My World Between Worlds
Image by Justin Jajalla Photography
“Truth can strike down the spectre of fear.”
Clone Wars, season 3, episode 11
Here’s Ahsoka! She’s finally here!
About a year ago, I decided to embody Ahsoka Tano for my first ever Star Wars cosplay. I was inspired by her character in Clone Wars, and even more so by her portrayal in the Mandalorian series. However, other projects and personal struggles lengthened the journey, and it was not until last fall that I finally gathered my materials and took my first steps into the cosplaying community.
Because I’m a newbie, I looked for a tutorial for guidance. I had three main goals for myself: to create the costume as ethically as possible (by using recycled, upcycled, thrifted, or repurposed materials); to blend this cartoon character with my own appearance, rather than take the more traditional approach of exactly replicating each of her features; and to learn something new. Well, I did all those things! With many mistakes along the way.
I really enjoyed using Alyson Tabbitha’s tutorial. Her goals matched mine, with an excellent product to show for it. I learned many tips and tricks that I will use going forward. I found it to be accessible to beginners and quick enough to scratch the “itch” that many costumers experience to be in the costume as fast as possible, while also producing high-quality work worthy of any “con.” And, her welcoming style of video production reduced my anxiety around a totally new undertaking. There are many excellent cosplayers who have similar tutorials; this was just the one I settled on.
I made so many mistakes, y’all! Almost every piece of this, with with the exception of the armor, had to be remade from scratch at some point because my initial creations turned out to be unusable (my original cloak disintegrated after too much sewing and dyeing) or unwearable (my inexperience with making my own pants made them impossible to put on!). But it was a GREAT learning experience and ultimately, when the day of my photo shoot came, I was so glad that every stitch on me was hard-earned and done by me. What a rewarding feeling!
Well, with the exception of the pants. I buckled down and bought some large pants that I altered; I just couldn’t justify buying more fabric to try again and create even more waste. Which brings me to my next point. I want to pursue my costuming hobby as ethically as possible, so for this costume I intentionally thrifted materials or purchased fabrics that would have otherwise been discarded. This is a new endeavor for me and I hope to learn more strategies of repurposing materials going forward. The vest is made from an upholstery fabric remnant on the clearance rack, the waist girding and arm sleeves are made from thrifted golf shirts from the local Goodwill. The notions and elastics I already had, and the shoes I also thrifted.
For the silhouette, I chose something between pure cosplay in its most exacting form and Ahsoka-bounding (bringing elements of costume into everyday dress). Many Ahsoka cosplayers choose to make lekku and use body paint to recreate this Jedi as closely as possible in “live-action” form. I have deep respect for that art form, but I wanted to blur the lines between myself and Ahsoka. I chose use elements of paint and hairstyle to mimic Ahsoka’s profile. **I want to note that my ultimate choice of hairstyle (two braids interwoven with ribbons) came from my very limited ability to do hairstyling, and is not meant to evoke anything but the white and blue tapering of Ahsoka’s lekku.
For the armor, I did purchase new foams and paints, but this was my first experience with crafting cosplay accessories from foam and I didn’t have any on hand. It’s a point of conversation in the cosplaying community about how to make armor. Do you replicate these pieces as closely as possible, using exact materials? This can take time, money, tools, storage, space, and effort that are well beyond most hobbyists (including myself). Or do you fashion armor from materials that can easily mimic the appearance of the fantastical shapes we see in fantasy and sci-fi? Recently this conversation resurfaced online. Here’s a great thread about that (you will need to view it on Instagram) and here’s the original post it is referencing. Alyson Tabbitha’s tutorial definitely fell into the foam-crafting camp, and I loved it! It allowed me to flex some artistic muscles I had not in a very long time, probably since grade school. It was a happy heart journey for me to spend some time with my little kid part, the part who gravitates towards characters like Ahsoka in the first place.
Image left: Justin Jajalla Photography | Image right: Disney
Ahsoka and her journey speak to me in so many ways. She is thoughtful, she is kind, she is fierce, and she is, at her very heart, a truth-seeker. That is why I chose the quote at the top of this post. The Jedi themselves pursue truth as a virtue, but Ahsoka looks for it for the reason in the above quote: to confront and overcome fear which, as Luke Skywalker says, is the destiny of a Jedi. For you die-hards, perhaps you’d expect a blog post about Ahsoka cosplay to be emblazoned with her more infamous declaration: “I am no Jedi!” But that is not what I think of when I think of Ahsoka. That is only what Ashoka is not, and does not reveal the heart of her essence, which is what I sought to portray in this project.
Image by Justin Jajalla Photography
In “Twilight of the Apprentice, part II",” the finale of season 2 of “Star Wars Rebels,” the audience sees Ahsoka descending into a dark tunnel at the end of a duel with Anakin Skywalker—or, so she calls him once they finally meet again in the Sith temple on Malachor earlier in the episode. What he calls himself everyone already knows. But Ahsoka refuses to accept that the man who was once her loving friend could now be gone forever. She journeys down into the depths of the temple’s ruins to access what many believe is a doorway to the World Between Worlds, a place out of time and space where there is only the force, and many doors to other places and times. It can be a terrifying place, to be reachable by any person who may also have access to the vast and unending darkness of these liminal pathways.
Why does Ahsoka go to this terrifying place? Some might say “hope.” But I say “truth.” Looking for the truth that her friend is not truly gone, that the Light is still there, that even the most “far gone” of us can be saved. I believe when we see Ahsoka again in The Mandalorian, she has emerged from this journey. I really connected with the live-action portrayal of Ahsoka, which I saw as older, wiser, and fully grounded in her mission, which belonged to her and her alone, rather than a temple or a creed. That is why I chose this costume as my first cosplay. These are fears and questions I have confronted myself this past year in my own life, and in many ways the making of this costume was my own journey through the World Between Worlds, the deep places of consciousness where the mind wanders to the past, present, and future while the hands work. And while my first cosplay may not be technically perfect or live up to external standards, the journey was worth the mistakes and has given me new memories to cherish and new things about myself to cherish. As Ahsoka says, “I like firsts. Good or bad, they’re always memorable.”
