Star Wars Galaxy 4 Sketch Cards Q&A with Jason Atomic

TRE goes in-depth with Jason Atomic on his involvement and creation of artwork for the Die-Cut shaped cards from the Star Wars Galaxy 4Trading Card series by TOPPS, as well as some news on his LP-sized enlarged Shaped-Cards, and about that childhood encounter with "Darth Vader"...

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TOYSREVIL: WHO is Jason Atomic?

JASON ATOMIC: I'm a London based artist.
My work is mainly derived from live sketching then rendered in oils or acrylics on canvas or board.
Recent works include my "Favourite Artists" series of paintings, for which I was lucky enough to persuade some amazing artists to pose for me including, Sucklord, Rockin'JellyBeam, Rammellzee, Junko Mizuno & Go Nagai.

I also make (and collect) customised dolls, masks and costumes, I design for Tokyo fashion house Milkboy & Yes!Future! in London & perform live with the demonic pop group "Fist Fuck Deluxe".

@ www.jasonatomic.co.uk
@ www.myspace.com/jasonatomic
@ www.youtube.com/misterAtomic


TOYSREVIL: WHAT was the inspiration behind your sketches? What was the concept you had wanted to portray?

JASON ATOMIC: Well as I aways like to work from life I didn't want to draw using reference photographs. However, doing life drawings of the Star Wars Galaxy characters didn't seem like a very realistic proposition, until I remembered my collection of vintage Star Wars figures.

Last summer I did a live sketching event at the National portrait Gallery in London where I attempted to set a World land-speed record for portraiture. I thought it'd be fun to do a miniature version of this event getting out all my old Palitoy (Kenner's UK licencee) SW figures lining them up and sketching their portraits on the blank cards.


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?

JASON ATOMIC: I started out sketching in ball-point pen directly onto the cards, I averaged less than a minute of each character (about the same as it'd take me to do a full sized person). Once I'd sketched out all the outlines I laid the cards on a big board and did the painting in acrylic paint.

I splashed and spattered the cards almost at random before returning to each one and filling in block colours, and adding outlines with a thin brush. This was the longest part of the job and I spent a couple of days working into them.

I'm pretty happy with how they came out in the end, I did 100 (plus 6 'returns') it was quite hard to pack them all up and send them back to Topps.


TOYSREVIL: With all the individual portraits you've created for this series - any particular favourites?

JASON ATOMIC: I had lots of favourites, The ewoks surprised me.

I never liked them in the movie the idea of Teddy Bears beating up Imperial Stormtroopers deeply offended me at the time. While studying them under further scrutiny for this job I finally came to like them and 2 in particular were really "sketchagenic".

The droids were a joy, the way their technical designs became warped by my loose drawing style amused me greatly. I can just imagine someine finding my Ig-88 head or "Power droid" and thinking WTF!

I was really happy with the Tuan Taun paintings I did, for some reason they seemed to have a Jack Kirby vibe but my overall favourites were my renditions of Greedo. I love that toy, for some obscure reason I have a real fetish for green plastic and although his costume is nothing like the one in the film I don't care, there's just something really special about it.

Sketching Greedo he started to look like some reptillian giraffe, it was weird like seeing him for the first time.


TOYSREVIL: I see you've begun on a series of oversized reproductions of the cards - What's the story on that?

JASON ATOMIC: Yeah, working at that microscopic scale, and on cardboard made, it so that I was unable to really achieve the painting techniques of paint spatters, washes and layers of varnish that I'm used to employing in my larger scale works.

I thought it'd be fun to make giant-size versions of some of my favourite cards. I'm working from the same line drawings that I sketched from the Kenner figures but really working into them at the colour stage to give more depth and vibrancy.

I know a guy who works in a carpentry shop & we knocked up some LP sized versions of the "helmet cards". I've got 10 of each shape that I'm painting up at the moment it's just a bit of fun really but if anyone's interested they can follow developments on my flickr page.


TOYSREVIL: Sweetness! What is the Best and Worst memory of Star Wars you have?

JASON ATOMIC: Just seeing the original Star Wars movie blew me away, that first scene will forever be burned into my mind.

The rebel blockade runner seemed like the biggest spaceship I'd ever seen in a movie, yeah, for about 5 seconds. Then that unimaginably big star Destroyer came thundering in behind it, people around me in the cinema audibly gasped in awe. I saw that film time and time again, we used to run to the cinema after school, watch it then hide behind the seats and watch the second showing too.

I guess my best and worst Star Wars memory though was meeting Darth Vader.

It was the summer of 1978 and I was still young enough to be disappointed that it was the actor who turned up to that village fete as opposed to the dark Lord of the Sith. I know I was an ungrateful brat but in the UK we already knew Dave Prowse better as "The Green Cross Code Man".

Still he graciously signed autographs, I got one on a Topps SW card and you could just about make it out in my hand on the front cover of our local newspaper the "East Grinstead Courier" after mr Prowse hoisted me into the air above his head for a photo call. My jealous pals wasted no time in informing me that it looked as if he had me by the balls!

TOYSREVIL: You teh "manhandled" by a Sithlord LOL - thanks for sharing that memory, Jason! And in closing - if you could be a Star Wars character (from the 6 movies) - Who will you be, and Why?

JASON ATOMIC: I have to say Greedo.

I love his spiny mohawk fin, his bug eyes, his creepy tapir-like mouth, pointy ears and his suction cup fingers

I've always liked Greedo best and became especially obsessed after I saw full-length photos of him (played by Maria De Aragon) wearing high heels. How cool is that?, a blaster toting, bounty hunting, lizard-man, space transvestite!