ILLUSTRATING A STAR WARS MOVIE POSTER

By Matt Busch

Notorious illustrator Matt Busch returns this month with an exclusive in-depth look at the entire process behind illustrating a STAR WARS movie poster for Lucasfilm!  (...)  Now, for ART SCENE INTERNATIONAL, Busch shows you every step of the way, and includes some words from both Pete Vilmur at Lucasfilm and designer Paul Michael Kane!  From the initial idea, through all the concept sketches, the entire painting process, and even the digital touch-ups and typography, Matt Busch leaves no detail in the dark!

INTRODUCTION

To say that I’ve been lucky is an understatement.  I like to think that my success has been the result of my determination and hard work, but clearly I’ve had some lucky breaks, and this is one of them.

Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”  I firmly believe that, and I think much of my success, or rather, my happiness, has been the result of staying in touch with all the fun things I enjoyed as a kid.
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So I gradually just created the career I wanted to have.  I have done all of those things.  And let me tell you, I am the biggest child I know!

That being said, another strange connection to my childhood was this project.  The original Style D “Circus” poster for STAR WARS has always been my favorite.  So to be given the opportunity to create the second half of what legendary illustrators Charles White III and Drew Struzan began is the ultimate honor.
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The Circus Comes (Back) to Town

by Pete Vilmur

As a Star Wars poster collector, I’m often asked which poster would be the last to go if I ever decided to sell the lot of them, which easily consists of hundreds. Without question, my answer is always the same – the 1978 Style D. Commonly called the “Circus” poster by fans because of its retro big-top-genre look, I’ve always admired its ability to capture essentially what Star Wars is – a perfect mix of old-world adventure, new-world technology, and classic craftsmanship. I also loved the inventiveness of the design – the “pasted-on” look was actually devised ad-hoc to accommodate the credit block at the bottom, producing an aesthetically perfect composition. For me, artists Charles White III and Drew Struzan struck the gold standard for all that a movie poster should be.

But it was an anomaly – no other Star Wars poster even attempted to approach the spirit of the Style D, since marketing of the films had taken a different tack in its subsequent print campaigns. But with the saga complete and the final chapter – Revenge of the Sith – reclaiming some of the luster of the original trilogy, I thought the time was right to resurrect the Circus poster. 

I wondered how the original D composition might look if Luke and Leia were replaced by Anakin and Padmé, with a younger, perhaps Obi-Wan looking on from the fringe? And what if we kept the Star Wars logo at the top, and used the small blurb section in front of the characters for the title? Finally, what if we mirrored the composition so the two posters could be displayed together, book-ending the saga?

The concept nagged me for two years until StarWarsShop (Lucasfilm’s official online Star Wars store) asked me if I’d be interested in working with artist Matt Busch to come up with a poster design for them.

For more information, visit www.MattBusch.com.

Read the whole article in issue 77.