Call it Force-fed creativity, but Robert Bailey wasn’t drawn to Star Wars at first. The Stony Plain, Alta., artist had already established himself as an aviation combat artist when George Lucas, the filmmaker behind the blockbuster franchise and its many spinoffs, came calling about 20 years ago. “He’d seen my World War Two website because he’s always been interested in aviation combat,” Bailey told CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday, recalling his first meeting with Lucas. “Next thing, it was two weeks later, and I was at Skywalker Ranch, and we were discussing new planets and all this stuff. He said, ‘How much do you know about Star Wars?’ And I said, ‘Well, nothing really.’ So when I got back to Stony Plain, I received many, many, many boxes via FedEx containing Star Wars figures and illustrations and books and things like that as reference, and next thing, I was (drawing) Star Wars.” Disney acquired Lucasfilm a few years later, opening doors to comic cons and eventually connecting Bailey with a Beverly Hills, Calif., company that distributes his work across the United States and Europe. Today, Bailey is a Lucasfilm-endorsed Star Wars artist and is also licensed to create Marvel Comics art. He once produced oil paintings as well as pencil drawings but now focuses on the latter. “(The Beverly Hills company) designates some of the work I do, otherwise I’m completely free to do any Star Wars scenes I want to do, provided it’s A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, which are the three movies that Star Wars fans love the most,” said Bailey, adding he “turns out a lot of material” these days. “I’m at the studio seven days a week,” he said. “You have to be a fanatic or crazy to work those hours.” Call him Darth Shader. Although he saw the original A New Hope when it was released in 1977, Bailey didn’t watch another Star Wars film until he started working for Lucas. And now? “Because of the total immersion in Star Wars, I’ve seen those three movies maybe, I don’t know, 500 times each,” said Bailey, whose two favourite scenes to draw both come from the original film: Princess Leia delivering the Death Star plans to R2-D2, and Luke Skywalker watching that message intended for Obi-Wan Kenobi. “I pretty well know every scene from those three Star Wars movies, and I do the occasional one from the Disney sequels.” Draw, he must. With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Evan Kenny
