artwork – Page 3 – Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy

Revisiting the winter hat

(Apologies for my delay in postings of late…with winter holidays arrived I now have a few weeks’ reprieve from school-matters, which I intend to use to finish up some posts and projects for this site).

Last winter, as I reskinned my Swedish milsurp hat, I was left with a few quibbles. (I find it’s helpful to write down these thoughts for just this very reason, so that I know what needs tweaking should I decide to revisit the project down the road):

“Were I to undertake this project again, I would’ve done a few things differently:
-using a heavier khaki material–like the plentiful scraps I had leftover from my donut helmet (uncovered only after I had finished this project!)
-only using two layers of wool for the flaps, instead of three.
-better copying the shape of the curvy panels that are added to the flaps.
-making the rear ribbed panel shorter (to better match the original artwork), while extending the neck coverage and shortening up the flaps a bit.”

As the weather has been getting cooler, I’ve been having to wear my flap hat more often, and as I’ve also been integrating more and more Star Wars style into my daily wardrobe, I finally felt that the vaguely-close-enough-ness of my hat just wasn’t accurate (or hardcore) enough.
And so, after pondering on what would be involved, I decided to go ahead and tackle the Pfilbee Jhorn Hat, Mark II. PfilbeeJhorn1

^ The look we’re going for^

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Project: Wookiee battle shield (part 1)

While (yet again) leafing through the Complete Visual Dictionary, looking at artifacts, I happened upon a particularly fascinating example. I was attracted to its vaguely Polynesian(?) design—kinda like a giant pouwhenua—as well as the stylized tiki-style iconography. I actually vaguely remember seeing the prop in person at Celebration 3 back in 2005(!), and being pretty impressed. As I’ve been building up my woodcarving skillset over the years, I thought it might be time for some large-scale work—and what’s larger scale than an heirloom Wookiee shield from the Battle of Kachirho?:
wookieeshield
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In Good Company

At the same time as I was struggling with my Naboo-rebranding dilemma, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of copies of the 20^th Anniversary Editions of James Gurney’s Dinotopia books. (Yes, I know these editions came out like, six or seven years ago…suffice to say that I’m thrifty, a laggard in more than just technology, and always wary of reissues with extra features…I tend to wait until I’m sure that the new edition will be worth it, find the best possible (usually secondhand) price, and then gift the old edition to a niece or nephew).
It was a particularly ironic bit of serendipity, since, as I touched on earlier, Naboo’s capitol Theed was maybe/maybe not influenced by Dinotopia’s Waterfall City.

Theed_youth_freedom — Source: *Star Wars* Art: Visions (2010)

Imagine my surprise then, when I began reading the added Foreword to the second volume, The World Beneath, and came across the following passage:
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Image Analysis: Ruusan lookout

Dorman - Ruusan lookout

“The statue that had occupied the platform off to his left had fallen hundreds of years before. The remains of it were scattered down the forward slope and pointed toward a skillfully sculpted hand. The palm was blackened where signal fires hand burned, beckoning travelers from many kilometers away. It must have been something to see.” Star Wars: Jedi Knight (William C. Dietz) 1998.

I’ve always liked this piece from the Jedi Knight novella. Actually, Dave Dorman’s photo-realistic paintings have always been very influential in terms of how I imagine the GFFA. This vignette just happens to be one of the few EU depictions of an isolated cell of commoners on the run from Imperial forces – and so is very useful for my purposes.
Here we see a familiar mishmash of gear that is very inspirational for those of us who portray fringe-y Rebel personas:
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Image Analysis: Taxi Ride

This will be a short post, as there’s not a lot in this vignette (from page 109 of Wizards of the Coasts’ Galactic Campaign Guide) to talk about, just some buildings, a lot of ships, and a few non-humans (a Duros taxi driver, two Cereans, and an unknown). However, one of those speeders is very familiar:
lavaskim2 Don’t recognize it? How about now?
Boba's_airspeeder_model

That’s right, we finally have an appearance of Boba Fett’s toy airspeeder in situ – it’s no longer just a prop made up for a Visual Dictionary, it’s a legitimate vehicle!

Image Analysis: Clone Wars Playtime

One feature I’ve been wanting to implement here is a series in which I take a close look at individual images, something along the lines of Townsend’s Sifting the Past blog. And here, I think, is the perfect example to start with!

This picture comes from Wizards of the Coast’s Galactic Campaign Guide (2003), p. 113. The book is a great source for our purposes, as it includes (among many other juicy details) an excellent section on species-specific naming conventions, and many similar world-building vignette scenes.

Looking at this image with an anthropologist’s discerning eye, several details leap out at me.
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Rebel propaganda project: ‘Liberty for All’

Back about the time last year when I started entertaining the idea of starting a dedicated Rebel persona, I was also thinking about potential outlets and activities I could do. The one that I kept coming back to— inspired by a childhood spent surrounded by living history types at Civil War battlefields—was a public ‘recruitment drive’ for the Rebel Alliance. In brainstorming such an event, I thought that having some propaganda to display would be a good way to add atmosphere.
liberty_fin And so, I started looking to see what was out there. Unsurprisingly, there is a metric ton of Star Wars-themed propaganda on the internet, but not much of it is ‘official’. I wanted something I could talk about in-universe if questioned, and I sure didn’t want to have to tell people that the artwork came from DeviantArt user ‘L314_Forever’ or something.

Luckily, I came across reference to a book recently published, containing a multitude of in-universe artwork: Star Wars Propaganda: A History of Persuasive Art in the Galaxy. While some of the pieces seemed a little lackluster or Photoshop-y, I really liked this one (by ‘Tavris Bahzel’): Continue reading “Rebel propaganda project: ‘Liberty for All’”