass shell and take some patience to complete. I am still working on the head and hope to have it done soon. I will update this build once I am done with the suit.
As this can be a VERY lengthy process, if you consider one of these suits please visits the Rebel Legion and read the wookiee forums. You will get an idea of what is needed and see that these suits can take easily 6-8 months or more to make. We started communication and planning last April, the stilts were started in July, the pants were started on in September, the Shirt in December, mask in March.