Star Wars – The Child

The Child is the co-star of the awesome Star Wars spin-off The Mandalorian, and thanks to Fantasy Flight Games, another check on my list of main Star Wars characters drawn.

Crushed by the guilt of not having posted anything in months, yesterday I rummaged though my “work completed” folder and noticed that I still have A TON of Star Wars artwork I haven’t shared yet.

This adds up to the throng of illustrations I haven’t posted from the Children of Dune book that I’ve recently finished illustrating, and the bunch of Magic the Gathering cards that I might (I have to check) be allowed to publish.

But.

Let’s go in order.

As you might know, The Child (whose real name is Grogu, as we learn later in the series) is one of the main characters of the Mandalorian series by Disney+.

I’m always super happy to work on anything Star Wars, but the pleasure for the bunch of artwork I made based on The Mandalorian was on another level.

You know, I have to confess that I wasn’t a big huge fan of any of the prequels or even the sequels, although Rogue One was actually quite cool, and I didn’t mind Solo.

But The Mandalorian, well, that was probably, in my opinion, the best thing to come out of the franchise in a long, long time.

It was fully consistent with the spirit of the original Star Wars, it had a wonderful pace, it took all its time to define all characters, had the right balance between action and narration, and the scenes were just superb.

Also, and this is one of the things I enjoyed the most, it didn’t stick CG everywhere. The Child was almost entirely animatronics, so there wasn’t that unpleasant Jar-Jar plastic uncanny valley that spoiled the prequels to me.

The Child was believable and sweet without being cheesy.

So, in short, I was super happy to draw it.

As you might notice, the illustration is very close to its corresponding scene from the show.
That was a specific request on my brief, so I didn’t have much wiggle room there.

As far as the character goes, we don’t know much about it.

Grogu obviously belongs to the same race as Yoda. We know he was raised at the Jedi Temple in Coruscant during the Clone Wars, and that at the time of The Mandalorian he’s about 50.

That’s pretty much it. All the rest is Internet memes, as at the time Baby Yoda was about the most popular source of memes on the whole internet.

For once I’m not completley oblivious of the destination of my artwork. The Child (together with another few Illustrations) was part of the Razor Crest Expansion pack, of which you can see a preview here.

In the linked article you can see a couple of the cards I made, Kruill and Peli Motto, which I’ll be sharing shortly.

by Paolo Puggioni

Star Wars – Mutiny

Mutiny is one of the illustrations I made for the Star Wars game by Fantasy Flight Games back in 2018.

Like a throng of other artwork I’ve made in the past few years, I never got around to post it, so there you go, you get to see the old stuff.

Mutiny is based on The Last Jedi, and while I always put some trivia and context around the illustrations I make for Star Wars, I have to confess I’m not entirely on board with the whole sequel thing, so I’ll have to skip this one.

In fact, if you held me at gun point asking me to sum up the three movies in a few sentences, you might as well pull the trigger straight away.

I didn’t really bond with the Rey character, I didn’t quite understand the whole plot, I was upset by the inconsistencies in the writing and, well, I don’t think I re-watched any of them.

BUT.

Poe Dameron wasn’t bad, and luckily it was him the guy who I got to draw from this movie. Plus, I really like Oscar Isaac, so there’s that.
On top of everything, he has some nice and bold facial features to draw, so I did enjoy drawing this.

And lo! I did keep the sketch.

So, about the mutiny.

This is the bit when Poe, unhappy about the passive tactics of Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, together with Rose Tico and a few other decides to take things in his own hands.

Unfortunately the focus had to be just on Poe, so I didn’t get to draw the Vice Admiral’s face, who also had interesting features for a portrait.
But hey, here’s her pink hair instead.

Interestingly, I had painted Poe’s father a while back, Kes Dameron.

Also mildly interesting, I just looked up Kes on the Star Wars Wiki and I noticed that they used the illustration I made, which is pretty nice.

Anyway, I just realized that I’ve been posting a lot of Star Wars things recently, so I’ll take a break from that for a little while.

Some of the artwork I’ve made for Wizards of the Coast has just been teased, so next week I’ll post some Magic the Gathering things instead.

Star Wars – Hylobon Enforcer

Hylobon enforcer is another one of the illustrations I made for the Star Wars game by Fantasy Flight Games, once again set in the Solo movie.

I know I’ve been posting mostly Star Wars stuff as of recent.
But well, I’ve done a whole lot of it so you’ll have to bear with me with this for a little longer.

As I said last time, while I worked on this set of illustrations I had to re-watch Solo half a dozen times.
I wasn’t super familiar with the lore around it at the time, so every time I read a brief my reaction was a variation of “Hylobon enforcer? What the hell is that?”.

Well it turns out that Hylobon Enforcers were the apes-looking guys that were at the service of Dryden Vos, the figurehead leader of the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate, and we see them for the first time in the Solo movie.

I later learned that the true leader of this criminal enterprise was in fact Darth Maul (I really didn’t get what he had to do with it in the movie).
In fact, he remained their leader until his death by the hand of Obi-Wan Kenobi a few years later.

Oh wait, I painted that too!

Anyway, the brief was about a generic Hylobon Enforcer looking though while standing guard.

While re-watching the movie I found out I really liked the design of Dryden Vos’ “throne room”.

Well technically it wasn’t a throne room, as there was no throne in it, and he was no king.

In fact, and I really want to stress this out, Dryden Vos was just a puppet. I can’t believe it took me like fourth views to figure that out.

Either way, those circular windows were a perfect design element to frame a character with, so I couldn’t help placing my Hylobon Enforcer right in front of it.

On top of it providing a very convenient (and setting-consistent) graphical frame, it also allows a nice view of the scenic mountain chains behind. So there it is.

I have to point out (because I was very fastidious with it), that for the gun I took as a reference an official model from the movie.

Fans tend to be really quick to point out inconsistencies, so I try to be as accurate as possible with these details when I have the chance.

by Paolo Puggioni

Star Wars – At Odds

At Odds is the very first illustration I made for Star Wars back in 2016.

Despite having shared the image on Art Station before as well as on this website, I just realized that I had not written anything about it.

Which is a shame! There is a story about this illustration, and not everyone knows it. Well, a part from the millions who watched the Clone Wars of course.
But I wasn’t one of them when I was asked to work on At Odds, so I thought it I was part of some well kept secret when I read the brief.

The brief in question read something along the lines of “Aging Obi-Wan Kenobi battles Darth Maul on the sands of Tatooine”.

After a brief externalization of puzzlement, I wrote to my Art Director at Fantasy Flight Games explaining to him that there must have been a mistake, as Darth Maul had already been killed by Obi-Wan on Naboo. I mean, come on.

It turns out that being chopped in half and being thrown down a bottomless shaft wasn’t enough to kill someone as cool as Darth Maul.

So, I was provided with the description of what happened later:

As his remains tumbled down the generator shaft, he kept his eyes open and fought to remain conscious. But then his head struck the shaft’s wall, and everything went dark.
No!
His mind screamed. Despite everything he had learned about death and duty from his Master, Maul knew he was not yet ready to die. Not after so many years of training, and with so much more to accomplish. Not so long as he still had so much hatred within him.
…
Can’t die!
He fell past an oval shadow, and then a similar shadow raced by, along with a whooshing sound.
Maul hoped that there was at least one more vent below, that it would be large enough to accommodate his diminished body. He extended his arms, and his left hand’s fingertips suddenly burned with friction as they brushed against the cylindrical wall.
Must live!
Hoping, wishing, praying for one more air vent…
Must kill Obi-Wan!
…he reached out with the Force.

Far from me to think this was a lame attempt at jumping the shark by the Star Wars writers. Darth Maul is after all one of the best characters in the franchise and well deserves his Jesus moment.

You just have to tell your brain not to extrapolate and visualize what goes on with his guts and internal organs while doing all this.

Anyway, all good, as it gave me the chance to paint At Odds.

Now, as you can tell by the hatred in the words he utters while trying to survive the fall, Darth Maul had a massive chip on his shoulder towards Obi-Wan Kenobi.

After many adventures and wrongdoings, including overthrowing the government of Mandalore and becoming its ruler, leading a bunch of criminal organizations, fighting (and losing) against Emperor Palpatine and founding the massive criminal empire Crimson Dawn, he finally tracks down Obi-Wan in his exile on Tatooine and gets there to get his revenge.

Unfortunately for him, in a scene where you can see how damn strong of a Jedi master he has become, a majestic Obi-Wan kicks his ass with a single blow of his light saber.

I mean look at that. This time I think we’re pretty sure he won’t come back.

Bonus content: I just remembered that in the effort of making a reel of my work in 2018, I had made a very primitive attempt at parallax animation with this illustration, so…. look at them move!

by Paolo Puggioni

Star Wars – Corellian Hounds

Corellian Hounds is another one of the illustrations I made a couple of years ago for the Star Wars CCG by Fantasy Flight Games.

Like I say every time, I have no memory whatsoever of what particular expansion this belonged to, so you’ll have to do some digging if you are really interested:)

While I worked on this image I was also assigned several other illustrations based from the movie Solo, so I had to watch it several times in a relatively brief period of time.

Despite Solo not being exactly a record breaker at the box office, I have to say that I really didn’t mind it.

Sure, some things or some characters owe their charm to their sense of mystery, so NOT knowing how the sausage is made is the way to go more often than not.

For example, I was entirely happy to be oblivious to Yoda’s Midi-chlorian score.
At the same time, I’m not sure that Han Solo’s image gained anything by having his backstory made public.

However, if we really NEED to have a movie about young Han Solo, well this one wasn’t that bad.
Better than seeing young Anakin racing on Tatooine, just to name one.

Anyway, the Corellain Hounds are a race indigenous to Corellia, which is where a part of the movie is set.

While young Han is trying to leave the planet chased by bad guys, his pursuers unleash these ferocious animals onto him and Daenerys Targaryen, which is what this illustration depicts (minus Han and Khaleesi, out of the frame).

Corellian Hounds are known for their supernatural sense of smell, their fierceness, and the fact that they can regenerate their fangs.

They’re also quite valuable, so owning a pack is considered a sign of high status on Corellia.

While researching for this image, I also learned that the Corellian Hounds in the movie were not CG!
In the same way they used elephants for the Banthas in Episode IV, they decided to use live animals with foam suits instead of CG models.

I always prefer practical effects to CG in movies, so I’m quite a fan of this decision.

Also, it looks like after their several months’ long training the dogs were happy to wear suits and masks, which is another big plus.

Let’s see if you can tell they’re actual dogs in this deleted scene.

Anyway, as I said I have a few other illustrations set in the movie Solo, I hope I’ll have the time to post them in the next few days.

by Paolo Puggioni

Star Wars – Jedi Cloak

Jedi Cloak is an illustration I made quite some time ago for the Star Wars card game by Fantasy Flight Games.

As pretty much 99% of the illustrations I made for Star Wars or Game of Thrones, they tend to be published several months after we’ve worked on them. By the time they’re out I have no memory of which specific expansion they belonged to.

Plus, I had kind of forgotten about this one in particular, so we’re talking about three years ago or something like that.

Now, although I’m always very happy to do anything even remotely related to Star Wars, I have to confess that nothing equals the pleasure of illustrating a scene from the original movies.

I’ve already made illustrations for Rise of the Skywalker, or the Mandalorian, and despite having loved the shows, nothing compares to the thrill of drawing events from the first trilogy.

Jedi Cloak depicts an iconic moment of The Return of the Jedi, when Luke shows up like a badass at Jabba the Hutt’s court.

I still remember how damn cool he looked to me when I saw him the first time at the cinema, so I think I tried to infuse all that teenager wide-eyed marvel in this illustration.

Now, I now must describe why this scene is so crucial in the series. Bear with me and, well, NERD ALERT.

You surely remember that Luke’s first lightsaber (which was actually Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber) got lost, together with his hands, down an endless shaft at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.

The fact that he was sporting a brand new lightsaber at the beginning of Return of the Jedi didn’t go unnoticed to me back then. I clearly remember thinking “where does that come from?”.

Well, from a deleted scene!

I have to warn you, NERD INTENSIFICATION AHEAD.

Lightsabers were powered by what were called Kyber crystals, or Kaiburr crystals.

Building their own lightsaber was a crucial part of a Jedi’s training. When the time came, a young Jedi went to a temple on the planet Ilum, summoned somehow a Kyber crystal (which was made by organic and inorganic materials sensitive to the Force) and then used it to forge their own weapon following their own design and preferences.

After “Order 55”, Palpatine and Darth Vader destroyed all known crystals, and shut down all sites known to contain them. For this reason, while one the verge on completing his training, Luke found himself in the uncomfortable position of being without the main component to build his own lightsaber.

Eventually he found some schematics and instructions in Yoda’s hut, which allowed him to make a synthetic crystal, and assemble the rest with parts scrapped together in the city of Mos Eisley.

So that’s why he’ll later ask Yoda if “he’s a Jedi now”: he has indeed successfully completed one of the milestones in the Jedi’s training.

Despite Yoda’s snarky reply, when Luke shows up at Jabba’s court he is no student in training. He’s confident and powerful, and he has had countless adventures between the moment he was defeated by Darth Vader and when he finally moves to free Han Solo.

I still think that Mark Hamill was GREAT at conveying all of Luke’s newly acquired confidence, so this is definitely one of my favorite moments in the whole first trilogy.

I mean, wasn’t he majestic in this scene?

Despite Jedi Cloak being quite straightforward as far as illustrations go, getting it right did take some rounds of feedback.

The fabric had to feel thick and heavy, and the texture rough enough. So I went back and forth smoothing out creases, adding imperfections and things like that.

I have to say I’m quite happy with the final result, even if I say so myself:)

by Paolo Puggioni

Game of Thrones – Desperate Attack

Desperate Attack is one of the latest works I made for the Game of Thrones TCG by Fantasy Flight Games.

As always, I have no memory whatsoever of which specific expansion pack/rulebook/product this was made for.

And as it happens regularly, this had been sitting in my hard drive for several months, until the day I did some housekeeping and went “aw, I don’t think I posted this on my website, shame”. So here we are.

Now, Desperate Attack describes the fruitless attempt of Loras Tyrell to take Dragonstone, which – if memory serves – ended with his ass being handed to him, and his pretty face being disfigured forever.

I remember being mildly displeased by Loras Tyrell’s demise back when I read the book. But considering the massacre of major characters occurred up to that point, I have to place this about mid-height in my list of favourite dead Game of Thrones personalities.

In fact, the list goes abut this way, from most emotionally devastating to least.

– Robb Stark
– Ed Stark
– Catelyn Stark
– Hodor
– Khal Drogo
– Lord Varys
– Jorah Mormont
– Oberyn Martell
– Edd
– Pyp
– Yoren
– Ygritte
– Rickon Stark
– Syrio Forel
– Jory Cassel
– Maester Luwin
– Jeor Mormont
– Beric Dondarrion
– Lyanna Mormont
– Osha
– Myrcella Baratheon
– Robert Baratheon
– Maester Aemon
– Shireen Baratheon
– Mance Ryder
– Loras Tyrell
– Danaerys Targaryen
– Jojen Reed
– Olenna Tyrell
– Theon Greyjoy
– Rodrik Cassel
– Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun

So, all in all, sorry for Loras Tyrell, but at least he wasn’t beheaded in front of a crowd, or burned alive by a dragon, or gutted by a boar, or had his throat slit by an betraying ally, or ran over by a crowd of undead, or skinned, or torn apart, or poisoned, nor had his head crushed barehanded by an impossibly strong dude.

He died doing what he loved: storming a castle with his sword held high and all that.

Good for you Loras.

Star Wars – Bail Organa

Bail Organa is another Star Wars card I made for Fantasy Flight Games, and alas, once again I don’t really remember what specific expansion it was for.

Now, even though I enjoyed every single Star Wars card I made, I obviously enjoyed some more than others.
I mean, when you read in your briefs things like “Darth Vader does this” and “Han solo does that” you can’t help but giggle a little bit. When I got this assignment I actually went “Woo-hoo, Bail Organa!”

The reason why Bail Organa was one of my favourites is that I’ve had a bro-crush for Jimmy Smits since forever.
Look at his face, wouldn’t you trust a guy with that face? Wouldn’t he be the first one you call at 3 am when you accidentally murder your friend after a heated Super Smash Bros game you lost because of controller buffering?
He wouldn’t judge you, Jimmy Smits would never judge you.

And who would you want as a president of your country? That’s right, Matt Santos.
Which is why, after the mandatory 100th re-watch of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Siths required to paint this, I also watched again the West Wing. You know, to get into the spirit. Like method acting but for artists.

In fact, since digging up this image just made me think about it, I think that today I’ll also watch again the Jane Austen Book Club, which is a movie you should really check if, like me and every other sane person, you like Jimmy Smits.

Anyway, back to Bail Organa.

The other cool thing about this card is that I got to draw a Gran (that guy on Bail Organa’s right), which is a race that I loved since Return of the Jedi.
Although I also always wondered how the three-eyed set up would make sense under an evolutionary point of view, as all three of them pointing the same direction would have little benefit in terms of vision span.

I tried to keep the brush strokes more loose while painting the secondary characters, and I think that for once I managed to avoid over-polishing.

It’s subtle, but I think it works towards having Bail Organa stand out more, which he god dam deserves, doesn’t he.

Anyway, I would have posted this sooner but I’ve had some issues with WordPress, which the always impeccable Papermoustache managed to fix (thanks again!).

Next time I’ll post some Storm Troopers.

by Paolo Puggioni

Star Wars – Natural Talent

While browsing idly Fantasy Flight Games’ twitter feed, I noticed that my illustration “Natural Talent” had been released, so here it is!

For once I kept the promise I made last time and I didn’t wait four months to follow up with more Star Wars artwork.
This is part of Collapse of the Republic, a book that adds material to the Edge of the Empire Core rulebook.

Working on anything Star Wars related is always fun, and drawing one of the main characters makes it even better. Drawing Padme, I have to confess, was just the cherry on top.

When I watched the movies the first time I couldn’t help feeling amused by Padme’s wardrobe, and by her flamboyant display of outfits.
There was a board game in Italy in the 70s, I can’t remember its name. Basically the box contained a bunch of cardboard cutouts of ladies, and a bunch of drawings of dresses and accessories.

The game was about cutting the dresses and applying them to the models, and then showing them around to friends and family.
Padme always made me think that the writers had been addicted to that game when they were kids, and they were looking for some sort of catharsis by applying the most unlikely outfits to poor Natalie Portman.

In the movies Padme wears a new dress at every scene, always regal and aloof. I couldn’t help picturing her closing her door behind her after a meeting with Obiwan, or Yoda, still keeping her cool, and then freaking out just as she closes the door – COME ON COME ON COME ON, COME OOOOOON! – throwing clothes out of her bag, trying them out, fitting fake horn shaped buns to her hair, wrapping gold chains around her limbs and whatnot.

Anyway, while gathering reference for this illustration I had to re-watch all three prequels and make a database of all her outfits, which was part of the fun.
I also made two sketches with two different sets of clothes, and the Art Director clearly picked the one that was being used in the scene.

The illustrations is set when Padme addresses the senate the second time, if I remember correctly.

I had painted Padme Amidala once before, in a completely different context.

I have to confess I’m happier of the work I’ve done in Natural Talent, I think her likeness here is closer to Natalie Portman’s.
I’m not the best at doing portraits, sadly, and it always takes forever for me to get a face right.
I remember Padme was one of the most difficult ones for me, but she turned out fine in the end:).

by Paolo Puggioni

Star Wars Destiny Is Finally Out

After a looong wait, Star Wars Destiny is finally out, and the best thing about it is that I made a whole bunch of artwork for it.

By “whole bunch” I mean that I’ve been working on various Star Wars Destiny packs since about 2017, so much so that I have a folder bursting with illustrations that I’ve been itching to show around for the better part of two years.

The second best thing about it is that Fantasy Flight Games always sends us the actual physical copies once they’re released. The other day I got my Star Wars Destiny box in the mail box, and it’s glorious.

I mean, look at it. Look at it!

This is the Obi Wan Kenobi Starter Set, for which I had the pleasure of drawing Obi Wan himself, depicted in the period of the Star Wars lore between the Clone Wars and A New Hope.

Yes, I’ll post the high res image soon, I’m still getting them all ready.

In the early stages of these projects we usually have a temporary working title, so I’m never sure of what actual releases my illustrations end up in.

For example, young Anakin chatting with Senator Palpatine in A Tale of Tragedy is included in Convergence, and I’m pretty sure I’ve made something for Star Wars Destiny Two-Player Game. However, since I haven’t yet received the physical copies of everything I’ve worked on, I wouldn’t swear on it.

For this reason, and since I’m kind of terrified of breaking my NDA with Fantasy Flight Games and Lucasfilms, I’ve scoured the Internet to double check that everything I’d like to show had actually been released in some form or another.

I’ve found a couple here (that’s my Padme right there!:)) and a few other in other websites, so in the next few days I’d be posting images and sketches of what has been released so far.

I can’t really describe how privileged I feel about having worked on anything even remotely related to Star Wars.
I believe this had been a dream of mine since I got out of the theater after I first saw Star Wars in 1977.
As a matter of fact, I remember nerdy 5 years old me did try to draw Luke Skywalker in the trash compactor back then, but he couldn’t manage anything better than a couple of stick figures.

So, when I was asked to work on the project I’d already been happy to draw a couple of blasters and a light saber. Instead I had the pleasure of drawing most of the main characters at different points of their story, including Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Padme Amidala, Obi Wan Kenobi and others.

Also, every single Fantasy Flight Games Art Director has been a pleasure to work with, which is a big plus on the already very positive assignment.

Long story short, I’ll post Star Wars Destiny artwork soon, and yes, I’ll be bragging about it a lot.

by Paolo Puggioni