Readers of the Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections series will be familiar with the artwork of John R. Mullaney, and an upcoming Omega Auctions event on Tuesday 6th December will give collectors the chance to own some of John’s original artwork, including pieces from The Rise of Skywalker and a fascinating piece from A New Hope which, as John describes, is ‘the only comprehensive mapping and aerial depiction of the city – its layout carefully calculated by triangulating building positions’ using stills from A New Hope and shadow direction.’
Lot 205. The Night Buzzard, original artwork.
Commissioned in 2020 by Dorling Kindersley, the artwork required a particularly creative approach as the ship’s interior doesn’t feature in the film. Working closely with the art editors at Dorling Kindersley and Pablo Hidalgo Lucasfilm’s co-head of Story Group, John was tasked with creating the interior as used by Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren.
The brief required a prison ship layout and that an area of the interior corresponded with several cells from 2019 Star Wars graphic novel The Rise of Kylo Ren. Three small scale versions of the Knights are included in the artwork, whilst the artist painted all six characters separately at a larger scale ( Lots 206 & 207 ) to allow for more detail and flexibility of positioning before they were digitally composited into the eventual piece. The piece also contains several easter eggs from the Star Wars universe including a Mandalorian helmet and that of an Imperial Guard. The final art is the painstaking result of hundreds of hours of research and patiently layered watercolour washes for a richly textured, coloured and detailed painting. It remains the only canon depiction of the entire vehicle interior.
Lots 206 & 207 Knights of Ren, original artwork.
The six characters were hand drawn and painted at a larger scale than the cutaway itself to allow for more detail and flexibility of positioning before they were digitally composited into the eventual piece. Reference photography of each character was provided by Lucasfilm and this was used to ensure screen-accuracy.
An additional unpainted image of Ushar peering inside a storage crate was drafted before John and the team at DK and Lucasfilm decided he would be depicted in a different posture and location. Ushar’s mace was also drafted before it was decided to composite the photographic version of the character’s weapon.
Two of the characters would be composited into the artwork as gunners manning the ship’s weapon meaning it wasn’t necessary to paint the full extent of their character.
Consideration had to be given to each character’s colouring to ensure it matched the lighting of the main cutaway and the relative position in which they would be located.
Lot 208. The Night Buzzard, preliminary original artwork.
The artwork underwent a gradual evolution incorporating feedback from the team at DK and Lucasfilm, with the artist employing the forgiving qualities of tracing paper to enable multiple changes without loss of paper quality. More than just a preliminary, the artwork acts as a high detail blueprint for the final artwork and must be as precise as the scale allows. Once approved, the artwork was then reproduced at large format size and carefully traced with a lightbox onto watercolour paper to form the set-up for the final full colour artwork.
Lot 209. Mos Eisley. Original preliminary artwork.
This artwork was produced back in 2001 as part of the planning process undertaken by the artist, DK art editor John Kelly and Lucasfilm’s project consultant Curtis Saxton. The artist’s brief was to produce an aerial cityscape view of the infamous “hive of scum and villainy”. But accurately plotting the buildings glimpsed in the Mos Eisley sequence required a forensic approach. By using shadow directions seen in A New Hope as well as the 20th anniversary reissue edition, and matching background architecture that appeared in more than one shot, the team were able to calculate the relationship between buildings which line the route taken by Kenobi, Skywalker and the droids – from the outskirts of the city to the notorious Cantina, before they later head to Docking Bay 94. With the route plotted, the artist was then able to build up the rest of the spaceport ultimately creating one of his most ambitious and prestigious paintings to date, with the eventual artwork personally approved by George Lucas. Originally appearing on pages 12-13 of the original title: Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy, the art has been subsequently published in multiple reprints of the Inside the Worlds of Star Wars and Incredible Cross-Sections series.
Two decades on from the creation of this vital preliminary sketch, the final illustration remains the only published canon depiction of the city’s layout in the franchise’s history. The artwork appears on pages 252-3 of DK’s 2020 title Star Wars Complete Vehicles Incredible Cross-Sections.
Be sure to visit John’s site for a closer look at his amazingly detailed artwork.
- Hardcover Book
- DK (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 192 Pages - 09/27/2016 (Publication Date) - DK (Publisher)
