Indy costume maker creates everything from stripper clothes to Chewbacca

Jess West has created a monster.

Dozens, actually.

The 32-year-old costumer is sewing hair onto her latest creature as The Cranberries bellowed about zombies from her TV. She typically listens to classic rock or '90s alternative as she works in one of her two makeshift studios in her north-side apartment, and this day is no different. West lifts a strip of dusty gray synthetic hair and rips her scissors through them with confidence, barely even looking at the piece as she talks about her process.

"This is basically like layering," the former hair stylist said. "You want it to go at an angle."

West has a deadline for this particular monster: She was commissioned to make it for the costume contest at Gen Con, Indy's gaming convention, to be held Aug. 4-7 at the Indiana Convention Center.

"I've always been a last-minute girl," she said. "I work better under pressure."

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Suddenly, West stops snipping and her intense blue doe eyes widen. She turns in horror to her 1-year-old tabby cat, Frederick, who has been lounging fully stretched in contentment on the pile of fake hair on her desk.

"Oh my gosh, he just farted!" she exclaimed, letting out her trademark big, raspy-edged laugh and begins fanning him with the extension strip.

Once she is satisfied the air is clear, she goes back to hand-sewing each of the pieces  less than an inch apart to a pair of mesh pants.

These pants that will eventually become the lower half of Chewbacca.

The finished "life-size" 7-foot-6-inch  Chewbacca will be covered in more than 850 feet of Black Essence-brand hair extensions — in three colors to give him dimension.

"See? He's got these gorgeous flowing highlights," she said, gently petting the hair as if it were attached to a living creature.

And to her, it might as well be. She has spent the better part of two months handmaking the pieces that will become one of the most beloved Star Wars characters: a shirt, pants, stilted shoes, latex gloves and, of course, Chewy's head.

"I want it to be as realistic as possible," she said.

Chewbacca's mouth will even open on command, and his famous warble will be heard  through speakers hidden in the costume. She hand-molded both his face and hands out of plaster and liquid latex, carving realistic skin lines in each.

West has made a word-of-mouth local name for herself in the past two years. Originally from Martinsville, she moved around a lot — Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Chicago to Tampa, Fla., to Philadelphia — before landing back in Indiana four years ago. West works her days as serving at Cafe Patachou and takes a few bartending shifts here and there at Tiki Bob's, both in Downtown Indianapolis, to help pay bills as she grows her costume-making business.

"You sort of stumble upon your profession," she said. "I don't want to sit at a desk."

West made her first costume for Halloween in sixth grade out of necessity. Because she was taller than many kids her age, she couldn't wear the stock kid-size costumes, so West created her own Poison Ivy outfit.

She eventually went to college to study fashion merchandising, thinking she wanted to create store displays. Her teachers criticized her work as "too elaborate." Before that, it had "never dawned on me to be a costume maker as a career," West said.

She struggled, though, with her audience.

"For a time period I would take racks of clothes and sit in the back of Brad's Brass Flamingo, and the strippers would come and buy costumes," she said. "The girls would freak out over them because they were bright and they had movement."

West made what she called "The Mummy": a costume that would be revealed when a Brad's VIP customer would be allowed to pull on a piece of material, unraveling to a smaller outfit.

"They were interactive stripper-wear, if you will," she said, laughing. "Obviously, for stripper clothes, you don't need that much material."

She soon started making her own Halloween costumes, and like the exotic dancing uniforms, they were more involved than the packaged costume you would pick up at a pop-up Halloween store.

One of the first? A transforming gremlin. West wore the cute, pre-water Gizmo (made of latex, cardboard and a coconut bra) for hours at a Halloween party before just the right moment: midnight, of course. A friend tossed "water" glitter on West, and she began throwing cotton balls at partygoers, then took off the gremlin head, shed the outer layer of the costume to reveal the evil, darker version.

"People lost their minds," she said. "I learned that it was quickly a good way to entertain people.

"I thought, 'Dang, that's it.' "

The Mogwai head, along with a filthy-looking mummy head, a couple of Batman characters and a gnarly, drooling, 14-foot-tall wolf structure that opened to reveal Little Red Riding Hood inside all sit in West's apartment basement storage unit, which she affectionately calls "the dungeon." It's also where the community washer and dryer is — right within view of West's monsters.

West makes and sells 25 to 30 costumes every Halloween at $300 to $500 a pop. She was commissioned to make 30 costumes for servers at Maxim's Indy 500 party in May.

As she gets more work, more experience, her costume prices increase.

This version of Chewbacca runs more than $5,000 and would cost even more if she used human hair. But Jason Stewart, 43, Martinsville, just wants to see one of his favorite characters come to life.

"I like to go big," Stewart said. "It looks just like him. If I was going to pay money for a costume, I'm going to get one that looks real."

Stewart found West through mutual friends on Facebook and had previously commissioned her to make a Monster High costume for his 8-year-old daughter, who also is a huge Star Wars fan.

"She wore it all that weekend," he said. "She still wears it."

Stewart isn't alone. West's customer base is growing, especially among grown-ups with the cash to buy "something they've always wanted."

"When I was growing up, it was not cool to be a nerd," she said. "All these guys going through midlife crises, they're buying superhero costumes instead of cars."

There's no way to tell how many cosplayers there are in the state because many don't join organizations or do it regularly, Indiana Cosplay Association Vice President Jacqueline Dwigans said, but there likely are thousands of cosplayers in Indianapolis. The cosplay association has more than 350 members, she said, and that number is growing.

"It's definitely boomed in the last few years with the geeky world getting more liberation," Dwigans said. "With all the rad fandoms growing in audiences and numbers that's only going to breed more cool people wanting to cosplay cool characters."

Many go to different outlets to find their costumes, either pulling from their own closets, going to thrift stores, shopping online or commissioning it.

"Usually if you want to wear something from a more obscure character — or just want a point of difference somehow — it's easier to commission it or buy it online," she said. "Lots of times the best way to find people is asking people who made their costume and then going that route."

That last method is how much of West's business finds her, and she's hoping her larger-than-life, painstakingly hand-created Chewbacca will garner more for her at Gen Con.

"You will quickly realize it's the closest thing to being a celebrity when you walk through a hallway of the convention center dressed in one of my costumes," she said.

You can find West's work on Facebook, Instagram or her website, www.jesswestcostumes.com.

Call IndyStar reporter Amy Bartner at (317) 444-6752. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.