Quite possibly the most frequently asked question when it comes to Jawas and the mysteries of the Star Wars universe, the question of what a Jawa looks like without a hood has plagued fans from all over the galaxy, and there’s no definitive answer that comes directly from Star Wars canon.
That little fact doesn’t stop creatives from imagining the answer though…
I’ve been fascinated by Jawas for a very long and since seeing them come back into the fore of pop culture thanks to The Mandalorian, I’ve been intending to understand what life as a Jawa is and to explore their culture and character in depth through the platforms of art and illustration.
I’ve also always wanted to participate in Inktober and successfully manage every day of the month-long drawing challenge, but I’ve never quite managed to succeed and pull it off.
My plan this year, is to tie my interests with my ambitions and use them to drive each other forward, partaking in and completing Inktober, whilst also kick-starting my exploration of Jawa life.
The series of sketches I create throughout the month will be loose, exploratory and experimental in nature, and the content will contain a few comedy elements too, this project overall will form the foundation for further exploration and later on, more detailed artworks.
Be sure to Join The Journey as I explore the world and culture of the Jawas and together, we can discover much more about these mysterious creatures from the galaxy far, far away…
Created by artist Jake Parker, Inktober is a month-long drawing challenge with the aim of helping people to improve their skills and develop positive drawing habits.
Throughout the month of October, any participants create an ink drawing or sketch, following the daily prompt list and then posts the result online.
Life As A Jawa is the title of my upcoming project that will dig into and explore the sorts of things Jawas get up to in their daily lives.
This project will begin October 1st and I’ll be releasing a brand new ink sketch every day for 31 days, all adhering to the prompts for Inktober 2021.
This project will contain comedy elements, a little horror and some sadness and will be presented as rough, loose ink sketches.
As tradition dictates, I’ll be working with Sakura ink brush pens throughout the entirety of this project. My underdrawings will be created in pencil which will later be erased.
My trump card, however, will be using gel pens to add a touch of colour here and there, this was inspired by a recent scribble session I had using gel pens on toned paper.
Speaking of which, each of my Inktober sketches will be drawn onto Rembrandt tan toned paper.
In an ideal world, every piece would be a fully-fledged ink and wash drawing, highly detailed artworks that could be displayed as soon as they dried. Unfortunately, due to time constraints and creating one for each day, that approach wouldn’t be manageable so these are sketches.
Sketches that can quickly explore the form, capture the moment, and tell the story.
I have treated the Life As A Jawa project s=in a similar way to a book illustration project; 31 stand-alone pieces that start with planning out the prompts and figuring out how I can tie them to my Jawa theme.
Then drawing a series of thumbnails and scribbling ideas, solving problems such as simple ways to capture the forms of my subjects with ink.
The beauty with this project too is that although I’ve planned it out before diving into each sketch, it’s quite organic, I might think of a different angle for a prompt and then quickly change it up if it feels like a better fit.
Every project worth its salt must begin with a warm-up sketch, and Life As A Jawa is no exception.
Although I will post the results of the Life As A Jawa Inktober project here on my website, the main platform I’ll be using for the daily sketch posting will be Instagram.
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For a more detailed breakdown of these insights, take a look at my recent article 7 Jawa Facts Every Star Wars Fan SHOULD Know.
When Inktober comes to an end and this part of my Life As A Jawa project comes to an end, I will then be working on a much more detailed ink and wash drawing that explores the concept further, and in more depth.
This piece when it’s finished will be released as an exclusive art drop as a collectable limited edition print, in a run of art prints limited to 20 prints.
Be sure to subscribe below in order to be the first to hear about this exclusive Star Wars art drop.
This article showcases a month-long exploration of Jawa life and culture, captured with ink drawings and sketches as part of my Star Wars art Inktober project.
Keep reading…Equipped with my pencils, charcoal and brushes, I regularly set out on long journeys into the galaxy and I always return with a new selection of Star Wars artworks, and I love to share the beauty!
Join Me In Exploring A Galaxy Far, Far Away And Never Miss A New Artwork.
When it comes to Star Wars and the different creatures and species of the galaxy far, far away; Jawas are one of the most mysterious, curiosity-arousing and secretive of all the races in the universe.
These rodent-like natives to the desert planet of Tatooine certainly hold a surprising amount of mystery and there is no question bigger than “What do Jawas look like under the hood?” but once you start digging, that’s not the only unknown part of their culture.
With this article, however, it seemed worthwhile to dig into 7 Jawa facts every Star Wars fan should know, and if you didn’t already, here’s 7 quick-fire facts that you can use to show off your deeper knowledge of Jawas, Star Wars and the mysteries of the universe…
It’s strange to think that it’s been a year since I last put pencil to paper in the act of creating some Legend of Zelda art and true to last year’s inspiration, I’ve stuck with my favourite game of the series: Ocarina of Time.
Linktober’s Zelda Creator Con is almost upon us, running from Friday 18th – Sunday 20th June and in the same vein as its founding last year, featuring an abundance of creatives including artists, cosplayers, gamers and more.
It’s not just an online convention, it’s a legendary one.
Here’s a selection of the artworks that I created last year for the convention, it was great fun to get stuck in and this small series started me off on a venture to discover a new illustration style that I’m still working on polishing to this day.
It was also insightful to produce a more realistic drawing on Princess Zelda on toned paper, this idea is one that I’ll carry on into every year.
There will always be a Princess Zelda charcoal portrait from me at a Zelda Creator Con!
This year I managed to focus in on the classical realism style and work on toned paper, this is another method of working that I’ve been getting stuck into over the past year or so and working towards polishing up and refining.
As I previously mentioned, Ocarina of time is my go to Legend of Zelda game and the convenience of having it on the Nintendo 3DS makes it even more so, it’s my favourite of the series and one that I’ll always return to creatively.
I chose to depict both Young Link and Adult Link thoughtfully playing the ocarina, the contrast of the two differently aged Links playing their ocarinas was an interesting subject to explore and made all the easier with the access I was given to some incredible reference photos.
For the two link pieces, I was granted permission by the two exceptionally talented cosplayers:
I would strongly recommend any Legend of Zelda fan, and any fan of cosplay in general to check out their amazing work!
For the Princess Zelda herself, I was also provided with some amazing reference photos to work with, and my depictions of this Princess Zelda are not coming to an end here, I will be working on several more drawings and an oil painting over the coming weeks and months.
The talented Ilka Cosplay took on the role of Princess Zelda for this year’s portrait.
I’ll be getting to work on the following drawings and painting pretty much immediately after the Zelda Creator Con.
Tickets for Linktober’s Zelda Creator Con are on sale now and a mere $1 a piece, so by all means, join us all there at the weekend and explore Hyrule through the creative lens of some of the franchise’s biggest fans.
My creative exploration of Hyrule will continue with my continuing work on the Princess Zelda portrait, working towards an oil painting, every step will be documented, I’ll be recording video and posting lots of behind the scenes content too.
Feel free to subscribe to my monthly studio update so as not to miss anything!
Here we are, yet another year away from the fall of Sauron and the destruction of the One Ring, on Tolkien Reading Day 2021. The Tolkien society have set the theme of Hope and Courage for us to dig into in some depth, and there is certainly an abundance of both qualities throughout the legendarium, and especially in the Lord of the Rings.
One of the greatest arcs throughout Tolkien’s entire legendarium is that of Samwise Gamgee. From humble gardener, to Samwise the Brave, Orc-slayer, ringbearer and Mayor of the Shire. Sam is also the character that popped into my mind when I saw the theme for this year’s Tolkien Reading Day, and a particular point in the journey that I have been chipping away at in preparation for an upcoming addition to my collection of Middle-earth art.
So in the good old fashioned since of killing two birds with one ring, this Tolkien Reading Day has covered a lot of ground for the research needed for my upcoming artwork depicting Sam and Frodo in Mordor.
Middle-earth has been calling yet again and never one to ignore the call of adventure, I decided to explore. My journey took me deep into the passages of The Hobbit and far under the Misty Mountains to the dark depths of the caves and subterranean lakes of forgotten times. This was the perfect opportunity to create another piece of Middle-earth art.
Let’s see what JRR Tolkien himself had to say about the place:
This original fantasy landscape was painted from imagination using palette knives and painting in a think impasto technique.
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Until next time, farewell!
JGlover
I have been a Star Wars fan for as long as I can remember, the OT was finished up almost a decade before I was born and I was born into a Star Wars household.
My favourite creatures from the Star Wars universe are without a doubt, Jawas. Ironically, I didn’t realise this until the release of the Mandalorian and seeing the Jawas again but in a different context, the nostalgia value hit high.
This in turn inspired me to want to turn out some Jawa themed artworks, this post here shows the first which is a bit of a character study style piece; made with the intention to inform a small series of future Jawa paintings that will have a different look to them to this one.
I decided that I needed to put out a short blog post with a roundup of my illustrations from the recent Legend of Zelda miniseries that I put out. I have a couple of charcoal drawings in am ore fine art style and the rest are ink and watercolour pieces.
The Legend of Zelda is a subject of inspiration that I will continually revisit over time as I love the story, the franchise and the massive nostalgia points I get each and every time. That’s without mention of the absolutely incredible Zelda community which alone is reason enough to create Zelda artworks!
I wouldn’t have worked on a series of as many piece as I did this time around though if it wasn’t for the nudge and inspiration from Joel Siegel over at Linktober – The fact that he put on the Zelda Creator Con and gave me a place within it gave me a massive boost as well as in incentive to get truly stuck in, even putting my Geisha series on hold for a short time.
Whilst it’s true that there are no ochaya (tea houses) underwater that are operating and hiring Geisha, there is always room in the imagination to invent some. I’ve been working on a series of Geisha artworks and then suddenly, Mermay 2020 was upon me.
Mermay is described by its founders as a month-long celebration of creativity, community and above all… MERMAIDS. People use this month to create a variety of Mermaid illustrations, many people creating one for each day of the event. I’ve never partook in this particular ‘drawing challenge’ so this time around, I made a point to throw out at least one piece.
Now for the artwork –
JGlover Art - Artist - Illustrator - Storyteller - Fine Art - Illustration - Storytelling - Essex - London - UK 