I'm really happy that I was finally able to cosplay Padme; my inner 3 year old was very pleased. Padme's a character I've looked up to since I watched the first prequels a long, long time ago with my Dad. I had all of the little paper doll books of her and wanted to BE her (so I dressed up as a princess for Halloween for like 5 years as a kid. Same costume, because it reminded me of her) so finally getting to do that felt really great. As an adult, I still really love her character even though she's not very well-written in the last two movies and still would like to emulate her in daily life! Eventually I'd like to make some of her more complex outfits but it was fun getting to cosplay one of her badass ones!

Harder than it needed to be honestly... someone stole the pattern out of an envelope in Jo-Ann's that I unknowingly bought. Thinking that this costume would be "easy" to whip together in a few days, I was sorely mistaken. Pants (my first pair ever) took three drafts; fabric recommendations by some places online were less than ideal (read: this fabric is super see through and the tutorials I found said it was fine not to line it! Bringing white tights for this for future cons)... I used an old shirt for a pattern for the top, and then freehanded the mock-turtleneck. The front panel is a rectangle that has four tiny pintuck pleats that I then appliqued to the top. The boob seam is topstitched because despite countless tutorials I couldn't figure out how to make it an actual seam. I used a pair of yoga pants for the pants; and let me just say I never thought I'd hate topstitching this much. I wanted to join the Rebel Legion with this outfit but it's going to need a lot of work before it's up to snuff (but hey, at least all my seams are accurate!). Belt is made out of craft foam wrapped with Yaya Han brand pleather... for those who don't know, this doesn't take to hotglue terribly well (cue pre-con meltdown). Blaster is a replica from Rubie's that I repainted, and I freehanded the pouches and blaster holster. Armbands are made of craft foam & spray painted silver; yours truly is an idiot who forgot to seal said spray paint so it rubbed off on a lot of my shirt... hopefully I'll be able to get the stains out. Ran out of time and patience to make the shin guards. Overall, I'm not satisfied with this but happy it got done in time for Gen Con. Even though there were a grand total of three people who identified me correctly as Padme and NOT Leia.

Wig is an Epic Cosplay Hera in Dark Brown. I put it into a low ponytail; took small sections of hair, twisted them, then took the ends and folded them up into the ponytail, secured with a ton of bobby pins until I had a nest!