Sunday, March 8, 2009

steampunk star wars

For some reason, steampunk and Star Wars sound like they'd go together like peanut butter and chocolate. I suppose it's because both genres mix old world themes and ideals with new world technology. In the case of Star Wars, the throwback is further than Victorian era England - more like 12th century France. From a child's perspective, the overwhelming coolness of the Star Wars universe was based upon its success in melding Medieval fantasy (sword fights, princesses, magic) with futuristic sci-fi (lasers, spaceships, robots). Darth Vader was black knight, sorcerer, shaman, and mad scientist all in one. How can a 7 year old boy possibly resist?

Steampunk similarly melds 19th century style (petticoats and parsols) with alternate history mechanistic invention (clockwork robots). And thus perhaps it doesn't stretch the imagination much to re-paint the Star Wars universe in a steampunk veneer:



I absolutely love this vision of Obi-wan Kenobi by Marcel Mercado...


Everyone's favorite bounty hunter, Boba Fett, as imagined by Bjorn Hurris:
Another by the same artist - this time, Yoda:


And finally, a series of Darth Vader reinventions:

(Eric Poulton; a clockwork Vader - love it!)


(Marcel Mercado)


(Alister Lockhart)


(Daniel Helzer; truly, more machine than man)

No comments:

Post a Comment