Padme's Geonosis battle outfit
September 2020 - November 2020
based on Padme's costume
from "Star Wars - Episode II"
Ever since I was a little girl, I have been in love with Star Wars, especially it's strong female characters. So it comes as no surprise that I chose Padme's battle outfit as my next project. Fun fact, Padme was actually one of my very first carnaval outfits I made with my mom when I was a child, unfortunatly I don't remember most of it. But clearly Padme holds a special place in my heart and I'm super excited to finally get to cosplay her properly!
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I started this project in september 2020, but I spend a month without sewing machine so I had to finish most of the costume by hand. This obviously took a lot more time so I only got to complete the project two months later, in November 2020.
Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones - 20th Century Fox
Part 1: the hairpiece
Padme's hairstyle is actually one of the reasons why I chose this costume, so I decided to start with it. She wears some kind of bun with twisted hair spirals on top of it, but in order to achieve this look I suspect that she wears a separed hairpiece on top of her actual bun because it would be praticaly impossible to do the entire hairstyle with her own hair. Up until this point I had never made any hair piece that included using actual fake hair so I was pretty nervous but also very excited to try this out
In order to make the hair spirals, I bought some long, thin hair rollers that I painted brown. Once they were dry, I wrapped some brown fake hair around them that I secured at each end of the rollers with some glue. After looking at tones of reference pictures over and over again, I finally figured out how to different spirals intertwined with each other so I started twisting and glueing them together in the right spot. To cover up the parts where the two ends of the rollers were glued together, I just rapped some more hair around and secured it in the back. Once this was done I could finally glue all pieces together. To attach the hairpiece to my bun, I glued a large hair comb to the back that I also covered up with some hair. Finally, I just cut away all the excess hair and the hairpiece was finished!
the finished hairpiece!
Part 2: the shirt and leggings
For the details around her collar, I also traced and cut the shape out first and then cut out a separate rectangle slightly bigger. I sewed some decorative lines across this rectangle and then sewed it back in place on the shirt. Once this was done, I simply had to sew the front and back of the shirt together and add a collar. I finished off the long sleeve and cut away some fabric and the other sleeve and bottom of the shirt to recreate Padme's ripped shirt. Finally, I cut two long claw marks in the back.
I continued by making the shirt and the leggings. For the leggings, I used a very simple legging pattern and just added an extra seam on the front and back of each leg.
The shirt was a bit trickier because, despite it's pretty basic shape, it has some weird decorative seams. I started by tracing out a basic tight shirt pattern, making sure to leave some extra fabric at the bottom. I also made one sleeve a lot shorter than the other because one of Padme's sleeves gets ripped of in the movie. I continued by tracing out the decorative seam across her chest, cut it out and then sewed it back together to create the seam.
the first decorative seam
the second decorative seam
the two seams together!
Part 3: the armbands
Next up were the armbands. In the movie, they are made of some sort of metal, so I looked for ways to recreate this look as close as possible without having to use real, heavy metal. Unfortunately, I couldn't really find anything that looked similar enough to metal and it took me quite some time to figure it out. In the end, I decided to use some aluminium beer cans I found at the local store. They were very lightweight and the perfect colour, and I am really pleased with the end result.
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To make the armbands, I cut out six small rectangles for each armband out of the aluminium cans. Then I folded over the edges of each rectangle and glued them on to a piece of soft fabric so they wouldn't hurt my skin. I didn't have to worry about bending them because they were cut out of cylindrical cans, so I just had to attach both ends of the strip together and it fitted perfectly around my arm.
Real metal armbands!
Part 4: the shoes and the first layer of the shin guards
I continued with the shoes. I couldn't find any shoes that looked the same as Padme's so I decided to buy the most similar ones I could find and make shoe covers. I ended up buying some ankle boots that had more or less the right shape but they were a bit too dark. At first, I thought of painting them in some way, but I really like the shoes so I didn't want to change them permanently, so I chose to go with shoe covers. To make these, I covered the shoes in cellophane and duck tape then cut this layer into three pieces to create a pattern. I decided not to cover the heel of the shoe because Padme's shoes have brown soles. Then I sewed some shoe covers out of beige denim that matches the fake leather I used for the shin guards. To get in and out of the shoes, I left an opening at the back of the shoe that can be closed with some simple snap buttons. To protect the fabric on the bottom of the shoes from contact with the floor a glued some anti-slip patches to them, but if they ever get really dirty, I can simply take off the shoe covers and wash them.
It was pretty difficult to figure out how the first layer of the shin guards actually looked because they are very hard to see in the reference pictures, not to mention that there are some inconsistencies between them. In the end, I decided to go with a basic design that consists of a back panel with a decorative, stuffed edge at the top, and a front panel with cut off corners. Once assembled, they looked pretty similar to what I could see in the reference pictures. Like I mentioned before, the shin guards are made of fake, beige leather that has a slight stretch to it.
Part 5: the second layer of the shin guards
Once I finished the first layer of the shin guards, I could continue with the second layer. To replicate the detailed surface of the shin guards I used some thin craft foam. I cut out multiple layers in the right shapes and glued them together. Afterwards, I covered them with some fake leather, making sure to really press it into the corners so the detail would stand out as much as possible. Finally, in order to be able to attach the shin guards, I made four straps with snap buttons on the ends. Two of them were glued to the top and bottom of the shin guards and for the other two I cut through the craft foam in the right places so I could pull the straps through. I secured these last two straps with some stitches and also to prevent the foam from showing through the cut.
fun fact: unintentionally, once the glue dried the shin guards became really hard so they could actually serve as protection ^‿^
Part 6: the belt, pouches and holster
making the two small pouches...
This was the part of the costume I was most worried about because the pouches have really weird shapes that are really hard to achieve with fabric, especially because there aren't any visible seams. After a few tests, I decided to make the basic shape of the pouches out of craft foam, leaving the pouch and the lids separate for the moment. In order to replicate the shapes and details precisely, I hand stitched the foam together and used hot glue to secure the stitching and create details. Once I was done with the foam, I covered the pieces in fake leather, pulling the fabric over the foam as smoothly as I could. This is where the stretch of the fabric came in really handy and allowed me to make as few folds as possible. Then I used some of the left-overs from the shoe covers to cover up the back and the inside of the pouches. Finally, I could attach the lids to the pouches and add some snap buttons. The blaster holster was made in a similar way.
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making the large pouch...
​For the belt, I simply cut out two long bands of fabric, sewed them together and added snap buttons. I added some small loops to the back of the pouches and the holster and simply slid them onto the belt. Finally, I made a small loop as a small detail and also serves to secure the end of the belt once it is worn. This part took such a long time to make but I am super happy with the result and I think it looks really similar to Padme's!
the blaster actually fits perfectly in the holster
making the holster...
and finally the finished belt!
Part 7: the finishing touches
By now the costume was almost finished but something was still missing... the blaster! I ordered a replica of Padme's silver blaster online but it was completely the wrong colour, so I repainted it. I started by spray painting it silver and then painted the handle brown. Luckily the replica's handle already had some wood texture so it was pretty easy to make it look convincing. All I did was go over the brown with some darker brown and then wipe most of it off immediately. The dark brown really made the wood texture stand out.
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I'm also planning on making an e-s blaster entirely from scratch to complete this costume, so that will be coming up soon as well ;-)
ready to shoot some droids!
For the final detail, I wanted to recreate Padme's Japor Snippet. We don't see Padme wearing it on Geonosis, but Sinc Anakin gifts it to her in the first movie, I thought that maybe she wore it underneath her shirt and that it would be a nice touch to finish the costume.
The necklace is made out of Fimo clay, that I sculpted in the right shape. I carved the details and added some brown paint to make them stand out more. Finally, I just added a simple dark brown cord and the necklace was done!
across the stars
Just a quick note before the final result: I planed to go and do a photoshoot of this cosplay in an old roman arena that looks kind of similar to the geonosis arena, unfortunatly it was way to cold to take pictures outside when I finished it and Padme's outfit is not very warm. So I had to wait until spring to be able to take photos outside but I was way to impatient to show this cosplay, so in the meantime I just pretended to shoot some Separatist droids in the living room, took some quick photos, threw them in photoshop with a nice background and hoped they would look alright. They turned out pretty cool except for the poor quality of the original pictures because I only had my phone.
Since then I've been able to take some amazing photos at the roman arena in Avenches, but here is what my first photos looked like!
