Some Star Wars Fan Art

I was recently asked to donate a piece of artwork for a local Star Wars-themed charity benefit auction. I’m a huge Star Wars nut (the movie came out when I was six, so I’m pretty much the perfect age to be a Star Wars junkie) so I knew I had to find time to do something fun. I decided to do a recreation of one of the original Star Wars movie posters:

I love this image, but even as a kid, I knew that there was something odd about this poster. The drawn characters don’t look like the actors, the X-Wings have flames shooting out of them, and what the heck is that “city” about in the background? It’s a piece of art that’s hilariously out of synch with the actual film, but as fellow N.C. cartoonist (who’s also contributing a piece to the auction) Thomas Boatwright pointed out on Twitter, this is what most folks thought SF was about pre-Star Wars: space opera–buff guys with space swords and saucy space damsels. I remember hearing that the original Marvel Star Wars comics had to be done so far in advance of the film that the artist had to work from just a handful of stills; I’m guessing that’s what went on here as well to some degree.

There are a lot of things to love about this image for sure and doing my own version of it only heightened my appreciation of it. I love the gesture of the figures–especially Princess Leah.  The composition is flawless, and the artists (the amazing Hildebrandt Brothers)  have done an amazing job of getting those figures to really “pop” into the foreground via both the high light/dark contrast and the warm tones on the cool background.

Anyway, here’s my version. I’ll post details of the auction if/when I get them. I have no idea if there’s any online component to the bidding, but whatever the case I hope this piece makes some bank for a good cause:

1 comment

    • john on 12/28/2012 at 5:43 pm

    the poster you are referring to was a artists conception of what at that time was a movie that had not even been filmed yet… they hat’nt even hired the cast for the film that is why the faces don’t match the final product

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