Star Wars Artist Series: Tim Bradstreet

For more than a decade, the artistry of Tim Bradstreet has graced the covers of several Star Wars comics and even a recent issue of Star Wars Insider. He's created memorable portraits of Expanded Universe character Taggor Bren and Boba Fett for a Dark Horse one-shot comic, and defined the look of cult figure Baron Fel -- ace fighter pilot of the Imperial Navy introduced in the X-wing Rogue Squadron comic series.

Like most young people who encountered Star Wars for the first time in 1977, the experience left a lasting impression on the budding artist. "I was in sixth grade when I saw Star Wars in '77," says Bradstreet, "and I drew Star Wars stuff all over notebooks, sketchpads, anything I could draw on. The material was incredibly inspiring to me and I know of hundreds of other illustrators that would say the same. The things that really captured me were the stormtroopers, the Sand People, the ships, the landspeeders, the aliens, Darth Vader...the list goes on. No one had seen anything like it and for an impressionable young, aspiring artist like me it was perfect fodder for taking up every square inch of my spare time doodling all the characters and hardware. When I got an opportunity to illustrate that stuff professionally it was literally a dream come true."

After some shared illustration work for West End Games in the late '80s, Bradstreet's first real break into the Star Wars universe came in 1993 when he was called on to contribute a piece of Star Wars artwork for Topps' Star Wars Galaxy 2 trading card series. "At the time what I'd planned to do was show a Tusken Raider with his headgear/hood removed so you could see what their faces looked like. The editor loved the idea because they were looking for concepts off the beaten path. I was halfway done with it when my editor called one day and informed me that the concept was a 'no go' -- Lucasfilm decided they wanted the Sand People to remain mysterious, and I really couldn't argue with that logic. I was able to salvage the whole thing by coming up with an alternative concept -- the character would be a bounty hunter indigenous to Tatooine, which explained his look with the respirator, robes, tribal tattoos, etc." Star Wars Galaxy Magazine, which was published by Topps, took the illustration one step further by giving the character a full back story and a name: Taggor Bren.