This is a piece done for the R3 Jam, the subject being the best villain ever, Darth Vader.

Even as a kid, I was fascinated by the man behind the mask. I wanted to know why Vader was always sealed up. Was it permanent? Was he a cyborg? How did James Earl Jones get so skinny? Seriously: I saw him in Conan the Barbarian, too. Didn’t know they did a voice over. Anyway, by the time Empire came out and we saw that he was mutilated or damaged goods in there, I was even more intrigued. In Return of the Jedi, they scaled back the woundage, and made his deformations more about the ungainly cybernetic fusion of technology grafts to his decaying and sun-starved flesh.

So, for this piece, I tried to imagine a time, in between that infamous ‘PADME! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’ moment in Sith, and the unhelmeting of the bulbous face in Jedi. Somewhere in his early 50s or late 40s, before the grafts had totally deformed his face, but well into his identity as the Dark Lord. So that’s what I drew. The single least menacing looking Darth Vader ever! But to me, a very interesting study.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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