"I love to draw clone troopers!" Woodside says. "Their weaponry and armor is truly excellent. I love putting together a drawing of a bunch of clones advancing. You get to draw action poses and reaction poses, blown-up backgrounds, huge war machines and crunched up droids. I think the vastness and details of the clone armies is what attracts me the most."
"I got involved with Topps because of the kindness of Lucasfilm's Mary Franklin and Steve Sansweet," Woodside says. "They liked my work and sent some of it over to Topps. Next thing I knew I wasn't sleeping for a week so I could draw as many cards as possible. I was one of the later artists added and only had two or three weeks to work on the cards. Never has sleep deprivation been so much fun!"
Woodside began, as many Star Wars illustrators do, developing his skills by drawing endless fan art and entering art contests -- which led to his first published piece -- an original comic strip featured in a local Kansan newspaper. Later, he went on to self-publish his own illustrated novels Terra and Warmonger Alpha. Woodside also keeps his work varied with graphic design projects for clients ranging from corporate businesses to rock bands.
Woodside combined his love for art with another passion that began early on in his young adulthood -- with sometimes painful results. "I don't recall a time without Star Wars," Woodside smiles. "It has always been there. The earliest thing I can remember that relates to Star Wars has to do with getting swollen knuckles and a split lip. All the kids in the neighborhood would get broomsticks and we would use them for lightsaber duels. This memory sticks out because of the physical injuries that happened during these play sessions. But of course, I was back out there the next day, and the next and the next. To this day I go out every Sunday and fight, but now we have moved onto bamboo training swords and we are smart enough to use hockey gloves and fencing masks. Every time I see a modern plastic lightsaber I rub my knuckles and think, why didn't I have one of those?"
Injuries aside, Woodside explains that his artwork has always had a storytelling element to it, just like the Star Wars saga was more than a series of spectacular action films. "I have always been influenced by Star Wars," Woodside says. "I have always made up stories to go with my drawings. Eventually, I started making these simple background notes into full stories. This quickly evolved from short stories into mapping out whole worlds with far-ranging plots. With its infinite background details and subplots I have always been fascinated by Star Wars. There is a reason and explanation for everything, even the waste disposal of the mountains of garbage on Coruscant! George Lucas, and all the contributors to the Star Wars universe, have been my continued influence since childhood. Thus, when I finish an illustrated novel or comic it is a fully immersive world."
