Princess Leia

Fan Art Friday: Remembering Leia

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Welcome back to our Star Wars coloring book club, where Kiri from Star Wars Anonymous and I color the same image every month to compare and contrast.  We’ve been doing this since 2016 and still haven’t run out of pictures to color!

I just got a new set of colored pencils for Christmas, so I was eager to try out all the new colors.  It was nice to be able to have a different color palette, but I felt like I did a lot of blending to get it to look closer to how I wanted it.  The new pencils are really nice to color with though!

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This isn’t the best picture because I had bad lighting and had to do some photo editing to make it look better.  The background is actually shaded with a light blue though it doesn’t show up well here.

ETA: Here is a slightly better picture, though I left the original for posterity 😀

I picked shades of pink and purple for the flowers for a couple reasons.  First, these feminine colors seemed appropriate for Leia here.  Although she didn’t have any agency in choosing this outfit (ugh), Leia does show that it is possible to be feminine and badass at the same time.  Remember, she kills Jabba while wearing this bikini!  Femininity can be powerful.

Second, these flowers look like Forget-me-Nots to me, which can be pink, purple, and blue.  I thought this was also appropriate as a tribute to Leia as well as the actress that played her, Carrie Fisher.  I was so pleased with how they were able to include her character in The Rise of Skywalker in order to give her a fitting send off.  The use of previous footage and visual effects worked so seamlessly, and it was wonderful to see Leia as “Master Skywalker,” even if just for a bit.

Also, check out Kiri’s version that uses the botanical details to reference Queen Amidala’s famous red gown.

Fan Art Friday: Center Switch!

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Welcome back to our Star Wars coloring book club, where Kiri from Star Wars Anonymous and I color the same image every month to compare and contrast.

Anticipating the release of The Rise of Skywalker later this month, I picked an image with the original Skywalkers: Luke and Leia on a speeder bike chase through the Endor forest.

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This one was extremely busy and I didn’t quite know how to handle it. I did the background designs in earthy tones, like the Endor forest flying by. Then I wanted something to stand out from that, so I went very bold with the flowers and other top designs. The blue reminds me of the air rushing by as they are speeding along.

Check out Kiri’s excellent version of the siblings here.

This scene always made me laugh a little. Like, how did Luke even know how to jam their comlinks? But then again, if an Ewok can figure out the speeder, I guess it can’t be too hard.

I can’t wait to find out how the stories of Luke and Leia (and their family) end later this month!

Fan Art Friday: MTFBWY, Carrie Fisher

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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.

This month, our choice honors the woman who gave life to Princess Leia, and was just as fierce and strong off-screen as well.  Carrie Fisher passed away suddenly in December, and all nerds and geeks mourn her loss.

I picked this image because Leia looks pretty badass here.  It’s so simple that I really enjoyed being more creative and less literal with this one.  I colored the swirls in a gradient of different shades of green and blue, which I think came out looking pretty cool.

Coloring Leia’s dress white would have been boring, so I went with pink!  This reminded me of the Women’s March a few weeks ago, where many women held signs with Princess Leia on them, inspiring them to resistance.  I was also inspired by Kiri’s picture of Leia in a blue ombre dress, which was inspired by Padmé’s handmaiden dress.

I decided not to color her skin because it looked more like street art or something that way.

Carrie Fisher was not just an entertaining actress and writer; she was also a tireless advocate for feminism and mental health.  I don’t think her life was an easy one, but she kept on living, and living by her own rules in particular.  She is still living, in all of our hearts and memories.

Be sure to check out Kiri’s version of this picture as well, and read her moving discussion of Leia’s impact on her life and in fandom. 

Fan Art Friday: Art Nouveau Leia

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Here’s my latest Star Wars coloring book creation!  I started by coloring the flowers all different (but mostly consistent) colors. This took the longest.

Then I mixed brown and gold on the border to give the picture a framed effect. The most frustrating part was trying figure out what was connected in the scroll details behind the flowers at the bottom. I just picked what I thought looked best to color brown.

The area behind Leia’s head has a gradient from a greenish tan at the bottom to plain tan at the top of the arch; I was originally going to to it all in the bottom green/tan mix, but then I stopped partway and really liked the gradient effect so I just left it!  Lastly I gave Leia’s dress a little bit of grey shadowing so it wasn’t all boring white.

What do you think?  I rather liked this one!  You can also check out Kiri’s lovely interpretation on her blog Star Wars Anonymous (especially her Leia’s blue ombre dress!) Next month we’ll both be doing a mandala featuring Jabba the Hutt.

Here’s the process from start to finish:

Just beginning
Flowers
Finished close-up

And here are some close-ups of the details:

Fan Art Friday: More Star Wars Coloring Book!

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This is my favorite I’ve done so far!  I just adore this Slave Leia drawing (despite the terrible “boobs and butt” pose—can we quit with that already?).

I had a lot of fun with the shadowing and the colors here.  I wanted to keep the color palate in kind of earthy tones, so I shaded the gold and green parts with a light brown to tone it down.  And I added some orange to Leia’s gold to give it a more bronze tone.

Here’s the work in progress from a few weeks ago:

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I also did a couple more mandalas:

Tropical Y-wings
Using limited color palettes