[Guest]

...and Almath...those are sensational pulls...Kayanan's Chewbacca seems to radiate thin purples in his hair...some of the finest illustrations I've seen...just breathtaking...

...and Jackie...I can't believe you were able to finagle one of Ingrid's "Luke" sketch cards from her...man, I was really asleep at the wheel when all this behind the scenes wheeling and dealing was going on...

...and I LOVE the Jeff Chandler "Luke" as well...

...I was able to get this "returned 6" sketch card from Katie Cook...and I fearfully await it's arrival from the bowels of the US Postal system...




I was also able to get one an Otis Framton "returned 6" sketch card as well, but the scan he has posted was done before he added a little something to the sketch before all his cards were shipped back to Topps for packaging...I'll post it when it arrives because I haven't seen the "new" version myself...but it's a Jawa kind of tilting into the sketch from the right at a 45 degree angle...and Otis asked if there was anything I wanted added to it, and I asked if he could add the twin Tatooine suns in the background space...can't wait to see it! 

Wow, super bunch of sketches there!  I would love to see one of those Kayanan Chewbaccas up close to see how he did the fur.  I haven't seen all the artists from this set yet, but I think Len's cards are some of the best.  That X-wing destroying the death star scene you have is amazing!  I can see the speed!  And I don't say that just because you post here, Len. 

...jeez Kelly, thanks so much...I really hope everyday collectors get a chance to pull a great and worked and colorful sketch card like so many artists seem to have created in this terrific Star Wars 30th Anniversary set...


...I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that this film, and The Lord of the Rings as well, really put a zap in people's mind set whenever they first saw this brilliant film...and it's revolutionary and groundbreaking imagery and epic "hero's path" theme has not only stayed the course over these past 30 years, but still has the legs to garner new fans each and every day...

...but thanks so much for the kind words...I hope you get to pull one!

Here's a Soni sketch cards I HAD TO HAVE!!!...won it on Ebay and had to manuever my way past some great UK collectors that have been swooping down on her work...

It really is a magnificient landscape on it's own...but this scene from the Fellowship is so pure and innocent, and conveys such a wonderous sense of Hobbiton and Bilbo's party and just is so magical...

...and Soni did all that in 8.75 square inches of cardboard...

Hey Jackie...I'm so glad you pulled some of my sketch cards...I LOVE when they go to Yak Shack, NSU or Scoundrel collectors...and if you decide to sell them I hope they get some of your inve$tment money back...

...and thanks for the kind words kbmum and kelly...hope you pull one or two also!!!

These were my pulls...a great Kayanan in the mix...and would you believe I pulled one of my own cards...

...also had 5 DUD boxes with NOTHING in 'em! BOOO! :'(

How early did you have to get in line for that one?  Beauties, all of them. 

There weren't any queues when they were done.  The sketch cards, mine and RupT's, were done around 4:30pm on Sunday (the last day) and only because Allison convinced Adam to do them.  The show was winding down and people were beginning to pack up.

WOW! That's a great thing to have happen...very jealous!!!

...and finally...with just a little intro...

My wife Denise and I spent the last week in New Mexico (U.S. state tucked inbetween Arizona and Texas)...climbed lava flows, photographed petroglyphs, hiked through pueblo ruins in Bandelier, explored their canyon cliff dwellings, was 30 feet from a Black Bear in the open woodlands (yikes!), sat speechless in the beauty of the little church of Santuario de Chimayo, drove the High Road to Taos, talked all afternoon with the Taos indians whose respect for tradition and natural elements in their artwork is truly inspirational, walked across the Rio Grande gorge, climbed a very vertical path to the twin waterfalls at the Nambe pueblo (Denise was terrified!), ate great food at The Pink Adobe, Tomasita's and some other great green chile inspired restaurants, met with some cool artists and artisans in this magical US state, watched some spectacular sunsets in the Bell Tower atop the La Fonda hotel where we laughed aloud at their one drink minimum (3 margaritas each was our minimum!), bought some beautiful retablos and small Jemez pots, and wandered throughout the scenic byroads of Los Almos...a surreal trip to what's called "New Mexico...The Land of Enchantment"...can't wait to go again! (it was our 3rd trip there...the first was our honeymoon 16 years ago...pre-Boone...my 11 year old beagle best friend who died this past January)...


...okay...now the last of the Star Wars sketch cards!...before they hit the stores in a few weeks (I've read the date of July 25th bandied about here and there, and I'm quite glad since I'm BROKE and need some time to replenish my finances a bit!!!)...



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...these are going to be quite random, but are definitely some of my favorite sketch cards from the 156 I was fortunate enough to be allowed to do for this terrific Topps set...

...my "returned 6" will be scatterred in the mix...but I'll post larger scans of them later in the week...



...39 additional ones in total...
...hope you like...







...some 3 card scenarios and 'multiples'...







...and all the rest...



















...thanks for looking...!...(hope they all uploaded okay  )

...and...if you pull any of these...PLEASE, let me know...I'm also OCD about knowing in whose collections these SW30 sketch cards will eventually reside...thanks!

Hope you love them if they're staying in your collection...or...hope you at least  get your money back for the $$$ you invested buying packs/boxes/and/or/cases of this terrific Star Wars sketch card set if you decide to sell!

I know I hope to collect at least one sketch card from each of the talented artists represented in this monumentally important Star Wars set...it may take me a year or so, but that's my OCD collector's goal!

...enjoy!   

Next...time to cool off with some "space related" imagery...roll down the windows of your Droid escape pod, Milennium Falcon, X-wing or Tie Fighter, and let some cool space/time air rush in...

...ahhh! 







...and a couple of my favorite droids...(actually droid couples)

Hey Yak Shackers...sorry I haven't updated here for a while...but thought interested collectors out there might want to see the rest of the sketch cards that I did for the soon-to-be-released Star Wars 30th Anniversary set...

...I think they may be posted on www.starwarssketchcards.com in chronological order (somewhat)...

...my returned 6 will be among the last of the posts...

...hope you like...and enjoy!

...first...some assorted Troopers...followed by some Vaders...












...before I continue...here's something interesting about the next two Vaders...

...this may be common knowledge out there, but I had no clue actually...

...when I work...I sketch onto regular drawing paper or directly on my cards while looking at a stilled DVD of the film...it involves a lot of PLAY and PAUSE and REVERSE and FAST FORWARD...etc...

...so when I was doing the Vader vs. Obi-Wan light saber duel, I noticed that in one scene, Vader looks correct...that is, he's quite symmetrical except for his array of chest buttons, belt and hanging light saber...

...well, the first "box" is arranged like this...red and green light/button on the RIGHT...and 3 horizontal white tabs on the LEFT...and below that is a group of 4 vertical switches...the first one white, and the next three...the ones on the far RIGHT iare grey...

...well...the duel begins...spsm2 ...and, after a few thrusts and a bzzzz, and a grzzzz, Vader and Obi-Wan change sides...

...it's then, when I hit PAUSE to catch a cool Vader moment, that I notice that his red and green lights/buttons are on the other side...I must have watched that duel a hundred times to see if I was wrong...in fact, I even put in the original 1977 version...and there it was...Lucas actually just flipped Vader as the two exchanged sides during the duel...and when they exchanged sides again...the red and green were on the correct side...

...so the first card coming up is WRONG...it's NOT the way Vader really is, but it's the actual way the scene appears in the film...the second card is me correcting the scene...everything the same...except the red and green etc. are the way they SHOULD HAVE looked if George Lucas hadn't flipped Vader during the duel scene...(everyone probably knows this all already and I'm just the last one on board...notice anything else different ?)...

 

Spectacular cases!  Congrats Zach...hope to win one or two!

...how about some CANTINA CREATURES...!!!









...hope you like and want to collect...

...everything I've posted thus far can all be pack-pulled...as will the all the Vaders and Troopers I'll post next week...

...have a relaxing weekend everyone...!

Thanks Ingrid, Jackie and Ed...your words mean more to me than you know!

Terrific work Ingrid...there's such great subtle tonality and real character in your work...very handsome and classically beautiful...!

...just a quick 9 card upload for all of you NOT at CIV and still hunkering around your computers this long weekend...I'll continue the story line here with the R2D2 Jawa attack and intercept...hope you like them... :lol:





...

Len what horrible run of bad luck, hopefully it can only get better for you and that the post office can find the creep responsible for your missing card    But I must say please refrain from blaming us Orc's those pesky elf have a good propoganda system you know, we are basicly honest 
De Orc 

That's really funny!

This set is really going to be huge!  I can't wait to rip into my packs...I've only ordered 2 cases, and I get a free box from Topps for doing sketch cards...I just hope Sid can blow some imaginary kisses my way just before I open them all...

...being  a die hard LOTR OCD collector, I really didn't want to shift my mental loyalty to Star Wars...but...with the Tolkien/Campbell-Jackson/Lucas-mythology/creativity connection...these epic stories are really one and the same...and so they both hold a place in my collecting heart...especially since these are the only sets I've done sketch cards for...and really can't see myself adding to that mix at all...(okay, maybe if there's a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" set, or something related to Hitchcock... )

...I was lucky enough to buy a Revenge of the Sith and a Heritage box relatively recently...pulled a Walks Windu (which I traded regretfully) and a James Earl Jones auto...which I'll use to start my new OCD Star Wars collection...it will look great next to my Harrison Ford auto... !

Best of luck everyone!

Thanks Bryan...which 3 Masterpieces did you pull...I'm trying to keep track of where they've all gone...?  Would love to know which cards you have...and one of these days (when I can find a minute), I'm going to have to pay you back for your terrific Secret Santa gifts !

Hey Bryan...I'm doing 156...!

I guess that's what I did...but I'm guessing that's what everyone is really doing...in their own way.  You pick scenes or individual character portraits that mean something to you, and then go with it...if you're specialty is portraits, then you find just those perfect portrait moments that tell the story in those terms.  Some of what I've seen thus far from Cat Staggs, Allison Sohn, Ingrid Hardy and Joe Corroney work that way...Kayanan sets a different stage altogether...and then super talented idiosyncratic artists like Grant Gould, Katie Cook, Otis Frampton, Tom Hodges, Jessica Hickman, Kevin Graham...they all have such an individualistic style and approach that they're able to reinvent the entire film with their own slant...

...I'm kind of doing the film in chronological order as an afterthought...I started with those first nine "opening sequence" images, and then jumped all over the place when I was deep into their production...all Vaders, and then all Jawas, and then all CP3O's and R2D2's...then you kind of rearrange them where they fit best...

...although I'll do the occasional portrait or two, i like the full blown scenes...I like collecting that way also...!...besides, some of the great portrait people are just sensational and I don't think you can add anything to the mix in that direction...they've captured "perfect" portrait moments already...!

...check them all out at...www.starwarssketchcards.com...

...long answer heh!?

...and thanks for the kind words jackie and kbmum...much appreciated!

Here's a few new ones...









...so many more to come...a batch of Jawas, Vaders, Storm Troopers and Cantina creatures up next...hope you enjoy them!

Hey, thanks all...even after my 6 returned Masterpieces cards were damaged by UPS...and even with my recent home flood (3" or about 7cm of water in my basement)...and even with a family of raccoons that moved into my attic crawl space and had babies and it cost me over $600 to try and get them humanely removed and relocated...and even though my attic crawl space was determined to be "raccoon free" after traps were set over a two week period resulting in the capture of 3 raccoons (all male), even so...the supposed mother escaped from my attic crawl space in the middle of the day today...ripping a hole with it's claws through an aluminum air vent as roofers began taking old shingles off to make way for a new roof and attic fan since these raccoons bent the fan blade and ripped apart some roof lumber (mind you, I live in New York City!)...and even though my 11 year old best beagle friend Boone died this past January...and even though my Masterpieces Moria was stolen and now both the US Post Office and Royal Mail have begun an investigation that hopefully will result in the return of the full value of that card so it's used-to-be owner can get their money returned...even with all that...I must say, I've learned a lot and everything happens for a reason!

Thanks Ed...I just feel sorry for David...I know what it is to be an OCD collector, and when you know you won a sketch card that you really need for your collection...you wait and wait and wait with excited anticipation for it to arrive safe and sound in your own little shire...I can only imagine his abject horror when he went to pick it up and was greeted with an empty slit package with a note that stated that it looked like the package had been tampered with...

...I only pray that it surfaces at some convention or is quitly shopped around and somehow this sludge is arrested and the sketch card recovered...

...thanks for your concern...and I'd appreciate as many eyes as possible to be on the lookout...