Featured Artists-Craig Burt Collection

Painting by Numbers

"Amidala Armament"

This is another old one - 17 May 2002. I assume that this is the correct date because there have been some dating problems with my files. (No, they're not having problems 'picking up' or deciding on the right outfit!) The file of the finished painting - like the previous installment 'Arena Screama' - says that the date is May 2000! But on looking at the file dates of the progressive scans of both paintings I see that the year is 2002, not 2000. I think this happened due to the pre-installed dates on the PC running out and re-setting itself to the year 2000. How that resulted in the finished paintings being dated incorrectly and not the progressive scans, I don't know. Shoot me! Better still, shoot the old PC.

This painting is basically more free-form than a lot of them. That is, to do a simple portrait of an Episode III Padmé, with no real references in mind. 

1. Is not really the starting point, but the costume that the image is based on. I was feeling lazy and basically stuck to the Episode II costume. 

2. Is the start of the sketching process. I tried out many different poses for the character and wasn't really happy with any of them. I'd worked out the hair-style and the cloak I wanted to use but not the figure.

2a. The poses done were fine, really, but they would have worked better in a picture with other figures, not solo. This panel has the finalized pose that I'd decided to look elsewhere for.

3. Is a Hilderbrant brothers painting that had persuaded me to use the pose from. It had a sense of drama that would make a better single-figure image. You can see, back in 2a. with the three sketches, the refinement of the figure from the harsher/aggressive stance of Boba Fett to the softer more feminine pose of Padmé. 

4. Is the photo of Natalie Portman used for the face of Padmé. That meant that her head had to be turned a bit from the sketch and a slight change of expression to a more vulnerable look.

5. Is actually the progressive scan that convinced me that my suspicions about the date of the previous installment and this one were wrong. I've used it for the final painting because there was basically little difference between it and the finished painting, just more stars in the window and a few touch-ups here and there. I basically like the painting - not perfect in execution but works fine. The setting is nondescript and simple because it was to be a simple painting. The six 'starwars' lights are for the sixth installment of the movie series. The apricot color of the inside of the cloak is to imply the vulnerability of the flesh - not that it's that color, just similar - and pregnancy. The implication of pregnancy is too in the placement and curve of the cloak over her belly. Not that I had decided on how pregnant Padmé would be at the time, so I decided to bluff by not actually showing it. The curve of the cloak could be hiding a bulging belly, or not.

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