I asked my five year old daughter if she would like me to make an R2Dtutu for her for Halloween. She replied with, “No, mama. Princess Boba Fett!” Princess Boba Fett? I can do that!
Boba Fett’s apparel and equipment is extremely detailed. Not only does he have armor and a helmet, but he has gauntlets and a jetpack. He is covered in gadgets and symbols of his Mandalorian heritage. I tried to include as many of those details as possible while keeping in mind this costume was for a five year old girl.
So here is an amazing tutorial of a Bounty Hunter for a little girl who wants to be a Boba Fett Inspired Princess!
SUPPLIES
Tutu
1 hunter green 8” lined tutu top
1 chocolate 1.5” crochet headband
3 rolls dark grey tulle1 roll emerald tulle1 roll lemon tulle
1 roll chocolate shimmer tulle
6 tiny clear hair elastics
1 15x17” piece dark green cotton material, hemmed (optional)
Shirt
Grey long-sleeved shirt
Brown felt
Iron on transfer paper, iron, pillow case, block of wood
Mask
Printout of mask outline
Felt- dark green, brick red, black
Craft foam sheet (any color)
Black elastic cord
Upholstery needle
Yellow tulle (from same roll listed under Tutu)
Jetpack
2 empty tulle tubes
1 empty paper towel tube
File folders
Craft foam sheets- red, yellow, white, blue
3/16” wood dowel (optional)
Duct tape- silver, red, black
2 skirt/kilt pins
Metal grey ribbon (from same roll listed under Tutu)
Miscellaneous Supplies and Tools
Cardboard box (flattened) that is the width you want the length of the skirt to be
Tape measure or ruler
Scissors
Crochet hook
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Pins, needle, green thread
INSTRUCTIONS
Tutu
Start by determining how long you want your skirt to be and cut pieces of tulle that are twice that long, since you will be folding them in half. The easiest way to cut the tulle is to wrap an entire roll of tulle (or enough for the number of pieces you need) around a flattened cardboard box that is the same size as the length of the skirt and cut across all pieces of the tulle only once. Then repeat this process for all the rolls of tulle you will be using.
I wanted this dress to be full length on my daughter, which was about 20” long, so I needed pieces of tulle that were about 40” long. Note: my five year old daughter is tiny, so these measurements might make more sense for 3-4 year olds. The box I used to wrap the tulle around for cutting was about 20.75” wide. 45 pieces of tulle fit nicely around the 8” tutu top. I did two layers of the following pattern: dark grey, dark grey, chocolate, dark grey, dark grey, emerald. I used a total of 60 pieces of dark grey, 15 chocolate, and 15 emerald (I had to do only half the pattern once in the back). Each roll of tulle will make about 20 pieces that are 41.5” (900” ÷ 41.5” = 21.5, sometimes the rolls are slightly shorter than advertised or have a blemish you need to work around, so be sure to have a little extra just in case). Keep two empty tulle tubes, you will need them for the jetpack.
To add the tulle to the tutu top, you are going to insert a crochet hook behind a square that you want to wrap the tulle around (in the bottom hole and out the top hole), hook the middle of the tulle piece on the crochet hook, and pull the tulle through. Now you have a loop of tulle sticking out of the tutu top. Grab the ends of the tulle and pull them through the loop. Tighten and adjust the tulle until you have a nice little knot, but not too tight. Repeat this process all the way around tutu top.
To add a second layer, repeat the same process a row up from the first row.
For this tutu, when I added the second layer, I put my crochet hook in the tutu top AND the bottom row of the chocolate headband each time I added a piece of tulle. This added a belt, no sewing or gluing necessary. There were fewer holes in the headband than the tutu top, so as evenly as possible around the tutu, I doubled up some pieces of tulle in about six holes in the headband, while keeping one piece of tulle per hole in the tutu top.
Next I added ribbon to the top for straps. I used a very long piece, about 80”, so that there is plenty of room to loosen and adjust the straps when taking the tutu off, and because I like the ribbon hanging long in the back. I weaved the ribbon through the crocheted top across the front. Then I skipped a section on each side for arm holes and weaved each end half way across the back, leaving the ends loose so the straps can be tightened and adjusted each time it is worn.
With the basic tutu dress done, I started adding the details. Boba Fett’s armor has yellow shoulder and knee coverings. I decided to make those a little more feminine by using tulle to make puffy shoulder straps and bows. For the puffy shoulder straps, I used two pieces of lemon tulle about 30” each for each shoulder. I pushed the ends of two pieces of the tulle through the last square the ribbon went under in the front of the dress and pulled it halfway through. I folded the tulle in half and pushed all four ends through the first square in the back of the tutu. I tied a knot and trimmed the ends.
To make the bows, I started by cutting two pieces of tulle about 12” long. These will be used to tie the bows with, but trust me, you want to cut them before your hands are tied up (pun intended) making the bow. Next I started wrapping the tulle around my loosely separated fingers. I had the tulle folded in half and I kept it fairly neat and tidy, but you could choose to let it be messy and have a shabbier looking bow. I wrapped the tulle around my fingers about 11 times and decided it was big enough. I cut the tulle and gently slid it off my fingers. Then I wrapped the 12” long piece of tulle around the middle of the bow and tied it as tightly as possible in the back. I used the ends to attach the bow to the dress by tying it to two full pieces of tulle.
My eight year old son pointed out to me that for a true bounty hunter, I needed to include the braids that hang from Boba Fett’s right shoulder. To do this, I made three braids using the lemon, dark grey, and chocolate tulle. I cut three pieces from each color that were 12-15” long. I joined the three pieces at one end with a tiny clear hair elastic and started braiding the tulle. You can tape it to a table for tension or have your child hold it for you. You can choose how tightly you want to braid the tulle. If you want to, you can form very tight, tiny braids, but that was taking a very long time. I opted for a little bit looser braids to save time, and so they would be a bit bigger and stand out more. When they were as long as I wanted them, I wrapped another hair elastic to the end and trimmed the excess tulle. I made each of the braids slightly different lengths. I folded all three braids over the top of the tutu near the right strap and pinned them down. I hand sewed the braids to the lining of the tutu top. Then I tucked the braids into one of the loops of the strap so that they laid down nicely on the front of the dress. If you are not planning to put a shirt under the tutu, you might want to sew or glue a piece of felt over the ends of the braids inside the dress because they are going to be really itchy.
I love the scene in The Incredibles where Edna wisely advises, “No capes!” but I decided it was a detail from Boba Fett’s apparel that I wanted to keep (even if it seems dangerous with a jetpack). I used a piece of dark green cotton material that was about 15x17”. I used a sewing machine to hem all the edges. If you don’t want to use a sewing machine you have several other options. You could use a fabric that doesn’t fray or you could use no sew tape or glue to hem the edges. Boba Fett’s cape is actually pretty worn and weathered, so you could always decide to let it fray, too. After I cut and hemmed the fabric, I gathered the material at one corner so that it was folded back and forth a few times and folded it over the top of the dress just inside the back left strap and pinned it. Then I hand sewed the corner to the lining of the tutu top.
Shirt
While the tutu is beautiful all by itself, I wanted to add more details to the costume. Plus, Halloween is cold where we live, so having another layer is generally a good thing. So I added the Mandalorian symbol and wrist gauntlets to a grey shirt. I searched online for “Mandalorian symbol” and found one I liked. I edited it to be the size I needed (approximately 2.5x1.5”), made a mirror image, and printed it onto the iron on transfer paper. Then I followed the directions of the transfer paper to put one on the top of each sleeve. Because I was placing them on the sleeves, I had a difficult time laying the shirt flat, so I inserted a scrap piece of wood inside the sleeve to serve as the flat surface to iron onto.
Boba Fett’s wrist gauntlets are much more intricate than I was willing to recreate, so I decided to just add a little felt to get the idea across. For each arm, I made a rectangle (about 2.5x8”) of brown felt that wrapped around the sleeve and a second piece to lay on top (about 3x4.5”). I hand sewed around the edge of the rectangle piece and then hand sewed the top piece to the rectangle piece, with the seam of the rectangle piece under the top piece.
Mask
Possibly the most recognizable feature of our bounty hunter (and this costume) is the helmet. I decided to make a mask instead of a full helmet in the hopes that it would be comfortable and my daughter would wear it. I think buying a mask or helmet would also work well if you can find one you like. I started by searching for “Boba Fett helmet coloring” on the internet. I printed one I liked and cut out the pieces to use as a template. One thing I ended up needing to amend was making the forehead part much taller than the printout. I cut a back piece and a front piece out of green felt, an inside bottom piece and the cheek details out of black felt, and the eye slit outline piece out of red felt. I also cut two pieces of craft foam to put inside the mask to give it some structure.
I used a hot glue gun to put all the pieces together. I glued the craft foam to the back piece, then the black inside piece on top of the foam. I glued the red eye slit piece to the front piece, then the black cheek pieces to the front piece. Then I glued the front piece to the back piece. I purposefully did not put any glue where I was going to be putting the strap so that I wouldn’t have to go through the glue. I used an upholstery needle to get the black elastic cord through the felt. After trying it on my daughter to make sure the cord was the proper length, I tied and trimmed the cord. Then I used the glue gun to reinforce around the cord, between the two pieces of felt. It’s still a weak spot, and it bends a bit when she wears it, but I think it works.
Boba Fett’s helmet has some yellow markings on the left side. I decided to represent that with another bow. I cut a piece of lemon tulle about 9” long for the center tie. Then I cut a piece about 60” long. As I wound it around three fingers held together, I tried to make sure the tulle was folded in fourths to make it smaller. After I wound all 60”, I slid it off my fingers and tied the 9” piece around the center as tightly as I could. I trimmed the ends and hot glued the bow to the mask.
Jetpack
My daughter was adamant that she have a jetpack for her costume. My goal in making it was not to make a movie perfect replica, but to make a light weight costume prop that would not be cumbersome for my daughter to wear. Also, as I’ve mentioned, my daughter is tiny. Her back is seven inches wide. I had seven inches to make a jetpack! So I made some practical decisions such as not adding thrusters, shortening the missile, and not even attempting to add all the structure and detail of Boba Fett’s jetpack. I think I managed to get the point across and make my daughter happy.
The jetpack has three main parts: base, missile (yellow, center cylinder), and fuel canisters (white, side cylinders). I built the base of the jetpack on the fold of a file folder. It ended up being 8” wide, 6” tall from the fold up, and about 2.5” deep from the fold down. I cut four pieces of blue foam to cover all four sides of the folder. I cut squares out of yellow, red and white foam, with the yellow one about 4x4”. I also cut two blue pieces that will be holsters for the side fuel canisters, they are about 4” tall at the edges and 4.5” wide.
It was really important to me that the jetpack was separate from the dress, so I didn’t want to sew or attach it directly to the tutu. I also didn’t want straps going over the dress and making it look weird or being annoying to wear. I ended up using ribbon to attach large skirt/kilt pins to the back of the base. I put the clasp at the top, but because the pins are tapered, it might be better to put the clasp down so that the jetpack lays nicer. To attach the jetpack to the dress, I feed the pins through the crochet part of the tutu top and clasp it over the ribbon strap at the top of the tutu. It seems to stay in place fairly well and doesn’t bother my daughter too much.
To assemble the base, I used a glue gun to attach the back blue foam to the folder. Then I cut two pieces of ribbon about 14-15” long. I glued one end of each ribbon to the inside of the folder and flipped them to the outside. The two pieces of ribbon should be separated a little, but not too far so that they lay flat inside the pins. I fed the first pin through the ribbons and glued the ribbon from the edge of the base to the pin. Then I glued the middle part of the ribbons, added the second pin, and glued to the edge of the jetpack. I flipped the ribbon to the inside and glued the ends down. Then I glued the other three blue foam pieces to the folder and added the yellow, red, and white squares.
The base of the missile is a paper towel tube cut to about 6” long. It wasn’t as wide as I wanted it to be, so I cut a slit along the length and taped a rectangle of file folder inside. Then I covered it in yellow foam. I used file folders to construct the two halves of the top of the missile and the ring that attaches it to the base. I made these shapes by cutting out circles and cutting a slit from one edge to the center, then overlapping the edges and twisting until I had the shape I wanted and trimming the extra overlapping parts. I included a ruler in the picture so you can get an idea of how big the shapes are, but your measurement will depend on how big you make the base of the missile. I covered the ring in a piece of red foam. I covered both halves of the missile in silver duct tape and then joined them with the silver duct tape. I inserted a wooden dowel thinking it would add some support, but I don’t think it was really necessary. I glued the missile to the ring. I placed the missile with the ring on top of the base, and attached it with a piece of red duct tape. To help the duct tape lay flat, I cut some slits around the top about an inch or so apart, then folded down the flaps. I put a piece of black duct tape around the base near the top and glued a rectangle of blue foam to the front.
For the side fuel canisters I covered two tulle tubes in white foam. Then I made red foam rings and white foam circles. I glued the ring together then glued the white circle to the ring, but only on the inside so the glue doesn’t show. I attached the rings to the bases using red duct tape and the same slit and fold method I used on the missile. I added a piece of black duct tape to each fuel canister. Then I glued the blue foam holsters to each side of the fuel canisters so that the back edges were even with the back of the canister.
Lastly, I glued the missile and the fuel canisters to the base with just a line of glue down the back of each one. I glued them to the top of the base first. Then I pulled the bottom of the base away from the cylinders and added some glue to the bottom of all three cylinders and pushed the bottom of the base into the glue.
Add a blaster, and the look is complete. You’ll have the best bounty hunter in the galaxy.
