Star Wars Kepi from CyberSeams.com

Ventured into hat making for a Star Wars costume made for my kid. I grabbed the Star Wars Imperial Officer Hat pattern from cyberseams.com. Janet's pattern was amazing! I loved the specific brand recommendations for interfacing, and I also liked that she used actual sewing terms with explanations where a noob like myself might fall down. All my questions were answered by googling when I got stuck.

We have abnormally large heads in this family, so I splashed out with enough material for two. Most of it was available from JoAnn's. My partner sews more than I do, and she helped me make sure I had all the seam allowances and backing correct before I started cutting.

The top and crown was where I struggled the most. It kept bunching up and puckering, and I couldn’t figure out a way to get it to stop. I just lived with it once I fixed the worst spots, and you can’t see it from 10 paces. Especially on black! After finishing the cap, I found that the instructions say to cut relief snips along the seam allowance of the top. Rookie mistake that I should have realized once the puckering started.  Better luck with round two!

Star Wars Legion - Clone Wars Core Set and Commander Rex

 After painting Rex with my son, he convinced me to get the core set (what a fool I am). The kit was good for a first offering for new players and new collectors. And I got to take Citadel Contrast for a spin to add another skill for my painting belt.

The models were decent. ObiWan and Clone Troopers were supplied in bags, basically clean except for mould lines.  Owing to their spindly bits, Grevious, two Droidekas, and the  B-1 Battle Droids were still on sprue. The plastic is definitely different from Games Workshop sprue. It was less solvable than GW plastic when using Testors and Tamiya plastic glue. Parts kept coming unwelded, but a little super glue put it right. Detail was tight and almost always movie/animation accurate, and the extra parts for Grevious even allowed for some simple conversions (see below for an extra surprise; you can blame my son for it). After assembling them, I realized the 28mm accurate scale is so much more fiddly than the 28mm heroics I'm used to.  Hands and guns are smaller.  Weapons are smaller too. But the accurate proportions make for great squads. In a crowd, they look like right even when base to base.

I was not interested in spending months painting these minis.  Especially since my son had lost interest in playing almost immediately after purchase. I was delighted to find Sorastro's painting guides for Legion.  He helped me get from prime to table-ready in less than a month. This was my first adventure with Citadel's Contrast paint, and the advice to thin with medium and how to handle flow was excellent.  His colors were spot on too. After spending the pandemic bemoaning my mistake, it was refreshing to go so fast from concept to finished product.