Just recently, a signed artist proof of the Mandalorian Outer Rim poster design was chosen to be included in the permanent collection at Steve Sansweet’s Rancho Obi-Wan.
Apart from that, something different and fun happened recently with Star Wars art, and I'm sharing it with fellow fans.
There’s a fellow collector in France named Jean-François Rolland who is producing a book about Kenner and the vintage Star Wars toys. Very in-depth, and the product photos even include the cardboard inserts from the vehicles, etc.
There’s a foreword by Gus Lopez and one by Duncan Jenkins, too, which is cool.
I supported it on Kickstarter and ended up offering Rolland some suggestions for the English language version, and ended up helping him with some editing of the English version sections and some Photoshop cleanup on some of the pics. Happy to be involved, and we’ve become friends.
As Rolland was getting it ready to send to the printers a couple weeks ago, he mentioned that he still had no luck in securing the rights to a photo of Bernie Loomis, the main leader at Kenner who is very responsible for vintage Star Wars toys' creation, and their influence on the toy industry as a whole.
So, with only 24 hours until the design deadline for book layout delivery to the printers, I had an idea!
I suggested that I do a custom line art portrait of Loomis along with a few early figures, in a style based on some of the old vehicle and playset 1-color printed panels.
I was able to clear my schedule for the day and get him the finished illustration that evening, with only a few hours to spare, and it worked out great.
Jean-Françcois has also asked me to help him spread the world further about his book, especially in the english-speaking world, and I thought the story of the Bernie Loomis “emergency vintage style illustration” success might be fun for your readers anyway.
Star Wars 1978-1985 Kenner Toy Line Buch
Posted - 08/19/2021 : 4:13:07 PM
