Thursday, September 3, 2009

SITHISIS: Visual Development


Back in 2004-2005,  I did a 14 page story for STAR WARS: VISIONARIES, a graphic novel designed and created with fellow artists from the EPISODE III Art Department.  We were given more or less free rein to do our own take on our favorite Star Wars characters.  With DARK HORSE set to publish, and LUCASFILM'S blessing, we all set out to create our stories. 

 

I wanted to do a piece centered on the Dark Lord of the Sith, PALPATINE, and I wanted it to give the reader a glimpse of some arcane and secret Sith Ritual. 





 I had lots of fun coming up with ideas and possibilities,  generating a bunch of sketches and designs.  I was even able to arrange a phone interview with Ian McDiarmid, who portrayed Emperor Palpatine in the films, and discuss with him some of his impressions and ideas he had about the character.  He was very gracious and insightful, and complimentary of my approach and the drawings I'd done...





6 comments:

Unknown said...

Beautiful sketching.

I wish I could see larger versions of all the pages.

The first one is the only one that links to a larger version for me.

Semi-Imperfect Role Model for Superheroes and Other Super Things ("Have no fear, imagination is here!"©) ♡™ said...

"The first one is the only one that links to a larger version for me." Me too

Seems like a lot is going on conceptually...would definitely be interesting to see larger versions ; )

Marcos Mateu said...

Great work all throughout your blog!

DerekMonster said...

thanks for the alert-

i'm not sure why there are problems with the images...i tried re-uploading one as a test, but it didn't work...i'm looking into the problem but may not have it fixed til after vacation..

thanks for your patience!

derekmonster

Unknown said...

AWEsome. I'm so sad we didn't get to see more of this character. I still have no idea what the Sith are getting vengeance for, why Palpatine lusts for power, or what kind of connection he has to Anakin other than master/lap-dog. These are great man. This is one franchize reboot I'm looking forward to.

EMc said...

I went and re-bought a copy of that graphic novel just so I could revisit this story.