I spent weeks making a cosplay costume, but it was all worth it

It started with a movie.

Not just any movie, but a movie that was sold out in theaters months before it was even released. A movie with so much hype that it broke records opening weekend. A movie known as “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

Within the first few minutes of the first time I saw that movie, I fell in love with Rey, the scavenger from Jakku and protagonist. I loved her outfit, her personality, her inner strength, all of it. With the next Salt Lake Comic Con event, FanX, coming up in a few months, I thought to myself, “Rey’s outfit would be fun to Cosplay.”

The next time I saw that movie, a few days later with my family, I was more convinced I would make her outfit to wear at the next convention. I spent more time that movie watching her, looking at her outfit and thinking about what would go into putting it all together.

It seemed simple enough to me at the time. I would need the right shoes. I could get the clothes at Deseret Industries and I could drape some fabric over them along with a belt. The bag was a simple satchel: common and easy to find. The biggest problem was her staff, but I had an artistic brother in a metal wielding class who I could enlist to help me. Overall, I thought it would be an easy and fun project.

I was wrong.

I ended up watching the movie three more times that month, because it was just that fantastic. By January, I had a good idea of what I would need in order to put it all together, and I started to gather my supplies.

I went from store to store, gathering bits and pieces for my costumes

I had to go to multiple different DI’s before I found a shirt and some pants with the right fabric weave and color to work. I learned that fabric can be really expensive to buy at the lengths I needed. I found shoes that would work, and I ordered Luke’s Lightsaber from Amazon as an extra accessory. The satchel and belt I got at DI.

The hardest part of the costume was the staff. I spent hours on the internet looking for ways of replicating it with the minimum tools, money and space I had available. Because it was still a new movie, there weren’t many patterns to follow and so I decided to experiment with my own design.

I found the materials that would work for what I had in mind at the local hardware stores, used math to figure out the proportions and then I started to work. I was unfamiliar with the materials I was using, so a lot of my time was spent experimenting and backtracking then redoing something over again. This took hours.

No, more than hours, I spent days on this. I worked on it during the weekends so it didn’t interfere with work and school and I would run Netflix in the background. More often than not, I would look at the clock and find that it was 3 a.m. and I had just watched seven hours of Charmed.

Most of it was just time-consuming. But it was worth it to see that staff taking shape in my hands.

As FanX grew nearer, I spent more time on the costume. I started to add detail to the staff. I cut fabric and dyed it, then I redyed it because it wasn’t right the first time. I cut some more fabric to make the wrappings for my arms and legs. There was spray paint and super glue involved and a lot of last minute touches to add.

Everything was done in time for the convention, just barely. I put my hair up in the notable three buns Rey wears, donned my new outfit, slung my staff over my shoulder and walked through the front doors of the Salt Palace Convention Center.

If I was doubting the ridiculous amount of time and money I spent putting my costume together before, I wasn’t anymore. All that work became worth it to me as I got compliments on my staff, and people asked to take pictures with me.

I talked with other Reys about their costumes and about how they put the staff together. I met and took pictures with other people in my fandom. Within ten minutes of entering the convention, a guy came up to me and asked to take a picture of me holding his replica of Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber.

The attention I got, the connection I made with other people — that’s why I did this. This is why I stayed up late at night putting together fabric and tape to make an outfit based on an amazing character. This is why I spent so much money on just the right supplies and materials.

This is why I cosplay at Comic Con.

—miranda.lorenc@gmail.com

@miranda_lorenc