Check out this amazing Wampa costume!

Came across this costume today, it is a real shame I don't have any more info but I would love to learn the whole story.

Wampa Sighting - The Wampug!

The Wampug... Yeah I know I am late on posting on this, but for those that haven't seen it, here it is. Kristen from over at http://starwarschick.com/ made this awesome costume for her pug Chubbs.

Time for a little Plastic Surgery for the Wampa

This week I have started the modifications to the Wampa. For the longest time I have been unsatisfied with the bubbly shoulders. This was really noticible in the Adidas photo. So I am working on cutting a football size wedge out of the top of them and much like a tummy tuck, I am taking out excessive foam and fur. I also took out one of the support rings to reduce the size a bit and have a more natural and screen accurate shoulder.

I do plan on replacing the entire structure of the arms eventually, so this little cosmetic change is only a band-aid for now but I think it will be totally worth it! Below is a photo of it just pinned together. You can already start to see the difference below with the shoulder on the left and the shoulder on the right. More pics and updates coming soon when this mod is finished.

2012... this year should be fun

Like last year I started the year with a State of the Wampa address. So this year should be no different. First of all I would like to recap last year as one hell of a year. We started the year launching the new Disney Dream cruise ship. Took the Wampa to two conventions including Megacon and Motor City Comic Con up in Michigan. Then the Wampa was chosen to be part of the Star Wars Adidas Campaign! So to say 2011 was the year of the Wampa is an understatement in my opinion. But it wasn't all the Wampa, 2011 also brought in a pair of Stormtroopers.Genna and I both built ANH Stormtroopers, a Stunt and a Hero build. I got to participate in my first Star Wars Weekends at Disney. I also was able to be part of a Kelby Training video with Doug Sonders with the Stormtrooper and Daisy Duke with the General Lee.

Also for 2011 our Squad with the 501st grew and met some really great new friends that are begging to help work on the Wampa. We established Wampa Workshops with Brian, Tim, Genna and Mark and it feels good to have some extra help and opinions when it comes to the suit. Along with the Wampa Workshops comes the Sith Lord Workshops. Tim finished up his Darth Maul in the last few weeks, and now I am finally working on Palpatine. As for the 2012 plans for the Wampa, don't expect retirement anytime soon. I will be taking it out for the opening Weekend for Phantom Menace in 3D, but it will be back to the workshop after that. With all that travel in 2011 comes wear and tear and 2012 will bring much needed repair & improvement time. So this year, I am skipping Megacon to ensure a fully working Wampa at Star Wars Celebration VI, which is returning to Orlando Florida August 23-26. I plan on bringing the Wampa out again, have it on display some of the days, and wear it on Saturday. I will be repairing the arms and making them more articulated, as well as possibly a new head sculpt! So, there is a short set of plans for 2012... and I leave you with one more little hint on a costume. Expect a big surprise with this costume at C6!

Star Wars Blu-Ray Wampa Review

When I heard they were putting in the cut wampa scenes on the Blu-Ray I was excited. These scenes are from the attack on Echo base, which was a sub-plot that was eventually cut from the movie, well to be kind, the wampa looked bad! It is not easy to pull off realism when walking in stilts with arm extensions... yeah I speak from experience. My suit is not too far off of the original full size costume built and I see a lot of similarities in these clips, which makes me paranoid a bit on how mine! I have been pondering a re-work of the arms for a while now to get a more fluid and realistic movement. After watching this video, I am going to start up again on working on the prototype arm that is in the works. While this was a noble attempt, I agree with cutting the scenes. Personally I would have liked to seen footage of the "Bug Eyed" wampa, Story has it that this was their first attempt at building the Wampa, and the body doesn't look too far off from the footage seen above. Which makes me wonder if they swapped the head. This is the only wampa made that didn't make into the original movie, but at least we have stills. 

Also, so many people cringe when the mere mention of replacing original footage with CG, but if there is ever a scene I would be an advocate for it, it would be the Wampa scene. Lucasfilm did tweak the swatting arm scene a little bit when you can see the puppeteers red jacket, but there is still 3 different wampas seen in the actual film. Sure they look great in High Definition and I have noticed a few more things about the suit that I didn't notice before, but it would have been nice to see one consistent wampa. Their best chance was to reshoot everything as one costume during the "special edition" but it is too late for that. They could have taken the approach that they did with the Yoda in Phantom Menace and replaced all of these wampas with the one consistant CG wampa, it's ILM in 2011, I am sure they could pull it off seamless by now.