Lexi Morales, 22, gets recognized more often each year – but not as herself.
Every year for Denver’s FanExpo, she dresses up as Queen Padmé Amidala from the Star Wars prequels.
Wearing her royal robes, “I would walk maybe 20 feet, not even, and I'd be stopped for pictures. And then once I'm stopped, more people come up and ask for more pictures, which is amazing, and I love it,” she said. “But at the same time, I also want to shop. So there's upsides and downsides to it.”
Her Amidala costume consists of a red dress, a hoop skirt and a homemade headpiece. She dons the iconic makeup of the character, with a white face, red button cheeks and a heart-shaped red lip.
The makeup can take a while: She uses layers and layers of light face powder, rather than face paint, since Amidala has a matte finish.
Becoming the future mother of the Skywalker twins takes creativity. There was no pattern for the headpiece, so Morales combined cardboard and craft foam while working off reference pictures.
Morales has been wearing the costume for four years at FanExpo, Colorado’s largest pop culture meetup, which happened last weekend. Morales — who’s known as Colorado Cosplayer on social media — won an award in 2023 for “excellent embodiment of a character.”
“I've put a lot of work into my cosplay to just meet those standards of what I think the character is,” she said.
This year’s con was special. Morales was invited to join the costuming group Galactic Champions — an entrance to the coveted upper ranks of cosplaying. Cosplaying groups tend to set strict standards for costume quality, with their members providing entertainment at places like Children’s Hospital.
Galactic Champions is more accommodating.
“They already offered to 3D print me a headpiece to start me on that track towards joining one of the higher groups.”
But for now, she said, she’s just appreciating the scene.
“It's just awesome because with everything going on in the world, it's very hard to find common ground with people. But I feel like conventions … are a very good place to do that,” she said.
