While some fans attend conventions for the latest comics, toys or movie news, others go with hopes of landing a dream job as a licensed artist for Lucasfilm. As the Art Director at Lucas Licensing for almost 12 years, Troy Alders coordinates, art directs and designs the Star Wars Style Guides for the licensed merchandise as well as any other visual/graphic needs by the licensing division.

Many of these designs are created with the help of a talented pool of freelance artists and designers that reside all over the world. To keep the styles and designs fresh and unique, Alders travels to conventions such as WonderCon and Comic-Con International (as well as art schools such as The Academy of Art University in San Francisco) to meet with new artists to look at their portfolios. With these meetings, Alders can determine if an artist would be perfect for an upcoming Lucas Licensing project.

"I review portfolios at WonderCon and Comic-Con because they are thriving with creative individuals that understand our genre and they are passionate about it," Alders says. "In doing so, my goal is to identify talented visual artists that I may want to add to my pool of talent. In some cases, I try them out on a project."

One such case happened to a lucky artist from Bogota, Columbia who showed Alders his work at WonderCon a few years ago. "His name is Felipe Machado and he is an illustrator, graphic designer and musician," Alders recalls. "He had a portfolio with photo collage illustrations and some logo designs that went with them. He also had artwork that he'd created for his band that had such an evil look and was well executed. The illustration, photography and typography all had a very edgy feeling to it. The music this art was representing was death metal; when I saw it I immediately thought about how this was a great look to represent Episode III. We talked for a little while and later I contacted him to do some collage illustrations and some logo/emblem designs. His artwork has since been used on a number of items from T-shirts, trading card tins, iPod covers, book covers just to name a few, and more recently it has been used as the key art for posters and an exhibition catalog for the Art of Star Wars in Japan and Singapore." To see some of Machado's work, visit his website here.

However, before anxious artists show up with their portfolios in hand, eager to be the next new discovery for Lucas Licensing, Alders has a few suggestions to help them standout in a crowd of talented hopefuls. "A good portfolio should have no more than 12 to 15 of their best pieces of work with 8.5" x 11" or 11" x 17" print-outs being the best size," Alders says. "Please no slides or transparencies; however spiral bound or loose prints are fine. And preferably no prints behind those pesky reflecting plastic portfolio pages; it makes it very difficult to really see the work. A resume is helpful too so I can understand what you have done and what training and work experience you have had, if any."

When gathering materials for a portfolio, Alders stresses that presentation is just as important as the art itself. "What frustrates me the most are sloppy portfolios. I mean, it's a presentation, it can't be sloppy," Alders says. "It's also frustrating to see too many things in the portfolio and of way too many different styles. It should be concise and focused."

What Alders is looking for in a new artist's portfolio might surprise some fans. "I am always looking for art that is not just traditional illustration -- something that is dynamic, unique and impactful and feels new and fresh," Alders says. "It could be cartoon drawings, logo designs (icons/symbols/emblems), photo collage art, or art that shows strong design skills. The use of typography is always helpful. Illustrations and paintings that incorporate photography digitally are wonderful. The combination of art techniques with the photography can really inject life into images that we may have used many times previously, and the use of photography really does bring it back home to the fact that these are live action films we are representing."

"That is not to say that I don't want to see any traditional illustration," continues Alders. "If there are dynamic comic drawings or paintings that are great poses of characters and scenes, colored beautifully, designed well and actually showing a really good likeness of a real life person, I would take notice."

Artists looking to impress Alders don't necessarily need to make all their work a tribute to Darth Vader. "There really are no bonus points for someone who makes it full of Star Wars. If they have one or two that is fine. But I'd rather see a variety of content. I am very into ideas and concepts, not just things that are visually arresting, but things that have an idea behind them. This too puts you far ahead of the rest if you are a thinker, an idea person. Why is that like that? Is there a reason? Not just because you think it looks good, but it's a visual solution that makes you think and makes sense for why it is a certain way. If you practice working that way, the problem itself will dictate the solution. It takes time to really understand this and practice it."