Last week I was invited to take part in the ForceCast Roundtable discussion about the Clone Wars TV show.  I am thrilled that they would invite me to be on the podcast, and I don’t want to screw it up, so I spend some time preparing for the show.  It’s pretty tough work.  I have to watch the episode 3 or 4 times, and then look at all of the characters involved and their history.  Then I have to watch any related episodes too.  It really is a lot of hard work. 

Watching the episodes of the Clone Wars in this way can be a lot of fun, but it can also lead to quite a bit of work.  In last night’s episode (season 04, episode 14) titled “A Friend in Need” the show re-introduced us to a group called “Death Watch”.  I enjoyed the episode, but I wanted to refresh my memory about this group.  That “required” me to re-watch the episodes from season 02 when we were first introduced to them (S02E12 “The Madnalore Plot”).

In this episode, Obi-Wan Kenobi  arrives on the Planet Mandolore to investigate rumors that the Duchess Satine is secretly building her own army to fight for the Separatist cause.  Satine explains to Obi-Wan that she is not involved, and as they are walking in the gardens, there is an explosion, and the symbol of Death Watch appears claiming responsibility.  An observer from the crowd flees the scene and Obi-Wan gives chase, but the man jumps to his death.

The leader of Death Watch is seen communicating with Count Dooku and expressing his concern of the Jedi interference.  Dooku tells him not to be concerned because the people will rebel against this outside involvement and will rally to support Death Watch.

Well, apparently, Count Dooku was correct.  In the top part of image below, you can see the man who ran from the scene of the bombing.  Note the woman to his left shocked by the scene.  Well, in last night’s episode, we see some of the members of Death Watch with their helmets off, and this woman from the crowd is with them, and is now sporting a scar.  So there’s more to her story.  How did she come to join this group?  Where did her scar come from? Or maybe, the animation studio simply reached into their library of characters and they just reused an old 3D model. 

This new shadow box commission is on it’s way to Australia.  I had a great time putting it together and right in the middle of it’s production I came up with an idea for a NEW ShadowBox. Perhaps I’ll unveil it soon…. and as always, am thankful and grateful that there are fans of my artwork out there.  You too can commission a shadow box or some other original art work from my online store.

I just saw an exciting email from the Star Wars Shop! If any of you out there may still have some holiday shopping to do, you can take advantage of StarWarsShop’s new “Top 10″ category, featuring some of their best selling and most giftable items. Among the items listed is *ahem* the Slave Leia apron that I DESIGNED! SO, for a limited time you can buy one item in the “Top 10″ category and receive $5.00 off each additional “Top 10″ item in your order. The discount will be applied in Step 4 of the checkout process. Offer ends December 31, 2010.

I’m also thrilled to discover that the apron was included in a few of the gift baskets that were sent out by Lucasfilm.  Felica Day posted this photo to twitter expressing her thanks for the gifts and said, “Thanks for the box of goodies! Best apron ever!!”

This new shadow box commission could be a companion piece to the Falcon Cockpit commission I did last year!  I had a great time putting it together and as always, am thankful and grateful that there are fans of my artwork out there.  You too can commission a shadow box or some other original art work from my online store.

Tonight is the special advanced theatrical screening of the next 3 episodes of the Clone Wars.  This new story should give us a little more information about Asajj Ventress’ backstory as well as introduce us to Darth Maul’s brother Savage Oppress.  The video below is a short introduction of Savage Oppress.

While I’m not opposed to introducing new characters into the Star Wars story line, it does seem to be a bit odd that this new character happens to be the brother of the big bad guy from Star Wars episode I.  Another thing that I find interesting is the way that this new character seems to be bringing some new powers with him.  Powers that have not been seen yet in Star Wars.  This leads into a discussion about what is a “real” Canonized Star Wars story and what is simply the interpretation of a creator working outside the Star Wars universe.

I really enjoy seeing bits and pieces of stories considered to be outside of the “official” Star Wars universe finding they’re way into Star Wars the Clone Wars (there by validating them).  I’m expecting that tonight’s special showing of the Clone Wars will allude to part of Asajj Ventress’ story as told by Genndy Tartakovsky in the original Clone Wars animated series.  I’m equally excited to see Savage Oppress use some of the force powers as displayed in one of my video games “The Force Unleashed” as you can see in the video below.

Next we’ll have to discuss what it is that gives Savage Oppress and Starkiller such super force powers.

I love that books are getting the full blown media treatment.  It makes sense that if you’re going to put the time and effort and money into a project, that you would work to create all sorts of support material.  Just because books are a low-tech entertainment medium, doesn’t mean that they can’t have a high-tech marketing campaign.  If you’ve got a story that you want the world to know about, the best thing to do is to create a shareable media package like a video or a wallpaper, or print image, and then put it on the net.  Remember the awesome Missle Mouse Comic?  So with that said, I’m doing my part to promote a project that I think is pretty cool (and not JUST because it reminds me of the fantastic shadow boxes that I make).  Go and check out the video trailer promoting the new Millennium Falcon book from Scholastic. It was written by Ryder Windham and includes art by Chris Trevas and Chris Reiff and the video features the Keeper of the Holocron himself, Leland Chee.

And while we’re on the subject, you should also check out this video for the Jedi Path by Dan Wallace and Illustrated by Jeff Carlisle, Chris Reiff, and Chris Trevas.

Last July, right before the San Diego Comic-Con, the BBQ aprons that I designed for the Star Wars Shop went up for pre-sale.  For those you you who may not be familiar with the Comic-Con, over 120,000 people show up to talk about, look at, and buy all sorts of pop culture, comic book, and movie merchandise.  It has become THE place to launch movie, comic, and tv news and get LOTS of attention.  So with that in mind, I started to devise a scheme to bring lots of attention to the aprons that I designed.  I started by contacting the head of a website called Leia’s Metal Bikini.  Every year at these conventions, Jamin the Slave Master gathers together his princess Leia’s for a gigantic photo shot.  I got things all timed out, and was able to get the prototype of the Leia BBQ apron and I crashed the photo shoot!

Sitting in the middle of these girls with all the camera flashes going off was a bit surreal (and a little awkward).  I think that this made for a pretty good launch for the product.  Here are 2 more photos shot by Nicole Love from Lucasfilm and found in their flickr gallery.  You’ll also notice that the apron is being modeled by Adrianne Curry, the winner of America’s Next Top Model.  (she’s a HUGE Star Wars nerd!).  You can see a poor quality video that I shot from the event here.

Well the news of this apron design has hit the internets like a storm over the past few months.  Just do a search for “Slave Leia Apron” so see all the results!  Most recently it was announced that the aprons would be available through the SkyMall magazine as well as from the Star Wars Shop, and then the products were highlighted on the G4 in the video below. It’s pretty exciting to be part of a project that has gotten this attention, AND it makes a wonderful last minute, quick and comfortable Halloween costume!

Here are a few of the sketches and commissions that I have recently completed.

We are in the thick of birthday season at out house, so that means lots of birthday cake.  My wife recently took a cake decorating class AND we’ve been watching the first season of Cake Boss on Netflicks streaming, so we decided to team up and tackle a cake.  By some strange coincidence, my kids have become fans of Star Wars.  So we decided to make a cake of Clone Captain Rex’s Helmet.

We started by looking at the overall height and size of the helmet and discovered that we didn’t have any cake pans that would work.

My wife came upon the idea of using one of the #10 cans from our food storage to bake the cake.  The can is about 6″ in diameter by 7″ tall, and it worked pretty good to put a whole cake mix in.

She greased the inside of the can and then coated it with flour to help it release from the can after it was completely cooled.  One of the problems was that the cake took awhile to bake because it was so thick.

This made the cake come out pretty dense, but that helped with the carving.  She used a cake leveler to slice the cake into the 5 layers we needed and then staked them with chocolate frosting in-between each layer.  Then I carved out the basic dome of the helmet.

I wasn’t thinking about documenting this whole build until after the fact, so I’m sorry that I don’t have more photos in this section.  My wife smoothed the cake with the butter cream frosting and then rolled out a layer of fondant to cover it.  She colored some of fondant blue and yellow, then we bought the black fondant.  I cut out the visor shape while she cut strips of fondant and I put them on the cake.

It turned out pretty good for our first attempt at this cake sculpture stuff.  Even if the thing looked terrible, you can still eat it!

And the boy loved it!  :D

I have ordered the ESB “Lethal - STAYOUT!” shirts that will be shipped to the convention.  Come by exhibitor’s booth #337 to pick one up.  I will only have the the white t-shirt in the following sizes and quantities.

MEDIUM x 10
LARGE x 10
X-LARGE x 10
2X-LARGE x 10
4X-LARGE x 4

Lethal Stayout by starwars_spencerbShop the t-shirts section of zazzle

In addition to this new design, the following “Han Shot First” design has also been approved.  Take a moment to edit the t-shirt and move the design around so that you can get creative and add the line, “and he’s sorry about the mess”.  :D

Han Shot 1st by starwars_spencerb
See other Hans solo T-Shirts