Wookey was the surname of a friend of Terry's, Ralph Wookey, and Terry thought it would be a funny in-joke to include his friend's name in the soundtrack for THX-1138. He was big, a big bear of a dog.' During the climactic chase scene in THX 1138, one of the robotic cops, voiced by actor Terry McGovern, improvises: 'I think I ran over a Wookiee back there', and thus the word was born. This probably cost me a bit over $60 to make (over half of that was the helmet and boots) and a bit more time than I planned to spend on it, but my son was ecstatic, so it was well worth it.According to an interview with creator George Lucas, the inspiration for the Wookiee was Lucas's dog, Indiana (whose name is used in Lucas's Indiana Jones movies): 'He was the prototype for the Wookiee. The boots are black rain boots from Walmart (about $10). I used craft paint for the helmet and stained glass paint to make the visor yellow. (Found several great pictures of the helmet online that helped with the graphics). I sanded the “M” off the front and drew the details of the helmet on in pencil before painting them on. The helmet was really a Speed Racer helmet ($25). Then I put the Styrofoam into the gray case and secured the bottom opening using double sided fabric tape and stick pins. I used black elastic for the straps of the chest box, hand-sewing the neck strap and machine sewing the bottom strap. I found an illustration of the instrument panel part of the chest box on a website, and printed it the correct size on iron-on transfer paper, then ironed it on the fabric. I used gray fabric to make a pillow case type covering for the Styrofoam. Mine was 6″圆″ and about 2″ thick, but the size will depend on the person wearing it. I used Styrofoam from the craft store to make the chest box. I sewed the middle of the belt to the back portion of the front to back strap so that it would stay in the correct position.

I then made a belt using the ribbon and some plastic belt parts I got at the craft store. I then sewed a 4 ½ to 5″ piece of ribbon to the part of ribbon in the crotch area (the pieces are perpendicular), then made loops for each leg and sewed them to each side. This is supposed to be loose, so it is several inches below the crotch. The first part of the straps goes from the front of the flak vest between the legs and up to the back of the vest. I used Velcro to attach the straps to the front and back of the flak vest. Actually, I could not find gray ribbon, so I had to dye white ribbon. I used 1 ½” gray ribbon to make the straps. I used the same elastic to attach the front and back of the vest on the sides under the arms, but instead of sewing it directly to the vest, I used Velcro (sewed one part of the Velcro to the inside of the vest and the other side of the Velcro to the ends of the elastic). I used 1 ½” white elastic for the straps that go over the shoulders and sewed them to the front and back of the vest (the elastic makes it easier to fit over the head). I sewed white bias tape around the edges. I used this pattern to cut out the front and back of the vest. So I basically used the size of the paper and just cut out a curved section at each shoulder/arm. The vest is 11? wide at the bottom and 8 1/2″ high.

I did not have a pattern, so I took a sheet of printer paper and held it up against my sons chest to make a pattern. To make the white flak vest, I used a cheap white quilted fabric. (This was the first thing I had ever used a pattern for and it was not a very difficult pattern, the zipper was even fairly simple to sew in.) The orange fabric was only about $2/yd. I used McCall’s costume pattern M4951, the jumpsuit part only.

I originally planned on using orange sweatpants and sweatshirt, but when I couldn’t find any in orange I decided to make the jumpsuit. My son decided he wanted to be an X-wing pilot for Halloween, so after looking at multiple Star Wars photos on the internet, here is how I made his costume:

Xwing fighter pilot costume