Artist Lawrence Noble, who sculpted the stunning Obi-Wan bust before convention-goers at Celebration IV last summer, has been selected for membership in the prestigious National Sculpture Society and will have a selection of his works showcased in the Society’s headquarters in Manhattan starting July 14.

Here’s their official site’s description of the exhibit:

The Elected Members Invitational showcases the sculpture of some of National Sculpture Society’s finest artists. The open-theme exhibition alternates annually with NSS’s Fellows Invitational and the works on display reflect a level of excellence in figurative sculpture which has become the benchmark of the 115-year old institution. Elected Members from as far away as Ecuador, England, Mexico and Africa submitted work as diverse in subject, style and discipline as their home countries. Highlights include bronze portraits of familiar and fictitious individuals; whimsical characters made of marble, terra cotta and wood; and creatures, both real and imagined, in unexpected settings.

For more information about the exhibit, check out the official National Sculpture Society website here, and also Noble’s official website here.

Available this week is the latest issue of Star Wars Insider. Here’s a preview of the feature article with Stuart Freeborn, sculptor of such legendary faces as Chewbacca and Yoda. Of course, Freeborn’s career in the movie business began long before he arrived in that galaxy far, far away…

Make-up man Stuart Freeborn’s impressive body of work stretches all the way back to the films of Charlie Chaplin, but it’s his design of the distinctive Star Wars characters like Yoda and Chewbacca that interests Insider!

A make-up man of considerable experience as well as a well-respected innovator, Stuart Freeborn’s impressive resume includes work with Alexander Korda, Charlie Chaplin, Peter Sellers, and even the Muppets, as well as creating the stunningly realistic apes for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey before he accepted the challenge to work on the original Star Wars. Now enjoying his retirement with his wife, the 93-year-old veteran of over 70 films shared some of his personal memories of making the original Star Wars trilogy.

Read more after the jump…

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(Envelope art by Adam Koford — Ape Lad)

I sure miss getting regular old-fashioned mail. In an age where everyone communicates through texting and email, it seems that Mail Art is becoming a lost … well… art.

So I asked artist and illustrator Adam Koford (also known on the Internets as Ape Lad) if he’d be interested in a mail art swap with me, and lo and behold this masterpiece arrived today.

Adam is known for his own creation — The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats — as well as a fascination with hobos. So he merged those characters with a few Star Wars characters you might recognize acting as hobos in this set of images below.

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Cartoonist Adam Koford, AKA Apelad, draws Jedi Master Yoda’s portrait on the fun artist site Sketchcast.com!

Check out the video here:
VIDEO: Yoda Sketch by Apelad

Never one to turn down a comic book convention, I spent this past Sunday at Super-Con 2008 in San Jose, Calif. hanging out with fellow comic book fans, writers and artists, as well as celebrity Star Wars fans Go-Go’s guitarist Jane Wiedlin, actor/author Wil Wheaton, Bongo Comics Creative Director Bill Morrison and Star Wars actor Daniel Logan.

Super-Con is pretty small in scope compared to the bigger conventions like San Diego Comic-Con. It reminded me of Alternative Press Expo and WonderCon used to be before all movie marketers and Hollywood publicists figured out that their key demographic is all in one spot. I got to have real conversations with artists like Adam Hughes and Allison Sohn about their Star Wars art.

(New work from Adam Hughes)

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Ironicsans.com recently posted some unusual Star Wars artwork constructed from bolds, italics, punctuations, and other hunt and peck fare. Inspired by a line from Star Wars – “Darth Vader. Only you could be so bold” – the artist composed a striking portrait of the Sith Lord using various letters and symbols found on the keyboard:

I started out trying to literally depict [the Vader/Leia] scene from Star Wars using letterforms, intending to use bold letters for Vader and light letters for Princess Leia. I loved the idea of the @ sign filling in for Leia’s hair bun. But after a few attempts I concluded that I’m no LIDA when it comes to making art from letters. I just couldn’t get the fabric to look like fabric without making the entire thing out of parentheses and tildes of various sizes. And that kind of misses the point. The letter “M” sort of did what I wanted, but not really. It’s too rigid.

Check out the full post here.

(photo by Cindi Geeze)

Ever wonder what your action figures do when you’re not around? Star Wars fan and photographer Cindi Geeze pondered that same thing and decided to take snapshots of toy stormtroopers in action — dunking donuts, drinking coffee, having dinner and so on.

I chatted with Cindi about her entertaining candid shots of toy troopers in action.

Why did you decide to take photos of your stormtroopers and other Star Wars toys in action?
The stormtroopers aren’t my first or only toy subjects, but they’re really the most fun, and let’s be honest, my main reason for taking ANY toy photos is self-amusement. I bought my first Stormie after being inspired by Waihey’s brilliant Star Wars toy shots, and marvelling at the realistic poses she got them in. I had to have one. Then I had to have another. And another. I’m up to seven right now, which isn’t really all that many. I need more. I want an army of them.

They’re wonderful subjects because they just lend themselves so well to nearly every situation. Despite, or maybe because of the fact that they wear expressionless helmets, they can reflect any mood, any emotion, any message with amazing clarity. And they’re just clowns, somehow. Hapless fools. Or is that just mine?

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(Spike Star Wars billboards remixed with Murakami art)

Contemporary Japanese artist Takashi Murakami — most noted for founding the Superflat postmodern art movement — recently moved his @Murakami exhibit from Los Angeles to Brooklyn. io9 chats with him about his art and how sci-fi films like Star Wars influenced his work.

Do you have any specific science fiction influences to your work? Any movies or television shows you grew up watching?
I loved Galaxy Express 999. When I saw the scene depicting Planet Maetel’s collapse, I was moved from the bottom of my heart, and made the decision to work in the field of anime. Also, the amount of influence that the appearance of Star Wars exerted on my generation is tremendous. I felt sympathetic to the revolution that George Lucas started, and my work has become a re-enactment of that sort of revolution in the art scene.

What artists do you enjoy?
Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, Hayao Miyazaki.

Read the full interview here:
Murakami Tells io9 About His Secret Love For J.J. Abrams

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SOURCES: AndIamNotLying.com, ClubJade.net, io9.com

Created by figure customizers Sillof & Glorbes, this set of World War II-era Star Wars characters looks like something out of a vintage B-movie serial – which isn’t altogether inappropriate come to think of it.

Captain Han Solo with leather flight jacket – yeah, that feels about right. And we love the dual curved cartridges on Chewbacca’s rifle doubling for his signature splayed-front bowcaster. The stormtroopers look like, well, their classic namesake, and Fett still fits the feel of his cinematic counterpart, minus the missile-firing backpack.

The biggest props have to go to the Luke Skywalker figure, though – amazingly, these customizers were able to repurpose the “beefed-up” Luke action figure from the mid-90s, which for all intents and purposes was a pretty big miss in most fans’ books.

Hopefully we can look forward to some Rebel Spitfires and Imperial Stukas rolling off the assembly line soon. Check out the full set of figures here.

If you dig Steampunk and Star Wars, you might get a kick out of this Steampunk Darth Vader Mask we spotted on eBay this week. Pretty impressive, right down to the gear-saturated chest plate!

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