Negative reviews of Star Wars

There have been plenty of complaints about the Star Wars movies over the years. Every now and then, I see one which surprises me. I've thought about making a list, maybe as a sort of trivia contest. Here's one item. Which of the Star Wars movies prompted this comment from a reviewer? "This is the basic failing of the film. It lacks true narrative drive and force. It is a void, into which any mystic idea can be projected; entertainment, brilliantly confected, which is quite hollow." For the answer, look here: http://tinyurl.com/43zpu29

A New Costume!

And no place to wear it yet! This photo is of the unfinished outfit; I have since added a collar, and finished the cuffs and hems. So it's done! Unless, while wearing it, I discover that it needs something else. But my next convention isn't for some weeks yet. I'll just have to wear it for the sheer joy of wearing it sometime before then!

I posted some sketches of this outfit a good long time ago here.

B-Wing Pilot: Wearable!

I was able to get my B-Wing Pilot costume together for Balticon 44 this past weekend. I entered it in the Masquerade competition, and won a Workmanship award for Best Attention to Detail, plus the award for Best Re-Creation. Here are a few photos:

Because some folks asked for it, here's a close-up of the front of the belt:

Wearable, but not complete

Here's the current state of my B-Wing Pilot helmet, as I wore it (with my X-Wing Pilot flightsuit) at Arisia this past weekend. There are still bits to be added, I want to re-work the cloth cap, and of course I need to work on the rest of the outfit real soon now.

Loss, love, and holidays.

PZ Myers has some good thoughts over at his blog, Pharyngula.

I'm reminded, as I often am, of "A Pail of Air" by Fritz Leiber:

"So I asked myself then," he said, "what's the use of going on? What's the use of dragging it out for a few years? Why prolong a doomed existence of hard work and cold and loneliness? The human race is done. The Earth is done. Why not give up, I asked myself—and all of a sudden I got the answer."
...
"Life's always been a business of working hard and fighting the cold," Pa was saying. "The earth's always been a lonely place, millions of miles from the next planet. And no matter how long the human race might have lived, the end would have come some night. Those things don't matter. What matters is that life is good. It has a lovely texture, like some rich cloth or fur, or the petals of flowers—you've seen pictures of those, but I can't describe how they feel—or the fire's glow. It makes everything else worth while. And that's as true for the last man as the first."
....
"So right then and there," Pa went on... "right then and there I told myself that I was going on as if we had all eternity ahead of us. I'd have children and teach them all I could. I'd get them to read books. I'd plan for the future, try to enlarge and seal the Nest. I'd do what I could to keep everything beautiful and growing. I'd keep alive my feeling of wonder even at the cold and the dark and the distant stars."

The complete text of the story may be found here.

I'm all about the B-Wing helmet lately...

It's been a busy month; the Renaissance Festival is over, the GCFCG Halloween Haunted House was a great success, and Star Wars In Concert came to Baltimore, where I took this picture, among others. This is a Y-Wing Pilot's helmet from Return of the Jedi, and its relevance to the B-Wing helmet is the leather trim around the bottom of the face opening.

The B-Wing helmet has similar trim around the sides of its face opening. I had some imitation leather material, but wasn't sure it would be quite right for this project. After seeing the Y-Wing helmet in person, I decided to use what I had. I stitched a length of it into piping -- a tube with a seam. In this case, a 5/8th-inch diameter tube with a 5/8th-inch seam. Here it is on my sewing machine. It's already all sewn up in this photo, it's just on the machine to show its size, and the zipper foot used to stitch right next to the padded tube part.

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But that's as far as I've got -- the piping isn't attached to the helmet yet. But I am proud of the paint job so far, so here's a photo of the helmet:

Some folks may recognize the flame logo.

Something different: helmet progress

The thought occurs that I haven't posted any progress pictures in a while. I'm to the point where I'm decorating the thing, even though I probably could have done just a little more smoothing and sanding. I'm quite proud of how this is turning out, and at the same time I want to make another, better one.

I'm done, here, with re-creating anything used in a movie. The paint job is my own unique art. Folks who know me may recognize the significance of the design in the right side of the blue stripe.