Studio Creations
The original Tusken costuming site.

Desert Nomad Chronicles
Dean Plantamura's outstanding tips and info.

Krayt Clan
Great Tusken & Jawa forum!

Reference Photos:
Original Trilogy:

Prequel Trilogy:
Coming Soon!

Head:

The best and most expensive kit out there is the "Godzilla" head kit, which comes with everything you need.

Andy Miller (aka Mr. Fett) makes the smaller prequel-sized head shells and the metal parts were machined by him as well.

Kevin Christley makes a taller, more accurate original trilogy head shell, like the one on my latest Tusken head.

The most accurate sized machined aluminium face parts are available through KingJawa. These can also be seen on my latest Tusken.

A very common mistake Tusken costumers make on their heads is using material that is cream-colored - this is too light. The wrap material used should not be a cream or canvas color, but dark khaki. I cut khaki duck cloth into strips and washed and dried them. (a few knots to cut through afterwards - but worth it!) Then I wrapped them to the head using hot glue (use the big gun). Then I misted it with black spray paint in places and dabbed on a wash of black tempera paint.

Mouth For the inner mouth I pretty much use the Studiocreations tutorial on his site. A long rectangular piece of material. It doesn't have to be very wide, maybe less than 6 inches, but it's probably close to 3 feet long. I basically start at the top under the outside of where the nose sits and then hotglue it right side up at one end of the length. Then fold the next bit back onto itself and hotglue the inside of the part you just folded back onto that part of the first section that is showing. Then back down right side up again, back and forth this way. Then tuck it around inside the mouth hole and glue the excess slack around the inside of the headshell. The bigger space you put between each pleat, the bigger the folds will look and vice versa with making the pleats closer together. Going around the jaw line is a little tricky because sometimes there's too much material there and you may have to cut some.

Respirator:

Breather was a tomato paste can, slit lengthwise and drained, then wrapped with brown vinyl, then weathered with black tempera paint. Bendable electrical wire was slipped into flexible plastic tubing, then painted silver. bottle caps and hose connectors stuck on the ends of the can.

Gloves:
Use the super cheap white canvas work gloves, then weather with misting of gray and brown or khaki spraypaint.

Bandoliers:

The ammo belt or bandoliers were Swedish bandoliers (or ammo belt) regularly found on ebay for about $30 each. The other ammo pouches are WWI and are common on ebay for about $10. Search for "Ammo Belt", "Bandoliers", or "Leather Ammo".

See Stormtrooperguy's easy tutorial for making your own bandoliers.

Legs & Arms:

The shoes are just old sneakers wrapped with the same strips of duck cloth as the head using hot glue. The trick is to make legs from a square material and glue diagonal strips to it. Then hot glue or sew velcro and wrap around leg. Then when you put the shoes on separately, have a couple long strips attached to the shoe and wrap those up your leg to give it a continuous wrapped look. Repeat for the arms.


Gaffi Stick:

Make your own using instructions on the photos, or grab one of Tom Spina's excellent castings from a real Fijian Totokia War club - just like they used in the movies.

I made my gaffi club end out of a wooden candy bowl from AC Moore (Craft store). The spike was made by heating up a sheet of plastic, then poking a wood dowel down inside. After that I filled the inside with expanding foam, let harden, trimmed the extra, and hot-glued to wood bowl. You can find styrene sheets on ebay. Total cost about $15. Total work time, about 30mins.

Tools needed: Dremel, triangle-shaped file, X-acto knife.

Rifle:
Coming Soon

Female Tusken:
Reference:

Mask:
Contact 501st member Steve. for some great Female Tusken mask kits.

Gloves:
Females don't wear leather gloves. I use these cotton parade gloves (under $2) as these are closest to the screen-used gloves. Use tan RIT dye to color them.

Shawl:
The female outer robe or shawl is made with strips of monks cloth. Dean Plantamura "TuskenTrooper" shares his tutorial here: