Star Wars, the Force Awakens opened this past weekend with a flurry. Topping the box office opening weekend record! It makes me feel like a kid again to have the original cast back in this highly anticipated sequel.

We are four days away from Christmas and over a week away from the end of the  year. It is amazing how quickly it all went. Now is the time for seeing family and friends, wrapping up those last minute gifts and having a fond remembrance of times past.

This time of  year I love watching some of my fondest Christmas movies. My all time favorite is Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life!” This movie always gets me. It’s shows so expertly the people’s lives you’ve touched and how they’ve touched yours. A big thanks and yuletide cheer to everyone that I have been lucky enough to know over the years.

Have a very Merry Christmas!! Happy Holidays!

With everything Star Wars gaining attention with the highly anticipated new movie to come out later this month, I’ve wanted to try doing something Star Wars related. I’ve had an idea for doing portraits of the Star Wars Rebels show for sometime now. If you haven’t watched the show, you should. It takes place 5 years before Star Wars: New Hope and has become a great bridge between the prequels (including the animated Clone Wars series) and the original trilogy.

It’s cast of characters are: Hera, pilot of the Ghost; Kanan, a Jedi-padawan survivor; Zeb, the muscle; Ezra, a force sensitive youth; and Sabine, Mandolorian graffetti artist/ex-bounty hunter and their droid, C1-10P (Chopper).

For the first portrait I chose Hera.

Here’s some quick thumbnails.

I drew a sketch to flesh out the idea in my toned sketchbook. Scanned it in to paint in Photoshop. Converted the sketch to a greyscale image. I then became to paint her local color, loose shadows and highlights. Here’s the basic underpainting for the painting.

Now back to finishing the painting.