The Color Purple

Or actually, "Dark Lilac"
The following collage I put together has Movie screen shots, promo shots, people's pictures from MOM, and FIDM, starwars.com, visual dictionary, and a magazine cover of Zam's crop top and pants color. I know which ones are which- but that's not the point.


The point is that there are too many things that affect color pigmentation of the lycra of her undersuit (ESPECIALLY LIGHTING!) The main thing when costuming is to find a close base, and make sure that the grades of color for everything else matches. Here is the picture that Kaydee made of the neoprene that was recently ordered and the fabric by Britax in CA, that "might" be the fabric actually chosen by Trisha Biggar. I must say, we've all come a long way all! I am proud of all the work that everyone put into this -ie, trying to find the right "color of lycra."

Excuse me... I'm a little lost (maybe the language frontier).. but...

What is the question ?

What's the "true color of zam's crop top and pants?"

Well, The "truth" is something hard to find... although you are "INSIDE" the SW "circle"...

I think the color of the neoprene run is really great... really really GREAT !!! I LOVE IT...

BUT...

If I tell you "my truth" (dont get me wrong, is simply what I think)... I think that swatch from CA looks a little better/closer to the real one (sadly for all of us who have got this last run )

Once again, it's just my modest opinion... and is not more than other's... :$:$:$

What do the rest think ???

I think Britax lycra is definitely closer to the pictures of the lycra seen on the FIDM shots, but it doesn't match the color of some other shots. We obviously don't know the truth and might have come to the closest to the true color yet, but she did have more than one suit made too. So playing both sides of the puzzle, we have come daggone close, but might have quite a distance from the truth, because of so many variables. So those who are on either "run" of neoprene, you shouldn't be sad at all. The color is pretty close to the median of all the colors shown. Just PSD'd one other shot, and I'd say our tricot lycra color comes close to two shots shown.

Seeing all of those together like that is mind boggling!
It really is a matter of lighting IMO.

I think what we've got coming will be awesome and more than fine.

However, if it really bugs someone why don't we use our relationship with Steve Sansweet to ask him, "Oi, Steve, what was the actualt source and colour for this neoprene my friend?"

Someone over there across the pond, common to both the 501st and these boards, must be a good position to ask.

He's a nice chap and helps us out all the time. Plus since the Rose Parade they're a little closer in Lucasfilm

Photos only provide a rough reference for color. There are so many steps along the way until we see a final photo that have an affect on the color we see.

1) Taking the photo - The lighting, the settings the camera is set to make a HUGE difference. Just go play with your own camera and taking photos of a piece of fabric.

2) Processing the photo - do you realize that when a color photo is processed for printing, the resulting color is highly dependent on the way the lab and printer want to print your color? Some labs or printers will process the color with a bit more blue, a bit more yellow - etc.

3) Computer monitors - forget it. Everyone's computer monitor displays color differently. People who work with digital phtography use these 'spider' deals to calibrate the color on the monitor. Even then, colors on a screen can not appear the way they do in print. Graphic designers have to rely on pantone guides because they need to see the way their color choice will look in 'real life' when printed, not on the monitor.

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All that being said, the slightly more reddish lycra I found at Britex seems close when you consider a) I took the photo shown with the same camera I had at FIDM. Without flash like I had at FIDM. True, the lighting conditions were not the same, but the color looks very close when you compare the photos. Heck, for all I know I just stumbled on something close in the dusty lilac family and it isn't the real movie used fabric either.

Steve Sansweet as a source? I dunno, he knows a lot. But something tells me he wouldn't know what store every bit of fabric for each character costume came from. Costume designers probably had to carefully log all that stuff. We've all seen the costume in person, so it isn't like he could offer insight because he's seen it and we have not. I'd imagine the only way to have Mr. Sansweet help us would be to send him a swatch and say 'uh, if you can visit the archives... can you tell us if this is a match?'

It's intriguing, that the tricot neoprene color matches most of the the MOM shots, and KayDee's matches the FIDM shots. They had different lighting situations. But they could have been two different costumes. If you match the squares on the side of the costume, you could be able to check if it's the same skirt used. (I haven't checked) Anyone want to try?

It's doubtful asking Steve if he knows. Only someone who worked on the costume would know. That's like asking Leeanna, and we asked her tons of questions, she wouldn't have remembered that - she didn't even know there are hoses in the back of her helmet. IIRC- she just remembered that it was lycra that she wore.

My thoughts were he's Lucasfilms fan representative. He's our link to them. If asked nicely he'd ask the right person to get the right info on where it came from etc.....? Worth a stab

After all that, I'm sure Yvonne's fabric is pretty spot on as she's fairly passionate about it all. If 80% of the Zam Wessels walking this earth wear her fabric, that's quite consistent

Wow, I just checked. FIDM seems to have the same skirt as the one at MOM. They might be the same costume. HOW IRONIC. If you look at the row 9 column 11 it's the SAME skirt "dunked" piece at the bottom, then like 2 squares down, the same "dunked" piece at the bottom. (going from left to right, top to bottom) Wow. My color matches MOM shots and KayDee's match FIDM, and they might be the same costume. :rolleyes :confused How uncanny. Yeah, unless if Trisha/the person who took lead on her character's costume, GAVE me a piece of the real zam lycra, even a photo would be useless.

Zam I Am said:

Wow, I just checked. FIDM seems to have the same skirt as the one at MOM.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I always figured they were the same costume. Even if there was a stunt version, I think they would have used the same run of lycra for all of them and not have dyed different lycra for different costumes.

I really think the variation you see is the lighting conditions and the way the camera actually read the color (put the camera on different white balance settings, different lighting condition settings and the colors will turn out different too).

You can see that my swatch on top of ZamIAm's lycra isn't a huge difference. I think the biggest difference is the slightly more reddish hue on the Britex swatch. But given all the hurdles she had to go through to get to that color I think it is still in the Zam color family

My tricot definitely matches many of the MOM shots, ie, the hue directly in the middle of the collage, and is very close (if not matches) to one of the promo shots. So, yah, definitley in the Zam color family.

I think one thing to keep in mind, is when LFL puts something like this on display, the lighting in the room is set to a specific, well, light. The intention is to make all those whom photograph the items/costumes, the lighting will be bad. The reason of course is money. They wont be able to sell a book very well with images of what ever, if you could get the same kind of picture. This is why you will see signs up that say "NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY". It would ruin their bad lighting that is there to make your pictures yellow.

That said, Don't rely on those FIBM for perfect color match. It will be deceptive.

Seven, I disagree with you just a little It was FIDM staff that set up the lighting at their exhibit. Not LFL. No directive from LFL to light things poorly so fans couldn't see the accurate colors of costumes. FIDM has run costume exhibits for years. I don't think their intention in any of that was to deceive the public on color. They are setting moods in different rooms, that is all.

True, there was no flash photography allowed for most days to the general public. There are sometimes exceptions to that though - there are photographers who got special permission to take flash at certain times. You'd have to ask ZamIAm, but she may have gotten permission to take a photo in front of the real costume with flash because her costume was so good, they may have allowed her that special treat for all of her hard work.

I'm not trying to get in an argument on if the color we see at FIDM is more accurate than the MOM photos. Because that is just silly pointless argument, color will look different for all the reasons we have discussed (different cameras, different white balance settings, different light, flash or no flash). I wouldn't say that the lighting at FIDM was 'worse' compared to MOM. I think it's wrong to say one exhibit was better for color reference than another. They are both equal IMHO.

Nope, my colors would look way more dark, because I wasn't allowed flash like everyone else.. BTW, you don't have to highlight my name when you post :LOL If you see how many times I've posted, I can't put my name in a search, it pops up in every zam thread there is

Oh, I just highlighted your name so you'd see I was talking about you We do it at TFN a lot, just in case we get lazy and are not reading messages closely.