The beautiful thing about fantasy sci-fi and art is that you can dream up anything and it becomes real to the mind’s eye. Today’s featured artist can top that, taking an imaginary galaxy we’ve all seen and create stunning heroic monuments to our favorite characters. Behold: larger than life heroes and villains, displayed like they stood for their portraits, draped in the ornaments of their victories. Or, imagine them in scenes that live only in the mind’s eye. Joe Corroney is a stellar performer operating at the highest level of the business. But meet him and you’ll meet a fan like yourself, just as full of rapture in his subjects as his works create in us.
Joe has been illustrating official Star Wars artwork for books, games, trading cards, comic books, fine art prints, posters and magazines since 1997. He recently created exclusive Star Wars art for Disney WonderGround Gallery, Disney Parks and Disney Classic Collectibles, Star Wars Galaxy Series 8 Trading Card Series and Women of Star Wars Trading Card Series from Topps.
Other projects touched by Joe’s magic have included artwork for “Star Wars: The Rebel Files”, “Star Wars Propaganda: A History of Persuasive Art in the Galaxy”, Star Wars Insider magazine, and Star Wars Paint By Numbers for Becker and Mayer! Books, Disney Interactive’s “Star Wars: Assault Team” mobile game for iOS devices, “Star Wars: The Imperial Handbook: A Commander’s Guide”, “Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter Code: From the Files of Boba Fett” and “Star Wars: The Essential Reader’s Companion”. Over the years Joe has also created official Star Wars artwork for Hasbro, Acme Archives, Dark Horse Comics, Wizards of the Coast, IDG Entertainment, West End Games, and Paizo Publishing.”
But before you think Star Wars is Joe’s only outlet, other properties he’s illustrated for include Marvel’s Avengers, X-Men and Spider-Man, Indiana Jones, Stranger Things, The Walking Dead, Doctor WHO, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, X-Files, Farscape, Firefly and GI Joe. Not too shabby! Wherever your fanciful mind may take you, chances are Joe has been there and lent it his personal touch.
We asked Joe, what is it about Star Wars that interested you to create such masterpieces?
“Star Wars was always a huge influence in my life and it was the main reason I pursued illustration work with Lucasfilm right out of art college. I saw Episode IV when it was released in 1977. I was only three years old at the time, going on four that Summer. But I remember the experience of seeing the movie for the first time vividly. It just felt so visceral to my young impressionable mind. I grew up with all the Kenner Star Wars toys too of course and I was collecting anything and everything Star Wars I could all the time well into high school and college. I also collected the Star Wars comics from Marvel and in those days before VHS the only way to relive the movie as a kid was to read the comics and play with the toys. I did that all the time, but I was also drawing the characters and scenes from the movies using my imagination and of course the comic books and toys as inspiration too. So Star Wars was very instrumental in my development and desire to become an artist.”
Learn all about Joe’s works on a healthy selection of links to Joe’s website, his official art store and his social media :
https://www.facebooke.com/JoeCorroneyArt/
https://twitter.com/joe_corroney
http://joecorroney.storenvy.com/
https://www.instagram.com/joecorroney/
https://www.twitch.tv/joecorroney
https://www.youtube.com/user/JoeCorroney
Many thanks to our partners at Jedi News, Fantha Tracks, Rebel Scum, Force.Net, and Bantha Bricks for supporting SWAM 2020 and sharing our posts. What a great way to share the magic of the art community! Check them out and see just how big the galaxy really is!
