Topps 2023 Star Wars Masterwork included original, hand drawn and painted sketch cards by artists including myself, much like in previous years. Topps Star Wars trading cards requires artwork to be made based off imagery from the films or TV shows, which is a huge sandbox to play in!
Star Wars Andor Artwork
To make it easier for myself to decide on what to draw I often pick a particular movie, TV show, or subject to draw from. For Masterwork 2023 I worked on the cards in a few separate phases, with one of those phases focusing on imagery from the Andor TV show. At the time I had just started (finally) watching Andor. I love Star Wars, and haven’t disliked a single movie or show yet, so I knew the odds were overwhelming in favour of me also enjoying Andor. The bar was also set quite high for this show as my friends who are also big Star Wars fans raved about Andor. Despite this I hadn’t expected the show to become one of my favourite Star Wars shows!
I watched Andor quite slowly since I was enjoying it so much. I would sit down, turn the lights off, pop a bag of popcorn, and do nothing else but watch each episode. I dragged it out too, partially because I was so busy but also because it was so good I didn’t want it to end. Because of how long it took me to watch the whole series, by the time I was working on these cards I had only seen the first three episodes. I didn’t want any spoilers so I specifically only looked at imagery from the first few episodes. Hopefully Topps does an Andor set and I can paint characters and scenes from later episodes!
Star Wars Andor Season 1 Trailer
How I Paint Sketch Cards
For these Andor cards I used pencil crayons and designer gouache paint. I created a rough pencil sketch on the cards and then went over that with pencil crayons. On some of the cards I used the pencil crayons in a sketchy and loose manner and others (like the droid or blue alien paintings) spent a lot more time in rendering the image with pencil crayons. After I brought the image to a spot I liked with the pencil crayons, I added heavily watered down designer gouache. This acted almost like a wash, using the gouache more like a water colour but still allowing me to use it’s more opaqueness in areas I felt needed it, like on young Andor’s hair. A few of the paintings had more layers of gouache used on them when I wasn’t happy with the under drawing, such as with Luther.
I also tried something a little different with the gouache. leaning more into its similarities with water colours, on the card of the woman with her dark hair moving onto the top left corner, I used a wash of Indigo blue and black. Before applying the paint I wetted the area down with water. Then I added a bit of paint and allowed it to spread across the wet area. This is commonly down with water colour paints and allows for a softness in colour transitions.
Please checkout my previous article about How to Make Sketch Cards for more on my process and ideas on how you can draw your own!
Topps Star Wars Andor Masterwork Artist Proofs
I have some artist proofs available from this set and a few other previous Star Wars sets. Artist Proofs will not be available for future Topps Star Wars trading card sets, so once I sell what I have that will be it!
Please use the form below to what’s available!
Contact Me Below for Commissions, Questions, or to Buy an AP Sketch Card!
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