Of course you don't feel a part of the realm till a character sweeps you in. Perhaps you've met up with a village street character. . . maybe the King or Queen! . . . or maybe it's another playtron who is as serious about his/her character than any paid actor at the Festival.
You want to become a part of this place and to do that, you need to pick a personality out of the time period and make it your own. You really don't want to pick a character that already exists at Faire (there's only ONE Henry VIII). Some folks, because they visit more than one Renaissance Festival, pick a Tudor character that falls somewhere in the middle, between Henry VIII's rule and that of his daughter, Elizabeth I.
If you look closely at the playtrons who inhabit Faire, you'll find Scotsmen, Pyrates, Irishmen, Welshmen, knights, Vikings, wizards, and even the Black Fox! My outfit is much more 12th century than 16th!. . . yet they all seem to fit in! Even the Goths in their somewhat Victorian costumes seem at home at Faire (we'll get to the Stormtrooper idea at a later date).
As long as you're close to the time period, you shouldn't get too much grief from the other playtrons or historically-accurate zealots (yes, there's a few. . . but some festivals are more forgiving than others when it comes to Garb-Nazis).
Character Example
Let's take the character of The Black Fox (since that's the character I am, it's easier to explain by example, m'thinks). Where did I find such a character? From a movie! Danny Kaye played in a medieval-themed comedy called "The Court Jester."
The Black Fox was a Robin Hood-esque character and with only slight modifications of his behavior, The Black Fox became a village "ear" for Henry VIII at the Maryland Renaissance Festival.Of course this didn't all happen right away. I designed the outfit from what I'd seen in the movie and with the help of a few patterns found at the fabric store, my lady, Cynthia, was able to put together my first Black Fox suit (a.k.a. Black Fox version 1.0). At right is the "never-before-seen" original artwork that we built the costume from. Cyn used a lightweight flannel and it seemed to flow nicely. From cape to cowl we spent the better part of 6 hours putting it together.
The garb was just the covering of the man, we had to build a personality for the character and some history. What's great about using an established character is that you already have the basics in place and all you have to do is build on it and fill in the blanks. We adapted the character from a 12th century hero of the poor folk to a 16th century keeper of the woods, ear of the King, and vigilante.
We picked up a book on Elizabethan verbage a year later at the New York Renaissance Faire and began sinking our teeth into our characters and by 2004, the first Black Fox suit had began to wear (4 seasons at 7 different faires will do that to ya!). Using our original patterns, we re-created the soon-to-become "Sir" Black Fox, but with a few changes to make it easier to put on. We also made it out of a much thicker, upholstery cotton fabric, lined with muslin.
If you look at some of the home-made outfits vs. the "professional" characters at Faire, you'll notice how much thicker, fuller, and detailed the garb is. In 2004, MDRF's first month saw temperatures into the 90s and yet I wore the full Black Fox outfit and was later dubbed the A.F.R. God of "Heat Stroke." I was able to beat the heat by staying in the shade and sucking down gallons of water and a lot of dragon piss.
Since then, I've built a whole history around my version of the character using some online help. There's a lot of character building ideas online that you can build your character from scratch.
Below, I've listed some of the places that I used.
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