Ahsoka Tano
Jedi, Togruta
I’ve always been a fan of Ahsoka Tano, the Togruta Jedi from Star Wars. I love her strength, her determination, and her sense of justice. And when I saw Ahsoka’s new appearance in Star Wars: Rebels, I fell in love. When I decided to make a cosplay of her, I knew it would be a challenge, but I was up for it.
For the bodypaint, I chose an alcohol-based bodypaint that could go through an airbrush. Alcohol bodypaints are incredibly durable and long-lasting, which I knew would be important for high-movement areas like her shoulders and fingers that were both exposed. It also meant that painting took minutes, not hours, which is always a plus for me.
The biggest challenge was her headpiece. These days, I craft headpieces like that for a living. But at the time, I had never made anything quite so big! It was my first real adventure with sculpting and casting such a large headpiece, and I learned a lot from the process. Looking back on it now, there’s a lot I would do differently, but I’m still very proud of what I accomplished then. It set me on this journey of being a full-time propmaker, after all!
The armor was made on a base of Sintra, with terraflex details laid overtop. I love working with Sintra for its durability, and you can get some really complicated shapes with it if you work carefully. Terraflex has a naturally bumpy texture that you usually want to smooth out with lots of sanding, but that bumpy texture was actually exactly what I wanted for the details, so I left it as-is.
Ahsoka was such a fun costume to do. I’ve retired the costume now, but she took so many different skillsets to accomplish. The things I learned from making her went on to be a foundation that got used in almost every single costume I’ve made since.
Plus, who doesn’t want to be Ahsoka Tano?
