Chris Scalf’s Kenobi Art

October 13, 2012 at 10:00 am | Posted in Art, Star Wars Books | 1 Comment
Tags: chris scalf, john jackson miller, kenobi

As recently announced at New York Comic Con, John Jackson Miller will be writing a new Star Wars hardcover entitled Kenobi. Alongside the announcement was a piece of promotional art by artist Chris Scalf (whose worked on projects like Star Wars: Invasion, Star Wars: Blood Ties, and Star Wars: The Essential Reader’s Companion). Chris has posted the original art as well as a case study for Ewan McGregor on his deviantart page with some additional information on the making of the piece.

This is about a 4 hour painting (spread out over a few days or so).
EDIT: I should also mention that after an initial b/w rough– I did an INTENSE study of Ewan McGregor on as many films as possible… My initial sketch had fallen flat on capturing either Ewan or Alec’s Obi Wan likeness, so I obsessed with a quest to understand the anatomy of Ewan McGregor’s face and expressions.

Most of the time, we artists will seek out references of people likenesses in the same pose we are about to draw.. But I could NOT –for the life of me– FIND a pose of McGregor in any film that matched what I needed to show here. So what you have, is a very careful freehand rendition “imagined” in that pose by cross referencing MANY photos of Ewan’s face, and how light and shadow reflect off of it in various environments. So yeah– While the initial painting was about 4 hours, there was a lot longer in side sketching and studying of this man’s face… I don’t think I’ve ever went that deep before in a portrait. –Chris Scalf

Here is a study I did of Ewan McGregor that led to how I drew it in the final piece. this literally in loose rough sketch mode, as I was trying desperately to capture the expression, likeness, and proper positioning of light/shadow placement. It’s almost a momentum process that has to be laid out very quick– or the detail I am holding in my mind gets lost or unrecognizable to me when I lay it down. –Chris Scalf

And here is the final piece.

It’ll be interesting to see what they go with for the final cover art and whether Chris will be involved or not. The overall reaction for the promo art has been very positive and I think it would work well for the cover with a little bit of tweaking to make it fit the format. Either way this is definitely one book we are looking forward to. You can find out more about Kenobi via John Jackson Miller’s website Farawaypress.com and, as always, we’ll keep you updated here on Roqoo Depot.

Posted By: Skuldren for Roqoo Depot.