“I wanna be where the Jedi are…”
Jedi Ariel has FINALLY arrived! I kept redesigning and restarting this piece; it took a long time to find the right look for her. I knew for a while I wanted her to have a Rey/scavenger look since she loves collecting things. And I knew her lightsaber had to take cues from the dinglehopper! Flounder and Sebastian though… took even longer than Ariel to design. I struggled to Star Wars-ify them for a LOOOOONG time. Should Flounder be a fish from Naboo? Or a BB-8 unit since Ariel’s design already takes cues from Rey? And Sebastian is so small; how can I effectively make him feel like he’s in Star Wars without subtracting too much from his design?
Thankfully my art pal @/djtoonup on Instagram came to the rescue with some amazing Flounder and Sebastian designs (at the bottom of the post)! He had some fantastic ideas for a Flounder droid that completely unlocked my brain from creative block… and I wound up not turning Flounder into a droid after all that. Whoops. Looking at the shapes and lines of the design choices reminded me of the funky helmets the rebels wear in Episode IV. Then it occurred to me: If Ariel is wearing and keeping a bunch of Jedi/Rebel things she collects, maybe she found something and gave it to Flounder! And I like how the helmet sort of dwarfs him and makes him look more like a kid. I did toy with giving him a youngling helmet… but I ultimately liked the rebel helmet more. And I thought the youngling helmet would be a tad too dark ^^;; Sebastian is sitting inside of a modified Imperial probe droid. Because probe droid is his literal job description. At least it is according to King Triton.
And check out Ariel’s bag! You may find some recognizable Star Wars and Little Mermaid whozits and whatits galore 👀
