onday, September 3rd 2012 was Star Wars Day at AT&T Park. After showing up in only Star Wars t-shirts the year before, in 2012 we were well prepared. We opted to ride MUNI to the ballpark, since it would eliminate parking and be totally fun to be out and about in costume.
Just your everyday commute to the ballpark. I love how the Boba SFett comm link happens to point at the ballpark on the MUNI map
The train ride was as fun as you’d expect, on the way to a Giants’ day game on Labor Day. As more people got on the train our son became a bigger and bigger celebrity. Of course, we never took the masks off, either.
Our son managed to get in on every photo, all day long.
Possibly best of all, our son was chosen to be the Junior Announcer for the first three SF batters to come to the plate in the bottom of the 3rd inning. Too bad he couldn’t do it with his Darth SFader helmet on…
Ryder rocking as the Junior Giants Announcer. Too bad he couldn’t be heard through the Vader mask…
Of course it came down to Buster Posey hitting the game-tying double in the bottom of the 9th. And we had just the sign ready to go…
This year’s Star Wars day was unbelievable! We had a blast in our costumes. Ryder got to be the Jr Announcer, and the Giants came back in the bottom of the 9th to send the game to extras where Scutaro won it in the 10th.
We’re already looking forward to Star Wars Day at AT&T Park in 2013. It will be hard to top this year’s amazing experience, but then again the force will be with us. Always.
When we attended the debut of Star Wars Day at AT&T Park in 2011 we thought we were being so clever by wearing hard-to-find Star Wars T-shirts with our Giants gear. We hadn’t thought through just how far one could run with the whole Giants/Star Wars theme, and were blown away by the people who converted full-blown Star Wars costumes into Giants gear.
Especially this guy. Oh, and this couple who did the whole AT-AT Walker thing together. We swore that in 2012 we would have our revenge. Or at least try a little harder to creatively honor the theme.
I knew from the onset that I wanted to be a Giants Boba Fett. So I found this Jango Fett helmet on Amazon for $26. My 7-year old son wanted to be Darth SFader, so I got him one of these Darth Vader voice changer helmets on eBay. Finally, my wife decided that since he and I were going to a) be in lots of pictures, and b) have our faces covered she better abandon her PrincesSF Leia idea and get with the masked side. A quick trip to Target did the trick.
Preparation for spray paint essentially required loads of painter’s tape, news paper, and patience.
I find your lack of paint… disturbing
My son insisted that he wanted his helmet to be orange with a black stripe down the middle, which seemed easy enough to mask off.
Glossy black spray paint was easy to find. But a glossy orange that would bond well with plastic was more challenging. Eventually I found the perfect orange at Franciscan Hobbies on Ocean Ave.
It came in tiny little cans, and after the first can of paint ran out I was freaked that it simply might not work. As you can see from the below photo, the orange looks like crap after just one or two coats.
After just one pass, the orange looked horrible.
On the next trip to Franciscan Hobbies I picked up a couple of spare cans of paint, and resumed spraying and huffing with vigor. It wound up taking 3 cans of paint (and who knows how many brain cells) to get our helmets all well-coated.
If I had more time for the project, I would have experimented with a lacquer or sealant to protect the orange. As it was, my son’s SFader helmet chipped in a couple of places in just one day of wearing it.
As it was, I put the final layer of orange on the night before the game. And that night, while the helmets dried atop the sports page, I knew we were in business.
A few coats of orange later and the Darth SFader helmet is popping. The clone trooper mask only took a couple of coats, since it was white.
My son needed a cape, so we went to Beverly’s and scored some awesome SF Giants micro-fleece that my wife quickly converted into a cape.
And with that, we knew we were ready to storm Jabba’s stronghold…follow to my next post for photos of us out and about on our way to Star Wars Day!
