Emperor Palpatine, by Paul Azaceta

Paul Azaceta is the artist on Grounded, a miniseries published by Image Comics. Info on the book can be found at the www.groundedcomic.com website. Paul was at the 2007 Javits Center comicon to promote the release of the trade paperback. He was also doing a lot of sketching. I saw this incredible drawing of Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Caribbean sitting on his table. After that, I just had to ask him if he'd do something for my Star Wars sketchbook. Paul agreed, and he went on to produce this stunning rendition of the malevolent Emperor Palpatine.

By the way, Grounded was a cool book with great artwork by Paul, and I recommend getting a copy.