Hoth Leia: Props & Accessories

With little to do besides prep for Hurricane Wilma and ride out the bad weather, we've been working on props:



Leia's chest ID and arm control unit started out as casts by Vince at Correllian Exports (what a nice guy; he expedited my order so I could get the sizing right on the costume, included pins and velcro, and recommended paints). I asked Scott for help and he wound up taking on both props as his personal project.



Our first coat of Testors grey primer was disastrous for the arm prop. For some reason it never dried (even after four hours in the oven). Even the badge took two full days to cure, but at least Scott could handle it to apply the other colors. He decided to clean the arm prop, let it dry overnight and have another go with Rustoleum primer, which worked perfectly.

The other colors were Testors enamels painstakingly applied with a brush. At first I wanted to do it myself, but Scott was so obviously involved that I enjoyed watching him do it instead. I did, however, custom-mix the orange paint color (and applied the second coat) for the second button!

I picked up a wonderful pair of kid leather gloves (so soft!) on eBay for $9.99. For hair, I purchased two packages of Yaki Pony (one brown #4, one #2/27 with highlights) and mixed them to make one long braid. Monica (my stylist) helped me figure out how to attach it to my head and camouflage my shorter hair. It took three of us--me, Monica, and Myrna at the salon--to braid the five-foot length!

Edit 6/12/06: I've added a few photos at my Flickr site to show how I put my hair up, then and now that it's six months longer! I also took clear photos of the arm prop at FIDM (the bottom half is part of a small metal tape measure!) and hope to rebuild mine before DragonCon in September.