After you pick a costume to work on, the next step is to figure out what exactly you’ll need to make or purchase. This is what I refer to as the break down process and it can either be a moment when you go “Oh, this won’t be so bad” or “This is way more complicated than I expected.” In some cases, the work may have already been done for you. The 501^st in particular does a fantastic job of making sure they have incredibly thorough standards pages. They offer breakdowns of exactly what each costume will be comprised of along with pictures of the pieces. I found it to be incredibly helpful when I was working on my Revan. Unfortunately though, not every costume is going to have the benefit of 501^st research.

The first step is to gather your reference pictures. Find as many of these as you can. If you’re working on a costume where you can see the front, the back, and the sides, be grateful for reference as this will take a lot of the guesswork out of the equation. (Alternatively, you can be like me and base your costume off of a single image that doesn’t even show the entire costume. It’s my specialty.) I’m a fan of printing the pictures out if I’m going to continue to reference them while actually constructing the costume but I do know that a lot of people will maintain reference image folders on their tablets. Do what works for you.  Continue reading →