TPM/AOTC [Blue] Senate Guard Costume

After a Rebel Legion event the end of March 2008, my husband (who was dressed as Episode 2 AOTC Owen Lars for the event) informed me that his original thought about the Senate Guard costume was indeed correct: He did want a Senate Guard Costume. Since I am the Star Wars fanatic in our household and always drag my husband along, I thought it only fitting (and smart) to make him a costume that he actually chose for himself. I have made him the Ep 2 Owen and a prequel Jedi costume but they were my choices. My next choice for us was going to be a set of X-wing pilot costumes from the original trilogy. However, my husband's desire for the Senate Guard has got me digging into research for it, and also for a costume for me that would compliment it (see my post about the Senator Amidala gown)

Here are a couple images of the costume I will be making, as money permits:



The costume will be fairly simple to make (with the exception of the helmet, if I can't find a helmet maker with a reasonable price) but will not be cheap as the floor length robe is velvet, lined with a satiny blue fabric. There also is an "under robe", you can just see the sleeve of the under robe of the arm the guards use to hold their blasters. They also have matching gloves. Thankfully, I found out the boots are just black instead of blue as I was fearing. Black boots are much easier to come by than blue ones, especially in 11.5 size mens'!!

We both think the blaster (seen here:)will be relatively easy to make out of wood, so that is what we plan on doing ourselves.

I was wondering how I would find velvet, cotton, lining fabric, and stretch material for the gloves that were all the same, or similar, blue color. This costume is beautiful, but it wouldn't be as lovely if the blues didn't match. I think I came to a conclusion: purchase all of my fabric in white and then dye everything to match. It will require the purchase of dye which will add cost, but when all things are considered, I think we'll both be happier with the end result if we go that route and it all looks uniform. It is, after all, a uniform!

I will be updating this post as I have more to share, but for now this costume only exists as research. I did purchase a robe pattern from Butterick (when JoAnn's was having a $1.50 sale!) that I will use as my base: B4050

I'll need to leave the hood off, and re-do it so it doesn't have sleeves, but has arm slits instead. I think I won't make it as full as the pattern calls for either. I haven't gotten down to the nitty gritty of altering the pattern yet, but I'll be sure to post my findings when I do.

Someone who had made the red Royal Guard costume (which is almost identical except in color and helmet to the Blue Senate Guard) said he used Simplicity 4942 View A as his under robe and I agree that it looks like it would work perfectly with very little modification. As an added bonus, I had already picked up the pattern when JoAnn's was having a 99 cent sale! View A is the "elf" in the bottom right corner wearing the white robe with brown belt: