jaina

On Sunday, I met up with the wonderful

miana_dude in Balboa Park for a real, honest-to-goodness photoshoot of my Padme rainbow dress! I'd never done a photoshoot before; all my pictures of all my costumes have come from cons and other events.

aviendiora was also awesome and came along as a wrangler, or as we re-dubbed her, my handmaiden Jeneé. We got some pretty funny reactions from other people in the park-- one guy said the subject line of this post, one asked if my costume was Grecian, one offered advice on where I should stand ("the light only on half your face!"), and several took pictures. :)

In anticipation of the photoshoot, I updated and fixed quite a few things (with Jen's invaluable help), based on the information we've gotten since I made the dress in 2003-- there will be another, much more detailed post about that later. The most obvious is that I finally got a wig and did the "real" hairstyle. A local shop styled the wig, and I made the hairbands.

The main purpose of the shoot was to recreate the pose used in Jason Palmer's Padme costume print, so I could submit it for the Rebel Legion's Padme Project. We tackled that one first, so I spent awhile walking around and around in circles while Rachel tried to capture the perfect moment where I was turned properly and my dress was billowing just so. Once that was done, we just started taking pictures! We went to a couple different locations in the park that looked relatively Naboo-like. Rachel got some absolutely amaaaaazing photos! Here are a few of my favorites:

Some outtakes:

A glimpse of the elusive Jeneé!

Twirling: a series

Twirling: the aftermath

And finally, the best shot we could get to match the one in the Palmer print, and a comparison to both the print and Kristin's picture from the NYC fashion show that was the basis for the one in the print: