One of the highlights for employees of the various Lucasfilm companies is Industrial Light & Magic's annual Halloween Party, an event traditionally announced by the arrival of an invitation created in-house by an ILM artist. This year's invite, created by ILM designer Harrison Parker, depicts Princess Leia as a vampire in the style of the old pulp magazine covers of the 1940s and '50s.
Harrison says that he was inspired by the legacy of ILM Halloween invitations of the past, which often take a whimsical spin on a Star Wars or Lucasfilm-related character.
"I knew I wanted a '50s - '60s look," says Parker. "Kinda literary, kinda sci-fi. I bought a bunch of paperbacks, pulling a little something from each. A lot of the early pulps were sci-fi or fantasy-driven, so it seemed like a natural fit to use one as the canvas for 'Leia Vamp'."
To render the fanged Princess, Parker drew a pencil sketch which he scanned and painted in Painter. He also added scrapes and folds to the artwork to mimic the look of a well-read pulp magazine.
Parker admits "Leia Vamp" wasn't the first concept he'd pitched for the invite -- there were actually two others that didn't get picked. "There was a headstone with 'ILM Halloween Party' etched into it," he says. "The other was a sheet of costumes from previous Halloween parties made to look like paper dolls you cut out. The headline was 'What shall you be?'"
"Leia Vamp" won out though, and for obvious reasons -- how can you beat a princess with buns and bite?
