Clothes maketh the alien

Re my eBay win of yesterday, I've been asked, "What is the shiny fabric? I want to buy some of that."

I look forward to finding out. As I told the poster of the question, when designing and making science fiction costumes, don't just visit regular haberdashery suppliers for bolts of unusual material. The really weird (if uncomfortable; hard to sew) stuff used in much SF media costuming is often not worn as intended, nor is it fabric made for humans to wear. So look in furniture suppliers and restorers, army surplus stores (space blankets!), hardware stores, etc. (Did you know that the fabric used in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" Season One Starfleet uniforms was used inside out, to give a strange effect? Made 'em hot for the wearers, though.)

I was also asked, "Now the big question: Will you WEAR it or just "collect" it?

Well, I'm really hoping that Therin is about the same size as Granville Van Dusen or Joel Swetow, the two actors who wore the costume on "Enterprise". The sleeves of the jumpsuit look very snug in the pictures. The great thing is that the gorgeous cloak portion is going to fit anybody.

On Thursday night I saw some amazing lizard skin boots (in a shoe store in Sydney's CBD) that might look heaps better than my blue bare feet sticking out of the ends of the jumpsuit!

I "performed" Therin the Andorian regularly from 1980 through till 1990, when I grew a full dark beard - and had to start playing Tellarites and Klingon Maltz instead. The beard finally went grey and was shaved off in 1997, but I didn't "go blue" again until 2001, when I was asked to video my own cameo as Senator Therin (Therin's Dad) for the US fanfilm, Starship Exeter: The Savage Empire.


The changing (blue) face of the Andorian


So I know I'm gonna be terrified of getting blue makeup on a costume that's costing me $AU 1000 to buy/import to Australia. But yeah, I'll wear it at least once, if it fits. Maybe a full-on costume shoot at Jenolan Caves (yes, the same limestone caves that Scotty's misspelt USS Jenolen was named for).

I'm thinking I'll also have to seek out a suitable second hand male mannequin and paint it blue. Finally, a suitable place to store/display Therin's wig and antennae between gigs!