Artist Matt Brown hand-painted these Russian nesting dolls as Star Wars characters for his brother’s Christmas gift. (via)
StarWars.com reveals long-lost Galaxy artwork
Here’s more reason to get excited about Topps’ fourth Galaxy series: They’re pulling some of the art that never made the first three sets! One of these pieces – John Rheaume’s levitating Yoda – has become rather infamous over the years, but others (like Kevin Nowlan’s Obi-Wan at right) will be new to many of us:
As expected, the original artists were delighted by this belated recognition of their efforts. “How great to have my Star Wars artwork finally see the light of day!” beamed Chris Moeller, one of a handful of illustrators showcased in SWG4’s special chase set entitled “The Lost Galaxy.” His unique rendering dared to show what the stormtroopers look like beneath their helmets – a full decade before George Lucas decided that all of these ubiquitous Imperial soldiers were actually clones of Jango Fett. Indeed, Boba’s enterprising father didn’t even exist as part of the Star Wars mythology back in the ’90s.
Intriging! The six ‘Lost Galaxy’ cards will also include pieces by Joe Ciardiello, John Pound, and Tim Burgard.
Yoda pumpkin just the right amount of scary
StarWars.com has instructions from Lawrence Noble on how to make a spooky Yoda pumpkin.
Fan Art: Steampunk Star Wars from Björn Hurri
Björn Hurri has a number of great steampunk Star Wars drawings he’s sharing over at Gorilla Artfare. I was pretty impressed with his Yoda (clickthrough for the whole thing) and Leia, but there’s plenty more and they’re all fantastic: C-3P0, a jawa, a speeder bike, Jabba the Hutt, Fett, a stormtrooper, Chewbacca, Yoda, Han and Luke.
Newsblast: The latest in The Clone Wars
The first review is in, and Variety seems impressed – with reservations. (Exactly how ham-handed are we going to let the ‘clonetroopers are people, too’ thing get, Lucasfilm?)
- Press release: Director David Bullock and writer Steve Melching talk up ‘Ambush,’ the first episode. (Also on StarWars.com.)
- Interviews: Newsarama talks to Tom Kane, who voices cartoon Yoda. (via)
- Marketing: Limited commercials with premiere; Clonetroopers helping to sell the show.
- Event: TFN has a report from the mall tour in New York.
- Overseas: UK fans can catch the show October 25th on Sky Movies.
The fandom minute: Tina Fey’s endorsement, bento boxes, Yoda’s a (badass) geek
- TV: Tina Fey was spotted wearing a Leia ’08 t-shirt on Saturday Night Live’s season premiere this weekend. On that note, io9’s list of SNL’s best sci-fi sketches contains bonus Mark Hamill.
- Food: Star Wars bento boxes? Wacky!
- List: Yoda (though not in cake form) is one of Great White Snark’s top five unexpectedly bad-ass geek heroes.
Wednesday brain-bender: Inspired by Einstein
Yoda tops Neatorama’s list of six things inspired by Albert Einstein. Also be sure to check out Geek in Heels’ top five Star Wars designs and what inspired them.
The fandom minute: Han in Cakeamite; Is it time for Star Wars to take a breather?
- Food: Han in Carbonite… The cake! Is that icing nontoxic? (via)
- The blogside: SF Signal’s JP Frantz claims that Star Wars needs to take a break to save the future of the franchise, and I’m not sure I entirely disagree… Meanwhile, Time’s Matt Selman calls for an end to easy Star Wars parodies.
- Collecting: Pete Vilmur looks at saving ticket stubs.
- Space: The European Space Agency takes inspiration from Star Wars for a new spacecraft. It looks like it would fit right in with the Rebel fleet! (via)
- Lists: The prequel trilogy gets a spot on io9’s worst fake accents of science fiction; Return of the Jedi is one of Cracked’s six most depressing happy endings.
- Random: Going through life with the last name of Yoda.
The fandom minute: Rabidity, lists, Yoda-speak
Star Wars might not be one of Film.com’s five most rabid fanbases, but it does get a honorable mention. And I’m going to go on record saying that ‘Star Warriors’ is a damn stupid name. If that makes me our equivalent of one of those jerks that froths at the mouth over Trekkie vs. Trekker, so be it.
- Lists: Ten most annoying voices in geek movies, eleven reasons not to hate the prequels and top ten sci-fi urban legends.
- Further reading: Get a history lesson with Binary Bonsai’s reading list.
- Fun: Convert any block of text into Yoda-speak, a generator that will. Yeesssssss.
The fandom minute: Tee, Roddenberry, cakes, poll
- T-shirt: Foil your foes with Thinkgeek’s Mind Trick Venn Diagram
- Video: Rod Roddenberry (son of Gene) talks Star Wars and Star Trek and a talk with George Lucas. (via)
- Food: Can the world handle another batch of Star Wars cake? Even one this simple?
- Poll: Vote on your favorite Star Wars quotes. It’s a big one!