Over the decades of Star Wars publishing, many artists have captured the characters, depth and emotion of the saga through striking works depicting key events or personas. A lucky few have been invited back time and again, adding new pieces to their Star Wars portfolio because their work so perfectly captures the spirit of space fantasy. Such is the case with illustrator Tommy Lee Edwards.

His cover and interior illustrations have so far depicted all the major players of the saga, but there are still a few on his wish list he has yet to touch. "I'd really like to do something on Hoth," he admits. "Something with the tauntauns, snowspeeders, snowtroopers and the walkers. I always used to draw that stuff when I was a kid, and I loved all of Joe Johnston's designs for the speeders, and the costumes were so great."

Edwards has been illustrating professionally for about ten years, but Star Wars has been part of his sketches since he was a child. "I was four when the first Star Wars came out. I would always draw Star Wars when I was a kid and staple pieces of paper together and make Star Wars books. It was one of the first things that really got me drawing. I'd do my little adaptation of the movie, and create my own stories too. I remember doing one where Artoo fought Darth Vader."

Edwards says he always knew he wanted to be an artist that tells stories through illustration. "I've never really been that interested in advertisting art, but I've always loved comic books and movies and animation," he says. "I was lucky enough when I was a kid to have good teachers and have some great private schooling by an illustrator named Ed Hubert, who helped solidify what I wanted to do for a living." After graduating high school in Michigan, Edwards moved to Los Angeles and attended the Art Center College of Design, studying illustration and film.

Getting a start in the comics industry, Edwards tried to get work from Dark Horse Comics illustrating Star Wars. Circumstances, however, dictated that he would have to wait a while. "It was frustrating, but two years later my friend and neighbor John Van Fleet, who has done some Star Wars stuff in the past, was talking with Random House about painting a Darth Maul book," recalls Edwards. "Deadlines couldn't allow it for him. I got the Art Director's name and emailed him some stuff and I got the job."

That project was Darth Maul's Revenge, a Step 3 Young Reader book by Eric Arnold with cover art by John Van Fleet. "It was fun. There are about 30 ink drawings colored in Photoshop. I was really wanting to do another one after that. When Lucasfilm and Random House asked me to do one for Episode II, I wanted to paint it, because I thought it would be fun. Boy, it was a lot of work to fit into just a few months."

Edwards' second young reader book was Anakin: Apprentice, written by Marc Cerasini and also published by Random House. The story of young Anakin's exploits allowed Edwards to explore new locales and develop new designs as called for in the manuscript.

"There were certain things in the story that I was waiting for the reference art, then I learned that there was no reference," says Edwards. "Like Anakin's bedroom; Lucasfilm said there is no reference, so just make it up. On one hand, I was really excited for the creative freedom. On the other hand, I was terrified because I'm looking at the calendar and at my deadline. But the fact that I could come up with something, and now it's part of the Star Wars universe is pretty fun. There's this scene where Anakin's flying in a race, and he has these wing things on his back. It reminded me of a lot of the film projects I worked on as a conceptual designer and as a storyboard artist, because the most fun part of those jobs is working from a script where not much if anything has been designed already."