"No More Late Fees" ("Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge Of The Sith")


Aayla Secura and R2-D5 (c) Lucasfilms

Pencil Marks: One thing which came up from time to time was how I would complete a picture, post it, then later reconsider if the idea I used was the best choice. That was the case here. For months I drew Star Wars pin-up after pin-up only to have each one rejected by Tony (a good choice on his part) until one day I had what I thought was a gem of an illustration. I'm sure everyone is aware of poor Anakin Skywalker's fate. He turns to the dark side and after getting severely burned, becomes Darth Vader. So, when I was flipping through an issue of 'Entertainment Weekly' and saw the post Anakin, I knew it'd be cool to use our own burnt character, Crispie, and have him join the Sith. Great thought, right?
Cool until I realized Darth Vader's armor was a bitch to draw.
Yeah, I know I should have been up to the challenge, but my timeline was limited and I did in fact try a dozen of times (so much so I'm sure I caused a tree to die an unnecessary death) but it just didn't click for me. And rather than turn in another hap-hazard drawing again like I did for "Kingdom of Heaven", I chose to do the next best thing.
While I liked Tony's drawings with Star Wars themes in the past, there was three things I felt he was missing: Erik in an actual Jedi outfit, R2-D2, and one of my favorite characters, Aayla Secura (don't get me wrong, Mace Windu is bad-ass all the way, but Aayla has always been the unappreciated Jedi). And rather than go with a theme, I drew the three of them together and worked out a setting which I thought was appropriate.
But if I thought it was great before, it got even better when Tony changed it to have them fighting in the Jedi library. He thought I'd be a little upset by it, but as a fair trade-off he let me decide what color Erik's light saber would be. Me... the color-blind guy. *lol* - Jake

Ink Smudges: Well, as a change of pace to the last couple of Blockbuster pictures, Jake actually gave me a picture which had a background. It was more than just the characters standing static in the foreground and blank white in the background. This time he decided to give me a break and give me a complete picture. Too bad I didn't use his backgrounds.
You see, the picture he supplied had the three characters standing on what appeared to be a "rocky" landscape with boulders and a blank sky. A Jedi starfighter was flying by. At once when I saw this picture I felt that it was a bit too close to our previous picture for Star Wars Episode 2. Of course it wasn't the same, but there were similarities. So for the better half of that week I was crunching my brain trying to think of what I was going to do for a background. Was there some place in the prequel trilogy were this scene could take place and make sense? Taking inspiration from both Episode 2 and the videogame adaptation for Episode 3 I settled on the Jedi Library.
After downloading quite a few pieces of reference I sat down to re-create a background that I admittedly put more effort into than I did the main characters themselves. I think it came out very well.
I always like to ink Jake's work because there are small details he sometimes overlooks, or just doesn't add. As an artist it's helpful to go over other people art to see what they miss and where their strengths are so as when I tackle a penciled piece, I can do so with a bit more confidence. I do have to complement Jake though: there was very little I had to elaborate on. He did my favorite property right. - Tony