MICRONAUTS 77 (Star Wars 52 cover redo)

This one has been percolating for a LONG time.

I've always been a big admirer of Simonson's epic cover for Star Wars 52, and have long recognized it would be a prime candidate for one of my MICROscope commissions. But I've also been aware that it would take a very particular personality to tackle it; the level of fussy mechanical detail I had in mind would probably test the patience of many artists.

Soooo... I decided to lay it out myself. The plan was to mash up elements of SW52 with Golden's Micros 22. I confess to using Photoshop to get the proportions and angles correct, and once printed, transferred them to blueline with a lightbox.

Glancing at my old Photoshop files, it turns out I started this puppy... in 2014. It was slow going, partly because of some unforeseen health challenges (since handled), and partly because of the difficulties banging the composition into shape.

As translated, the Karza figure just didn't have the same emotional jolt that the original Vader did. After multiple attempts to correct the composition, the source of the problem became apparent. Vader dominates the original composition because Simonson drew him bumping up against the books logo, making the figure seem to fill the cover like a large man in a tiny room. The slimmer Micros logo removes that option from my piece, and the Baron just seems to be... hanging in space. For some reason. The piece needed him to be the 'metaphorical' threat that the Vader figure is in the original.

After several tries at fixes, placing the action of the cover in different locales of the Microverse, I finally settled on Homeworld, and opting to have the Karza figure emerging from the starry background. You can follow along with my exploration in the secondary images below.

Original Micronauts inker Joe Rubenstein provided the professional finish.