As a child equipped with colored pens and pencils, paper and a creative drive to draw portraits of everything from her favorite cartoon characters to British pop stars, Texas-based Star Wars artist Cat Staggs knew she always wanted to be an artist.

"It was the only thing I knew I could do," Staggs laughs. "I would draw constantly. I grew up wanting to draw for Disney, Warner Brothers, or even Hanna-Barbera. I was drawing all the time -- anything I could get my hand on. I would draw portraits for my friends of their favorite pop stars like the guys from Duran Duran. And I loved to draw my favorite cartoons from Bugs Bunny to Super Friends!"

However, after viewing A New Hope for the first time, it seemed Staggs' artistic muse would drastically shift from caped crime fighters and a rascally rabbit to the Jedi and Sith characters she'd quickly grown to love.

"I became a Star Wars fan the second that Star Destroyer flew over my head at five years old in the theater, and I have never looked back," Staggs recalls. "I remember looking up at my mom and we had the same expression -- eyes popping out and mouth wide open."

The young artist was so impressed with Star Wars that she began to make her own hand-drawn movies, recreating her favorite battle scenes.

"I used to make little shoebox movies with my friends," Staggs says. "We draw a series of pictures from a scene in Star Wars, like the Hoth battle. Then tape them all together and attach each end to a pencil them pull them through a hole in a shoebox. We did that a lot. I think at one time we had all the major battle scenes for Star Wars."

Throughout her adolescence and young adulthood, Staggs kept polishing her artistic style and talent. Majoring in Fine Art at the University of Texas San Antonio, she earned her Bachelor's degree in Portrait Painting and Drawing. After college, Staggs worked as a T-shirt artist at the theme park Fiesta Texas airbrushing everything from hearts to beach scenes. A few years later, Staggs found herself working as the District Visual Merchandiser for Sam Goody/Suncoast in San Antonio.

"I was in charge of the visual merchandising," Staggs recalls. "I would either make up or recreate the movie posters and album covers for upcoming releases. I also worked with the promotional materials they provided."

For eight years, Staggs created record and movie posters, always dreaming of a chance to break out and create her own original art for her favorite film saga -- Star Wars. But it wasn't until she took a chance and went to a few conventions that her talent was soon to be noticed by the one man all artists can't wait to meet.

"Going to convention after convention and getting rejection after rejection, finally paid off last year in Chicago," Staggs says. "When I met Steve Sansweet [Head of Fan Relations at Lucasfilm] I got up the courage to give him a portfolio, and he was kind enough to take it back with him to Lucas Land. Then a few months later I received and email from Topps Cards, asking if I would be interested in drawing some of the Revenge of the Sith sketch cards. Thus began my professional career."

Many fans that collect the Topps Artist Sketch Cards may recognize Staggs' uniquely realistic style from her portraits of such characters as Darth Vader, General Grievous, Chewbacca, Yoda and her favorite Jedi -- Obi-Wan Kenobi.

"I have always had a soft spot for Obi-Wan in any form -- prequel or original trilogy, but more so in the prequels for his role in the arc of the story," Staggs confesses. "He is the tragic hero."