Star Wars Insider, HoloNet News and Expanded Universe Jedi Questions
Joe,
I really like your art. I especially like your Grand Admirals art and the rarely illustrated (and new) Jedi Knights like Sarrissa Jeng. BTW, could you give me a break down of who the Jedi are in that picture besides Jeng? Like, who's the green Mon Calamari Jedi? I couldn't figure it out from the article.
Are you under contract to do the art for HNN and Insider for a while? Your style is really cool for those mediums. Do you have any more "EU Jedi" art on your site that I may have missed? I love to have visuals for Jedi that I read about or have heard about.
Another thing, in your Grand Admiral art, you represented a few different ethnic groups. Was this decided upon by you or in a "committee" with Lucasfilm et al.? I think it's cool, considering that most, if not all of the officers in the orignal Star Wars films were kind of depicted as Caucasian, European, Nazi-like characters. (Of course that's just my opinion.) Anyway, keep the drawings coming.
-OBG
P.S. I'm so grateful that you post the Insider art on your site after the magazine is released. I subscribe, but the complete art without the borders and stuff is much better.
Hi OBG,
Thanks for digging my Grand Admiral art! That was a real thrill for me illustrating Thrawn and desiging all of the other GA's. And the Vader Vs. Thrawn opening art turned out to be one of my favorite pieces recently. I'd love to do more Who's Who's for Insider especially since I enjoy character design and illustrating portraits.
The Mon Calamari in the Sarissa Jeng HoloNet News.com art is Jedi Master Kerrshnek. He's just another Expanded Universe Jedi I created specifically for that illustration and his name doesn't appear in the story. I had to clear it with Lucasfilm first to make sure Calamari could even be a Jedi. Once it was established in Episode I that there were offworlder Quarren (from the planet Calamari as well) seen roaming about and in the Senate it justified that and that there might be a Mon Calamari running around in the Episode II era.
Currently I'm on a month to month contract basis with Insider. But according to my previous art director and contacts at LucasFilm they are planning for me to illustrate HoloNet News for Insider all the way up until Episode III, which is great news for me since I love steady work, especially when it's Star Wars. It's really exciting to help bridge the gap as an illustrator between Attack of the Clones and the upcoming Prequel (and the last Star Wars film ever!)
As for other Expanded Universe Jedi that I have created you may have missed, there's a few I can think of. Kai Justiss is a recurring character of mine who first appeared in 'Star Wars Gamer #4' in a game adventure called Kashyyyk in Flames.
He also made three other illustrated appearances in the 'Power of the Jedi Sourcebook' published by Wizards of the Coast last year. There's a possibility he might appear in HoloNet News for 'Star Wars Insider' so keep your eyes peeled.
Kai's Jedi Master, Ur-Sema Du, appeared with him also in the PotJ Sourcebook in an illustration where they are being attacked by a creature called a 'Marsh Haunt'.
And then there's a Jedi Consular I helped create, Mynnic, who appeared in my Battle Droids! artwork for 'Star Wars Gamer #6'.
I designed the Dark Jedi character, Jeng Droga, for 'Star Wars Gamer #5'. His name appeared in an old 'Star Wars Adventure Journal' story and the character was fleshed out for the Emperor's Hands article in Gamer.
I also created an unnamed Ishi-Tib Jedi character for 'Star Wars Gamer #3' (I'll get around to naming him eventually).
With the different ethnicities portrayed among the Grand Admirals for that Who's Who article it was decided among the writers and myself to go beyond the expected somewhat and show a variety of human races. We thought it would make for more interesting looking characters, not to mention more interesting artwork. It would have been boring to just illustrate twelve white guys in a row so LucasFilm approved the idea so we went with it.
Here's some comments from one of the writers, Abel Pena, who I worked with on the article.
"I think it was important to all three of us that the GAs be of
different "races." It was a number of things for me, above all
else, why don't we ever see anything but white Imperials? The
movies can imply whatever they want, but the SW universe is much
larger and should have more variety. Grant is maybe my favorite
sketch of the bunch. That look says, "I'll clean your skiff."
We also have Declann, not only the sole black Imperial I can think of, but a force-user to boot. I contemplated giving one of the six GAs I worked on mild Force powers, but ultimately it didn't fit in. I was pleasantly surprised
when I got Dan's (Wallace) part of the article and saw he was thinking along the same lines for one of his Grand Admiral characters.
I think in general, when you have 12 nameless
characters that are simply known as "Grand Admirals" you just
imagine a bunch of carbon copies. We struggled hard to make them as
diverse and unique as possible in all ways."
Hope that gives you some insight on our multi-cultural approach to the piece. And I'm glad you're enjoying my Star Wars artwork on my site. Generally with all the story text in HNN and the limited amount of space for the feature in the magazine my illustrations tend to get squeezed in there as small as possible. And sometimes they can be pretty detailed (though I'm always trying to keep them as simple as possible without looking too boring) so I like seeing them much larger on my site myself, especially after all of the hard work I put into them. I'm glad there are folks out there (other than myself) who appreciate my work larger too.
Thanks!
-J
Hi Joe-
Any tips for drawing clone troopers?
-JediTrilobite
Hi Jedi T.,
Tips for drawing clone troopers? Have good reference handy! They are actually a little easier than stormtroopers to draw since the clone armor is more streamlined. And you can simplify alot and still keep them recognizable in distant shots as long as you have the T-visor and helmet fin visible to work with.
I picked up the awesome Kotobukiya model kit for the clone trooper and that makes for excellent reference material. Even though it's an exaggerated pose the elements of the costume are pretty detailed and authentic. Plus I have lots of photo reference from LFL that makes it easy for me to nail their costumes down.
Good luck!
-Joe
Check back here next week for a new Comics 101 feature!
-Joe
