By Pete Vilmur
For fans who have collected any number of Star Wars toys, board games, or posters over the last decade, the artwork of artist Clark Mitchell should be quite familiar. Haven't heard of him? That's because illustrations created by him and a team of other artists for products like Hasbro's Unleashed figures, Star Wars Statego, the Episode III Basic Figures pack, and scores of others are often printed without any artist attribution, leaving their contributions quietly anonymous.
"I think my turning point as a Star Wars illustrator was the success of the Boba Fett painting which was done for a re-designed package line called Unleashed," explains Mitchell. "We had a great team of hands working to make the packaging special for Hasbro, Star Wars, and the fans. It took a great effort between 4g Squared and Ken Lashley of Draxhall Jump, who created some awesome pencil work for that line look."
Mitchell describes the general technique he used for Hasbro's Unleashed and other Star Wars lines:
"With the demands of time, and flexibility for the clients, I have to do most of my work on the computer in Photoshop and Painter. I still do a lot of my pencils traditionally, then scan them in and paint them digitally. I also do pencils in Painter and in Photoshop and try to match the feel of traditional pencils as much as I can. The Star Wars Unleashed series, along with many of the other lines of Hasbro packaging for Star Wars, became a very intense and streamlined process. We had to get several people involved because of the deadline demands and volume of the work that had to be done to accommodate print schedules. We were so saturated with [design and finished illustration] that Hasbro called Ken Lashley over at Draxhall Jump to help on the pencil work to make the process faster and more efficient."
Another highly visible piece of Star Wars artwork created by Mitchell and crew was the Episode III "Vader in lava" graphic that bannered nearly every piece of Revenge of the Sith merchandise, including Hasbro's Basic Figure packs. This artwork was again created by several hands, with Mitchell devising the painting style, technique and finish.
