Star Wars fans have been recreating the costumes and robots of the Star Wars galaxy for almost as long as there has been a Star Wars galaxy. It is an art form so entrenched in the culture of the fandom that there are Jedi costume and lightsaber groups, and people so skilled at the craft of making our favorite astromech droid, R2-D2, that they were actually recruited to make him for The Force Awakens. The pink R2-KT from the film was even inspired by a fan. No matter how difficult it may seem to make some of these pieces, someone out there has the love and passion to make it happen, and that includes R2’s pessimistic running mate, C-3PO.

Gordon Tarpley is one of the handful of people that specialize in building the paranoid gold costume of “Threepio”. In this video from the folks at Tested, we get to meet him and learn about the process that goes into making a functional C-3PO costume, including the many changes that C-3PO’s costume underwent from movie to movie.

There is a lot of great stuff here, both about the history of the costume and Tarpley’s incredible efforts to make his versions as accurately as possible, but the really amazing thing is that he can wear these, which he does at conventions.

“You have to be pretty slender to be able to wear it,” he said, “And not claustrophobic.”

The fact that he already has C-3PO’s red arm from The Force Awakens is also pretty incredible. I just wonder if he ever gets tired of calling everybody “sir.”

Where does this rank amongst your favorite fan made costumes? Tell us in the comments below, but use one of the languages of earth. The only thing his costume can’t do is translate for us.

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Images: Tested