Star Wars Galaxy 4 Sketch Cards Q&A with Spooky-Booty
By day, Natalie To is an art director, designer, animator, illustrator, compositor and dance machine. But by night, she dons her supervillain mask and takes on the persona of SPOOKY-BOOTY! And she has lent her talent in providing artwork for the Star Wars Galaxy 4 Die-Cut trading cards by TOPPS [TAGGED]. TRE gets behind the mask and gets down to the making of her interpretations of Lord Vader and his Storm Trooper![CLICK THRU TO READ]
TOYSREVIL: WHO is Spooky Booty?
SPOOKY-BOOTY: Spooky Booty and the Spooky Booty action figure are the Sucklord's invention. She is Vectar the Intolerable's wife and is occasionally seen with the Sucklord. I didn't want to do the figure at first. After a while I thought would be good to make the figure if I could leverage out some 10 salsa dancing classes with the Sucklord. Needless to say that Spooky Booty is still around and the salsa classes are ancient history. It turns out that dressing up as Spooky Booty is one of the most fun things to do. Besides, not many can claim they have their own action figure. The opportunity to do the Sketch Cards was through straight up nepotism if you couldn't tell.
TOYSREVIL: WHAT was the inspiration behind your sketches? What was the concept you had wanted to portray?
NATALIE TO: I was inspired by a painting done of Darth Vader by the Brothers Hildebrandt. I really liked the combination of colors they used, so that's where I started. As I created the cards, I slowly brought in other colors. People don't particularly know who I am and there's no style that people would expect from me, so I kept the sketches true to Star Wars.
TOYSREVIL: What was the medium you used? And how long did they take? Are you happy with the result? How many cards did you do?
NATALIE TO: I did 53 Vaders and 53 Troopers. I didn't have time really to illustrate and draw like so many of the other much more talented artists. I had gotten my cards late and and decided speed up the illustration process by using some custom rubber stamps that I carved by hand. In addition, I gathered by my amazing collection of iridescent inkpads in every color; the ink will stick to anything, even vellum. I primed the cards with spray paint, then began stamping the cards.
The texture of the ink really varied as I over inked and under inked the cards. Excluding the primer, each card probably has between 3-5 passes of ink.
TOYSREVIL: How was the experience being involved and executing this project?
NATALIE TO: As a designer, it's pretty rare when you have an opportunity to do some 50 iterations of the same design. Instead of getting redundant, it grew to be an exciting challenge to make each card unique and better than the last. I love all of them and went back to each one several times for touch ups.
TOYSREVIL: What is the Best and Worst memory of Star Wars you have?
NATALIE TO: I was born in 1977 so I was too young to watch and understand any of the Star Wars movies in the theater. In addition, cartoons were my entertainment of choice; I refused to watch any live action movies until I was about 6 or 7. Return of the Jedi really struck a chord with me because I really connected with the Ewoks. They were cute but strong and smart, so I really identified with them and thought of them as my friends. The Ewok village, with all its networking treetops and naturalistic innovations, was far and above my favorite part. I was such a tomboy growing up and loved climbing trees and playing outside. I wanted to live there with them there in that world. I wanted a tree house so bad after that.
TOYSREVIL: If you could be a Star Wars character (from the 6 movies) - who will you be, and why?
NATALIE TO: I would be Jaba the Hutt. hehe. It would be great to be fat, eat all these weird things and speak a funny language. Plus I'd have Princess Leia on a chain. How awesome!
TOYSREVIL: You had me at "Leia on a chain" LOL
