TOPIC: Cosplay/Character Help (For a newbie)

Alright, here's the gist of things:
I've ordered a purple Viper with black claws and am trying to find a costume and character. So far, I think he's going to be *ahem* not-necessarily-canon. He's an anti-empire jedi who hasn't realized that he's moved into the dark side of the force. At one time, the rebels allowed him to fight with them, but his merciless demeanor caused them to reconsider. Outcast, he wanders the galaxy, destroying the empire one soldier at a time.
Right now, I don't have a name or costume for him. I've read several posts about how "The name will come after the costume," so that's not too much of a concern. For now, I just have black leather gloves and an idea for a mask (Picture 1 and Picture 2) which I'll probably repaint.
Does anyone have any suggestions or comments? If possible, I'd like to go with a black, silver, and dark purple theme and have it fit with my saber.
PS: Sorry about the long post. Also, if there is a similar thread created already, I'd appreciate it if someone could move this there.

Hi mate!

I can't help much on the cosplay part though the black and violet theme is certainly going to look gorgeous!

However, I've helped friends of mine build characters for RPGs and such, and I feel like one usually wants the looks before the rest. That's good if you know what kind of look you want to lean towards, but I always felt things such as costume and mask and the overall looks were a lot easier once you had written a full backstory of your character, including what kind of trauma made him/her go dark side without even noticing, what explains the fact he's/she's blind to his own fall, what is his/her basic psychology (lawful, neutral, chaotic / good, neutral, evil).

Once you have completed this, you should feel a lot more confident about his/her persona and thus about the whole looks

Thanks for the advice! I'll get started on that backstory and probably post a link when it's finished.

In the meantime, I was thinking this character would be Neutral Good, but have a Good Is Not Soft sort of feel, where he is genuinely good and compassionate towards his friends and fellow rebels, but has no restraint when dealing with the empire.

As far as a backstory goes, I'm thinking his hatred will probably stem from either his family or master being killed in Order 66. I realize that most Jedi started their training as children, but how hard was it to find/complete training after the Jedi Purge? Is it unrealistic for a child (about 8 years old) who survived the purge to complete training on his own?

Because he didn't complete his training professionally, it would probably be easy for him to have moved into the dark side, but would his connection to the force be strong enough to fight and kill minor sith?

Hey mate!

Your grounds for the story look pretty interesting! Please share with us what you write, I'd love to help you refine the back story if you ever wish some hand to help you in that.

However, his hatred of the Empire cannot have started because of his family being slaughtered by the Imps. Jedis are not supposed to have any kind of family but the Order once they've been identified as Force sensitive, so I feel the family angle seems a bit out of place here. However, seeing or feeling his fellow Jedis being massacred by the Clones would work better I think.
As an 8 year old being on his/her own after Order 66, it's clear it's hard to find decent training, so the fall to the Dark side makes sense. Because as you say, finishing your training alone from 8 years old and after does not seem unrealistic, it is. At least to me.

I'm throwing ideas in the air but I insist the story still is yours to write.

I feel like a lot of the younglings that weren't killed by Anakin were probably taken into imperial custody, so there is always the possibility of that kind of collection being fairly traumatic as well. If he was able to escape but had to watch his friends rounded up by clone troopers. While he was helpless to prevent it.

Thanks for the advice duokun!

Sorry for not really writing for a while, been working on a little creative project of mine:





This PVC/sharpie mock-up of a saber is only designed to keep me happy until my order arrives (probably late November). Anyway, I'm kind of having a bit of writer's block right now. The character is searching for lightsaber materials (pre-purge) and I'd like the saber to be made of Mandalorian Iron. I was thinking he could help a family or something, and they'd give him an heirloom as thanks?

Some other ideas I have:
1. I'd kind of like him to be Mace Windu's apprentice, is that realistic?
2. After Windu's arm is cut off by Anakin, his saber falls off the building. If possible I'd like this character to find it.
3. Windu's presence in the force (his ghost, per-se) guides this guy to complete his training, but then stops appearing once he notices the dark emotions this guy is going through. This drives him more crazy with frustration, and he even takes apart Windu's saber and steals the crystal (hence the violet blade), then intensely studies Vaapad in a misguided attempt to please his master.

Lastly, I'd still like some advice on cosplaying. For instance, what materials are best? Are there any reliable websites where I could buy pieces from? Would it be better to go for an armored, or robed appearance?

How about Rekon for a name? Or perhaps some other variant of Reckoning.

Hey mate!

As far as I know, and I like to think I read and watched quite a lot of Star Wars related stuff, colour me wrong Mandalorians are very protective of their metal. It's called Beskar, and resists lightsaber blade. Their armour are called Beskar'gam. The colour of it represents what the warrior is searching for in his life: revenge, wealth, family, etc...

So, finding a piece of armour to be made into a lightsaber, that'd be awesome, though pretty hard!

I like the idea of watching the clones round-up the younglings and thus creating the trauma.

However, Mace Windu does not know how to not join the Force when dying, so if you run into any hardcore fans, you might get in trouble, but that's ans interesting take and I'd like to read what you thought of!

Hi Brax! I like that idea, having his name be related to his Judgement of the Galactic Empire, or it's day of reckoning. Thanks! For this post, (and probably the next few) I will probably use Rekon, just because remaining nameless is really awkward. Might change it later, might not, let's just consider this a test run!

Faethien, that information about beskar seems correct, which is part of why I'm in a bit of writer's block. My saber will just be a clean viper with black claws, so I'd like the backstory's material to look right. Also, if possible, I'd like it, or at least its claws to be made of a lightsaber-resistant material, and Beskar made the most sense to me. If you have any other ideas or recommendations, I'd love to hear them!

You said "Mace Windu does not know how to not join the Force when dying" which I could see being an issue. If Windu could not join the force and help Rekon finish his training, maybe Rekon is unable to understand why his master isn't appearing (which would lead to the lightsaber crystal and Vaapad). I don't really know.
As always I'm really open to any input at all. Mainly, would it be too lame for the saber to be made of steel? Also, what would that say about Rekon (I just know that a Jedi's lightsaber is very personal, and shows a lot about his/her character)?

Tomorrow, I plan on spending the entire day working past my writer's block, and will try to finish the entire backstory.

For starters, the Star Wars universe uses durasteel, and not plain boring Earth steel
That's a pretty noble material which is not a particularly scarce ressource. Another material that resists lightsaber blades is cortosis. It's a lot harder to come by, and people who extract it from the mines usually die there from cortosis dust, and they're very poorly paid. It's very hard to extract too. So that's a pretty dark side material, no?

Do you know what Vaapad is? Its principal strength as well as its principal weakness? According to the books, it's a fighting style that requires you to accept your own dark side and use it to help you vanquish. As such, it requires a great deal of control over your emotions. I'm not sure your character is able to do this after the trauma of Order 66 and the fact that he kills mercilessly supporters of the Empire.

Hope that helps.

I'm on my mobile for now, so I can't really research and answer to you unfortunately, but as soon as I'm back on my computer, I'll reread all this and check for errors.

The old school Mandalorians used Beskar in armoring their ships as well. But keep in mind by the time of the Clone Wars Mandalorean culture had changed Drasticaly. As a society they had become nonviolent pacifists and were no longer the conglomerate horde that had been a scourge upon the Old Republic. Under the Rule of Dutchess Satine Kryze there was dissatisfaction in some of the peoe and those formed the Death Watch group. They felt they were True Mandaloreans. Under the leadership of Pre Vizsla, they reopened some of the abandoned mines on Mandalore's moon Concordia. So it may be possible to find a source of Beskar

Faethien, thanks for the input. I think we almost have different view of the trauma Rekon felt during order 66. I feel like it would only intensify the anger already present in him. Although initially, this may feel overwhelming to him, I think that after a certain amount of time (he has ~20 years of isolation and training) he would learn to control them. He isn't killing empire supporters because his anger makes him, rather he is killing them because he wants to. As Terry Pratchet once wrote: "If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word."

Duokun, thank you for the advice. It might be possible to find Beskar, but I feel like it is too difficult (to write, that is). I was having a hard time finding a reason that someone, whether a family, miner, or someone else, would give some valuable metal like beskar to an almost complete stranger. I have decided to stick with a durasteel/obsidian lightsaber for now.

Dark Jedi Zero wrote:
No worries mate, my pleasure.

However, I don't want to overstep but if you want some kind of out of the ordinary metal for your hilt, really do consider cortosis

I agree that cortosis would be cool, but isn't it brittle?

I wouldn't have to make it out of pure cortosis, because apparently it can be mixed with other materials to make them lightsaber resistant, but I'm still running into the same problem: Why would a group of people give an almost complete stranger a very valuable material? If Rekon finds it on his own, where would he get it, and how would he mix it with whatever material (probably durasteel)? These are legitimate questions that I would like help answering. For now, I'm just working past the lightsaber-building section of the story, but I can (and probably will) easily go back and edit it.

As always, thanks so much for the help!

duokun brings up an interesting situation.

I mean, your character could literally buy the beskar from "hungry" Mandalorians. The mines are up and running. The Mandalorians are jealous of their way to work the beskar, so they could sell the ore without the technique to work it.

Cortosis would be pretty easy to acquire actually. Let's say he saves a bunch of slaves from the mines, they have no money to reward him so they offer him to mine a bit of cortosis for him to make his lightsaber.

I'm on vacations for the next couple of weeks, I'll take this back when I am home.

Wow, I'm already at a page and a half in the backstory. Single spaced, 11pt font, and he still hasn't felt order 66. Maybe by the time I'm finished it'll be a novel for me to publish

I have another question: theoretically, what would happen if someone meditated on another jedi's lightsaber crystal?

Anyway, have a fun time at vacation Faethien!

Theoretically, nothing really. Crystals were connected within the Force to their specific counterpart. Therefore, meditating on another's crystal wouldn't do much.

Perhaps if they were familiar with that person, it could be a way to track a Force user??

Okay, I guess my question didn't really have context.

My character built his lightsaber with blue Illum crystals. The blade is extremely unstable and eventually malfunctions, destroying the crystals inside the hilt. Later, he finds Mace Windu's lightsaber (which fell out the window during his dual) and uses his connection with the force to dismantle it.

Is it possible for him to incorporate the hurrikaine crystal into his own saber without any meditation or anything? If he does have to meditate, what would happen to the force energy contained within? Would the crystal be able to act as a way to contact the now-deceased Mace Windu?

EDIT: Originally, I posted an extremely long post with my backstory, but I don't like the way it was worded at all. Because I'm basically rewriting it, I decided to delete it, thereby saving topic space and only posting what I deem "acceptable" qualities of work.

Dark Jedi Zero wrote:
I believe the Jensaarai of Susevfi spun cartosis into fibers and then weaved it when making their armor, to get around the brittleness issue. (I always imagined the resulting product would look something like carbon fiber, personally.)