“Even though I know not everyone will keep their badges, I hope those that do will treasure the souvenir and the effort that I (and Celebration for commissioning me in the first place) put in to make them special.In Star Wars: Shatterpoint, iconic characters from across the galaxy clash in this new miniatures skirmish game. Zhang was told that longtime Ahsoka Tano storyteller Dave Filoni 'personally approved of the Ahsoka piece, and that’s always lovely to hear.”įor now, Zhang is just excited for fans to get their badges. Though she can’t pick a favorite piece from the bunch, one moment sticks out during the review process. She also occasionally used a program called Rebelle by Escape Motions. For this project, Zhang worked in Photoshop on a Wacom Cintiq tablet, and did early sketches with an Apple Pencil in Procreate. I did a lot of traditional painting back in the early years of my career and in school, and those skills have transferred when I switched to full-time digital painting,” she says. “The style just comes from many years of me messing around with brushes that imitate traditional media and overlaying a variety of digital textures and effects. Zhang’s Star Wars Celebration art is in the style of traditional oil paintings, but created through modern techniques. “I wanted to do something unique to ‘link’ the set together, like an Easter egg for those collectors!” “I knew that Celebration has had a long tradition of commissioning a single illustrator to create the art on each badge, and that many collect the badges,” Zhang says. There are a staggering 19 in total, all designed to fit together like a puzzle. The portraits cover the Star Wars spectrum, with subjects including everyone from Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano, to Star Wars: Return of the Jedi-era Luke Skywalker, to a defeated Darth Vader from Obi-Wan Kenobi. “So, it was exciting for me to take this on, and I really wanted to do a memorable job.” “Well, it has absolutely been a huge honor! I have never been to a Celebration, but when I was first approached and researched the history of Celebration badges, I was immediately inspired - not to mention, portraits are my favorite illustration subject,” she tells. Zhang, the digital artist behind Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023’s badge paintings - a beautiful collection of character portraits that is excited to reveal. Being part of that tradition is especially meaningful for Alice X. That’s because Lucasfilm has made it a tradition to commission artists to create original badge art for Star Wars Celebration, adding a little galactic flair to something that, at most conventions, is little more than an afterthought. One of the best Star Wars Celebration souvenirs has always been the very item that gets you inside: the badge. The popular artist discusses the original character portraits created for Lucasfilm’s official fan event.

Star wars scenery painter