Welcome back to our Star Wars coloring book club, where Kiri at Star Wars Anonymous and I color the same image every month to compare and contrast.
I have complicated feelings about Darth Maul. How could such a cool character only get two lines in The Phantom Menace? Why did The Clone Wars essentially replace him with his brother, Savage Opress, only to bring him back to life in a dumb way that is now canon? Why is he from Dathomir, instead of the Zabrak homeworld of Iridonia? Why did they bring him into Solo at all?
Yet despite all these questionable story decisions, I still have a fondness for the Sith apprentice with the awesome double-bladed lightsaber. He has plenty of great storylines that have been told in books and on TV, and great actors behind his portrayal.
I had fun with this picture. I didn’t have any grand plan for it, I just chose colors as I went along, starting with Maul’s portrait and working outward.
In fact, I have reached the point where I need to sharpen my pencils again. I discovered that the four colors I use the most are: jade green, aqua green, red, and golden yellow. Obviously, I used several of those here.
Check out Kiri’s subtle, dried-up color palette of Maul here. As she points out, this was the very first page in the coloring book. Kind of funny we’re only now getting around to it after a few years of doing this!
Jedi by Knight 
I totally agree with you! Darth Maul was totally wasted. He could have been such an interesting villain too! But he was in Solo? How? Darth Maul died when Anakin was a kid, way before Solo would have been born…Of course, I haven’t seen Solo and I don’t want to, but bringing Darth Maul into it makes no sense.
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Lol it really makes no sense. Yes, Maul did “die” before Solo, but (spoiler alert) he didn’t actually die, and now he walks around on mechanical legs. I am not making this up! It was part of the animated TV shows.
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Omg a few years?! Wow. But u guys you’re right. I remember doing the first ones at the end of my pregnancy! So yeah 2016.
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Omg typing on a Friday night. *but I guess
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I like your bright colors though! I couldn’t bring myself to go bright. It seemed too unnatural for Maul.
Maybe Lucas felt like less is more with Maul. I was in the middle of typing out about how Ian McCaig had to draw his worst nightmare but didn’t get to finish. Perhaps Lucas felt like it was scarier to have Maul just be fear itself without words. Giving him more to do and say would have diminished him, and in doing so, gave us more to relate to with him. The last thing you want to do with Darth Maul is humanize him.
Which is one of my problems with bringing him “back to life”…among many other problems.
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I second all your questions/points about Darth Maul. My brother always said it would have been incredible to see him live through TPM and then die in ROTS, as Anakin kills “the devil” aboard Grevious’ ship to take his place at Palpatine’s side. Siiiiigh…what could have been. But still! I can’t not love Maul. I will NEVER forget the first time I saw him extend his double-bladed lightsaber on the trailer’s debut on ‘Entertainment Tonight.’ That scene embodies so much of the excitement I had with TPM. I taped the trailer that night and watched it a zillion times :).
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