Most people enjoy the simplicity of just having the ability to head over to an online or offline store and get the dress-up costume they want. Thinking about assembling the various bits and pieces to produce their own variation of a halloween costume is just not their thing. That is fair enough - each to their own. Some people have a very powerful creative streak (my younger brother) and some folks don't have that very creative drive (me).

For others though the urge to create their own fancy dress costumes is too powerful and Star Wars lovers are up there with Trekkies and Lords of the Rings lovers in what lengths they will go to build their ideal Jedi or Sith costume. Now normally, this is because you as a Star Wars lover spend time with other SW fans - it's always a contest for who has the best fancy dress costume.

There's another reason for creating your own Jedi costume however. For some weird reason not every single Jedi costume is available on the web. And there are a few variants of character costumes which are just missing entirely. As an example you'll have no hassle buying a Jedi robe or a standard Luke Skywalker New Hope outfit but you will never be able to find the kind of black outfit that Luke wore in Return of the Jedi. Despite the fact that there is massive demand for these manufacturers just don't produce them.

It's not only Luke Skywalker. Mace Windu was omitted as well as a heap of other Jedi characters - you'll have no option but to make your own Jedi fancy dress costume if you choose to get into character as one of these Jedi.

The great news is that creating a Jedi fancy dress costume just isn't all that difficult - there are a few simple elements you'll be able to experiment with to obtain the look you'd like.

To begin with you're going to need a martial arts gi (outfit) top. I'd recommend a Judo top in ordinary white simply because they're a bit lengthier than other types plus the white colour will offer you a good foundation to work with if you would like color it. Next you are going to need some scrub pants - these can be found in a wide array of colors so find the one that will match your final costume designs. Why don't you use Judo pants? They're too ill fitting and have reinforced panels on the knees - they would just look 100 % wrong.

Your next piece is a belt to hang your pouches and lightsaber out of. Many of the Jedi costumes I'm able to see use a brown or black belt. Really the only requirement would be that the belt should be pretty wide - a thin strip of leather just wouldn't look as convincing. The pouches are really just for effect (well okay you could potentially keep stuff inside them) so anything like a inexpensive camera pouch and some other small pouches will deliver the end result you want.

Last but not least you'll want to cover your feet. You could use boot tops from virtually any costume store - pirate style boot toppers would work nicely. Otherwise you're going to have to go and buy leather boots - make absolutely certain these boots are not too tight around your calf - take a look at any picture of Mace Windu to get an idea of what i'm saying.

This is just a really basic help guide to creating your own individually styled Jedi costume but now you can see with a tiny amount of imagination and experimentation you can get some truly remarkable results.