Books Star Wars: Alien Archive

Oh thank goodness! We can always, always use more good info on the aliens. Canto Bright had so many funky ones I would love to learn more about

 

I might cry a little if Snoke is in this. More info on him is like Christmas.

 

Any word yet on a US release? It hasn't shown up on Amazon US as of yet..

 

I must say this book has its work cut out for it - there's like thirty unnamed aliens in Canto Bight alone!

 

Amazon UK has preview pages up. I'm not sure how to link to them. Rather than alphabetical order (which I was kind of expecting), it seems to have taken the route of separating them by habitats and the like. It seems pretty in-depth, and the art doesn't look too bad:

 

Ooh, Maz is on the back cover. Wonder if we'll actually get a species for her.

 

The Amazon UK listing Krueger mentioned. The preview pages include the index, so I think we've got a complete listing of what aliens will appear in this.

 

Some thoughts on that index, spoiler tagged in case anyone is sensitive about that:

Spoiler

As a part-time advocate for the "forgotten aliens" of ANH, I note with some sadness the apparent lack of entries for Yam'rii, Saurin, Ranats, or Stenness Shifters. On the other hand, it looks like the Morseerians, Lutrillians, and Vuvrians are getting entries, so that's nice. For TCW fans, the Force Wielders are mentioned on page 89. Yoda and Yaddle are mentioned on pages 90-91 but I strongly doubt their species name will be revealed. And no Bothans, so unfortunately this probably won't be where we finally learn which "version" of them canon is going with.

 

There's no Muun, but there's some spacestations.

...but. They do have some intriguing podracers species, like Er'Kit, and the interior art is lovely. It's no Ultimate Alien Anthology, but I'm a fan.

 

Any names that seem completely unknown in the index? Unidentified ST species, perhaps?

 

Excited for this book to hit US Amazon. But anyone got any more info on the Geektionary book?

 

Hmm... from that index:

Spoiler

Some strange mistakes there - "Ahsoka" and "Ahsoka Tano" each, plus "Confederacy for Independent Systems", "General Raddus", and "Dexster Jettser". My favorite has to be "Jango Hutt". Jango Hutt!!!! I know these are just minor, but come on... and I thought academic editing was bad.

I'm glad that "Bor Gullet" and "Bors" are both there, makes me think we'll finally get a specific overview of them and their species. Same for details on the Trillia Massacre.

Gilliand and Crolutes, too. And "deep space" is an interesting entry for a book on alien species... "Protobranch" is also an interesting term.

Sad not to see moofs get an entry, though.

 

Protobranch is a planet, the Bivall homeworld IIRC.

 

Sounds as cheap and rushed as the photo tracing cover makes it look.

 

Hello Darkness, my old friend...

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

The image of the Delphidian from the book (currently the infobox image on their Wookieepedia article) looks like it's using Durteel Haza's face but on Sidon Ithano's body. I'm not sure if the book itself labels it, but could this be the Crimson Corsair's face pictured for the first time?

 

That's pretty good art, actually. I assume that's a Kaleesh?

 

Part of the point of Galactic Atlas was to render familiar images in a single style. On occasion we actually chose to directly redraw images not because we were being cheap or lazy (the amount of work that goes into these books is considerable) but because we wanted to kind of canonise the original drawing (the art from that lovely, but now non-canon Wildlife of the Galaxy book, for instance.)

It's also the case that where we're drawing on a source that has previously been approved in some form there's less chance that it might be rejected for some reason. The images where we weren't able to do that were the ones that gave us the most approval problems - Jedi Master Tu-Anh, for example, only exists in an unfinished workprint of A Death on Utapau, so some guesswork was involved.

 

Did you work on this book, and Galactic Atlas?

I will take back, what I said about it being cheap and rushed. You obviously know more about the process of creating these books than I do, and I don't want to come across as disrespectful.But I will be honest that I really don't care for the art I've seen, and while typos will appear in any book, stuff like "Jango the Hutt" raises my eyebrows. There's a lot I want to unpack here, so I will do it in bullet points.

• You say you "redrew" images to re-canonize them. But . . . a lot of the images I see on the cover are from still shots from the films (Wicket, Watto). So those were already canon. Also, if you decide to, for example, include an animal from Wildlife of the Galaxy in your book . . . then it's part of the New Canon. Simple as that. It doesn't matter if you make a brand new original drawing of that animal, re-use an image from WOTG, or trace/redraw an image from WOTG . . . what ever method you use, it's still being re-canonized.
  
• Are there really problems with art not being "approved", to the point that you have to rely on "previously approved" art to avoid rejection? What are the requirements for "approval", and how often are drawings rejected?The New Essential Guide to Alien Species had an original drawing of an alien on every other page, for around 200 pages. What, for that book were there hundreds of scrapped "unapproved" drawings? Sure, that book is older, maybe they've changed requirements since then. But more recent books like On the Front Lines and The Rebel Files have had original art. Now I'm not saying every single Star Wars book needs to be as art heavy as those titles I mentioned. Maybe different books have resources assigned to them. Maybe they have different restrictions for how many artists they can hire. I'd understand that if that is the case. But I've never heard of tracing being used because of "approval" requirements.
  
• OK, so I'm assuming restrictions or lack of resources means you can't commission a bunch of new artists to make new art for this book. Understandable. But books like the Visual Dictionary or Aliens of the Galaxy use photo stills from the movie. Wasn't that an option? True, one downside is that you couldn't include any aliens that haven't appeared on the big screen. But it is an option.
  
• OK, so you can't or don't want to use photo stills. You want drawn art. But I don't understand why you "redrew" original Star Wars drawings instead of just re-using the original Star Wars drawing. For example, I've seen images from the Essential Guide to Warfare show up re-used as art for cards or books in FFG Star Wars tabletop games. On the cover for Alien Archive, that Sebulba picture is clearly from The New Essential Guide to characters. It is mirrored, there's less detail on the medallions, but it's the same image. IMO this new image looks darker and more dull than the original. So instead of making a new picture that looks near identical to the original art . . .why couldn't you just use the original art? As long as the original artist is credited, what's the issue?
  
• You say you "redraw" images. Do you mean that you use the original images as a point of reference, and try to recreate them? Or are you tracing the original images? If it is tracing, even if you are working under tough, very strict restrictions, I personally find tracing to be very distasteful.. At the very least I hope the book has credit for the original artists.

 

To anyone who has this book, what does it say about a) Force Wielders, and b) Crolutes and Gilliands?

 

I too am curious about what is says of the Force-wielders.

And IS Snoke even in this book? I know Maz is, so there’s no good reason for him to not be included.

 

I went ahead and imported the book because a seller had it on Amazon for the same price as the US preorder.
Force wielders: homeworld = Mortis. No fixed form so can look like any species.Highly intelligent, believed by some to be gods due to their intense connection to the force. Then tells a brief version of the story of the Mortis episodes.
Nothing new on Crolutes/Gilliands. Crolutes are exclusively male, Gilliands are female. From an aquatic world.

No species for Maz and nothing on Snoke that I have seen so far (he isn't in the index).

The write-ups about each species are incredibly brief most of the time. It's a fun little book so far but very disappointing compared to something like the old essential guides. I hope we eventually get something more along those lines because this isn't really scratching that itch like I hoped it would.

 

It's doubtful we're going to get something that comprehensive for a while, and certainly not until the sequel trilogy is over. Even then, there's way too much coming out, and way too many potential contradictions, for Lucasfilm to be nailing down specifics in the way they did during the Essential Guides era.

I found this one good fun, especially with the "author's" notes and asides. Some new tidbits, and a fair bit of recanonization of older ideas, so I certainly think it's a worthy read.

 

https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-alien-archive-interview

Spoiler

Tim McDonagh has already tackled illustrating the galaxy, having created the lush landscapes of Star Wars Galactic Maps: An Illustrated Atlas of the Star Wars Universe. For his new book, McDonagh tried to imagining how an artist might approach sketching the denizens of the galaxy he encountered on his travels among the stars.

McDonagh used the films and animated series for reference material on more widely-known species. “I looked at a fair amount of the comics, too, for inspiration,” he says. “And there were a few of them that had never been depicted before visually so I was just going off of descriptions.”



The result is Star Wars: Alien Archive, an in-world guide to Star Wars aliens and creatures organized into categories such as dry or wet habitats, frozen lands, aerial and space, and domesticated creatures. McDonagh started with a list of over 200 alien species. “Being a big fan of Star Wars, I knew a fair amount of the creatures we were going to include in the book,” he says, “but I was amazed at just how many we managed to fit in there at the end and how many I hadn’t come across before in the Star Wars universe.”

The entire book took about six months to illustrate including smaller side images that accompany some species entries. “We thought it would be cool to have some sketchier looking illustrations in the book and kind of imagined that Gammit Chond [the famed Ithorian artist] would have sketched out something similar to those on his travels across the galaxy.”

The book, already released by Egmont in the UK, hits shelves in the US today. In preparation for its release, McDonagh recently sat down with StarWars.com to share his five favorite illustrated entries from the volume.



Rodian

I think Greedo would be one of my favorite characters in the Star Wars universe and I think the way Rodians look and sound make them one of my favorite species in the Galaxy! I love their huge eyes and scaly faces makes them a fun one to draw. I wanted to give our large illustration of the Rodian a sort of bounty hunter like feel as Rodians are well known for their criminal activity.



Dianoga

I really enjoyed drawing up and researching the Dianoga as you usually only get to see the eye so it was cool drawing up the rest of it! The trash compactor scene is one of my fondest Star Wars memories and drawing up the Dianoga brought it all back to me.



Ewoks
This was one of the first illustrations I worked up for the book and I think it still remains one of my favorites. It has lots of vegetation going on in the foreground and background which is one of my favorite things to draw!



Nuna

This is probably one of my favorite more obscure creatures in the galaxy, purely based on the way they look and move. I used to play a lot of Star Wars: Galaxies and the lesser known Episode 1 – The Gungan Frontier and they both featured a lot of Nunas so it’s good to see they’re still a popular alien!



Bith

I always associate the Bith with the Mos Eisley Cantina band The Modal Nodes so it’s interesting thinking of them as a race of people in their own right. I love the design of their heads and faces, I think they’ve got a lot of character. It was also cool to get a closer look at the instruments, too, as you only get a quick glance in A New Hope!