REBEL HEROES
The Packaging

I am a member of a local (to me anyway) STAR WARS email fan club, and during the summer of 1999 one of the other members, Bob Post, suggested this set of Ralph McQuarrie designs. His concept was for a boxed set of the character designs by the artist from the first STAR WARS movie. Having recently completed my "Daily Custom Update" (of 1999), I thought this would be a fun set as well. So, I did some research and found the various designs that I used for this set. The most ineteresting part was the Han/Obi-Wan and Luke/Leia combinations that existed in an earlier version of the script. This set was also featured both in the "Critique-of-the-Week" over at Rebelscum.com and also at my company's intranet site during the week of December 11-18, 1999! For this special set of customs, I wanted to try my hand at creating the packaging as well. I haven't done much in this area, but I thought I could do it! I wanted it to fit in with the STAR WARS line, but still be able to stand on its own. So, I came up with a simple design, and went to work!

"Sneak Preview" box for the STAP with Battle Droid Adobe Photoshop 5.0

To start off, I did a lot of research and found the "inspirational photos" I would need. You can find them on each character's page. When I found this image, I had the whole concept mapped out in my head! I decided to focus on the REBEL HEROES for this initial set, with more to come later. Next, I scanned the STAP box in from all sides and saved the pieces. I originally thought of using a Cinema Scene box, but I really wanted to use the painting as a background, so I needed the vertical box to display it through the window. I thought it would be cool to have the various images on the sides, kinda like the old MEGO boxes used to have years ago (if anyone remembers those!) Assembling the images in Photoshop was a lot of fun, although I got some of the details wrong. You will have to see the full-size view to see most of these details. I used the "Ambient" font, which looked similar to the one on the box. Does anyone know the correct font? As a joke, I also added a "special mail-in offer" for an IMPERIAL FORCES Cinema Scene as a follow-up to this set. (see EMPIRE from the menu at left) Once all the parts were assembled, I printed them out at work and glued them onto the box. I also stuck the original painting inside as the background. Then, I had to assemble the figures in the box, even though they weren't quite finished yet! I had limited access to a digital camera, so I had to take this picture pretty quick! You can see through the plastic that Luke is undressed, R2 has no arms, and Chewbacca still needs his eyes! This is the image that was up on the intranet site where I work. They have a "Picture-of-the-Week" and I was able to get it in for the same week this set debuted! (Which also happened to be my birthday!) And finally, I want to give credit where credit is due. The majority of the images used on the package were scanned in from the ART OF STAR WARS book. Some of them were screen caps from the BEHIND THE MAGIC CD-ROM. And finally, the text describing the set was lifted right off the back of a card from THE ART OF STAR WARS from Topps.