Loilta Fashion #14: Star Wars The Force Awakens

Lolita Fashion #14 of 30 is a dress inspired by Rey and BB-8 from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It took sometime for me to design this dress' look as I tried to merge both Rey and BB-8 together. It made sense to use BB-8's ball pattern for the skirt and then I tried to do something with Rey's tunic and belts and created an overdress in the same vein. Kamiko's also got her staff and the hairpiece is a bow with BB-8's head. The heels are extrapolated from the way Rey's boots look as well.

Click to take a look at the design process for Lolita Fashion style #14, Rey and BB-8 from Star Wars: The Force Awakens mashed up!

Inspiration: Star Wars

I really enjoyed the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie. I usually don't do fan art -- it's just my choice, but I wanted to do something with it similar to the Doctor Who TARDIS dress I made for #13. Also, I have a friend who's been coaxing me for a Kylo Ren Lolita inspired look, but we'll get to that somewhere down the line. This inspiration came from Rey and BB-8 from the movie. BB-8's adorable and Rey is awesome, so I don't need much more of a reason to like them.

Design Sketches

I started with Rey and if you google her there's a nice sketch drawing of her costume from the front, profile and back (turns out it's someone's cosplay construction notes!), and I used that to help me build my design for the dress as well as some photos of her from the movie. The most difficult part was doing the overdress. Rey wears a tunic with a belt cinching it around her. I wanted to emulate that, but make it a Lolita overdress. That piece is front and center in the image above. I tried to draw how the overdress/tunic would drape over top of the bell skirt. It's like some kind of apron. I tried a second variation which was a wrap around dress/JSK, but I decided not to go with it -- it seemed complex and maybe not inline with the fashion.

I was also originally going to have her bloomers peek out from the bottom to emulate the shorts, but I was told from a Lolita that it probably wouldn't be kosher (since they're underthings and should be hidden). So I nixed that idea.

Rey has cloth wrapped around her arms and legs in the character sketch and in the movie, but I decided to forgo it and just focus on the dress. I originally tried to draw the leather band on her left hand and I thought of using long gloves, but I ultimately went with regular white gloves. From this behind angle, I didn't think the leather band would read very well.

Originally, the design was all Rey, but I wanted a bit of BB-8 in there. I thought he might work as a hairpiece. My first attempt was to draw BB8 like a mini-hat on her head, but it looked like a goofy Futurama brain slug coming out of her head.

I nixed that idea and went with just the hemispherical BB-8 head and attached it like a broach to a large ribbon. With the rough sketch done, I realized that it could use some texture/pattern on the skirt, and decided to do recreate BB-8's soccerball body appearance and use that as the widget pattern for her skirt under the overdress -- since his head was on Kamiko's head, it made sense that the bellshaped skirt would be patterned after him.

Another consideration I looked at was the bell vs. A-line shape of her dress. Rey's lanky and if I just used her as the design, then I might have made a more A-line silhouette based on her outfit, but I do like the bell shape Lolita silhouette and including BB-8 let me bring that back in (since his body is round anyway).

Progression

For the stockings, I had reference of some Lolitas wearing a fishnet, criss-crossed looking stocking. From the character sheet of Rey, it seemed like she wore some kind of leggings (although I don't think she does in the movie), but I didn't want the leggings to look messy, so I created the stocking pattern, which is pretty easy. I made thick and two thin lines and repeated it vertically. I copied it, flipped it, and rotated it 45 degrees and it created criss-cross pattern I wanted. I did this using Manga Studio's vector tools and mesh transformed it into place.

In the blue sketch of the dress, BB-8's rings are a lot bigger, but I toned them down and created a hem pattern as well. The heels are based off Rey's boots. Of course, I would have to include the blaster Han gave her and her staff. I have Luke's lightsabre in the blue sketch, but I didn't add it in the final -- it was getting late and I wanted to finish it.

These Lolita Sketches are still fun, but now I find that I'm designing a lot more. I'm trying to create the patterns for stockings and emulate some of the dense looking patterns on the skirts. It's a far cry from the earlier loosey-goosey pencil sketches.

I'm back to inking pages for This Mortal Coil, so that means that #15 may take a bit to show up. I don't have a concept for it yet. I know a friend wanted Kylo Ren, which might make a nice Gothic Lolita look, but I want to wait until we come back around to the front of her head before we do that. I'd like to do a Victorian Sherlock Holmes one as well, but that again may look best from the front. Maybe I might try and copy another dress design I like.

Stay tuned for more...