Topps 2017 Star Wars: Journey to The Last Jedi was released today, on Force Friday II! I created 70 regular sketch cards for this product and for the first time in a Star Wars trading card product, 25 shaped sketch cards. For more information on this product, please visit Cardboard Connection.
Despite the product’s namesake, no images from the new Star Wars film, The Last Jedi, were used in the sketch card artwork. Instead, the idea was to draw from the ‘journey’ to the latest movie with imagery from The Force Awakens. I principally worked from screen shots from the film, focusing on various places featured in the movie and the characters, much like what I’ve done on previous Star Wars sketch card projects.
Technique wise, I used two styles. One was my comic book style of inking my drawings then colouring them with Copic markers. I used various brush and mechanical pens. When drawing these cards I continually mentally reminding myself, ‘what would this look like in a comic book?’. The second style was done without inks, using only Copic markers and polychromous pencil crayons. Provided I have the necessary time (which I do not always have when working on these sets), I can obtain a fairly realistic look. It’s also a softer technique, and while not applicable to this set, is my favoured route for when drawing the Star Wars animated characters.
The shaped cards was a unique inclusion to this product. Previously Topps had not created shaped sketch cards for their sets, or at least not on any of the sets I’ve worked on in the past three years. The deadline for completing these cards was very tight, but I am very pleased with how they turned out. There is a very limited run of these cards and will be exceedingly difficult to find in the product, but I will have a few of these for sale myself!
Examples of my sketch cards for this product
This is not an exhaustive list of what I did. Just some of the scanned sheets for this product.
Artist Returns for Sale
Any of my artist returns that do not sell here or on my social media channels within the next week or so will be listed on ebay. Please contact me about what artist returns I have for sale and if there is a character or scene that you do not see, I can create that specially for you! Please contact me and let’s make it happen!