Jedi Cloak is an illustration I made quite some time ago for the Star Wars card game by Fantasy Flight Games.

As pretty much 99% of the illustrations I made for Star Wars or Game of Thrones, they tend to be published several months after we’ve worked on them. By the time they’re out I have no memory of which specific expansion they belonged to.

Plus, I had kind of forgotten about this one in particular, so we’re talking about three years ago or something like that.

Now, although I’m always very happy to do anything even remotely related to Star Wars, I have to confess that nothing equals the pleasure of illustrating a scene from the original movies.

I’ve already made illustrations for Rise of the Skywalker, or the Mandalorian, and despite having loved the shows, nothing compares to the thrill of drawing events from the first trilogy.

Jedi Cloak depicts an iconic moment of The Return of the Jedi, when Luke shows up like a badass at Jabba the Hutt’s court.

I still remember how damn cool he looked to me when I saw him the first time at the cinema, so I think I tried to infuse all that teenager wide-eyed marvel in this illustration.

Now, I now must describe why this scene is so crucial in the series. Bear with me and, well, NERD ALERT.

You surely remember that Luke’s first lightsaber (which was actually Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber) got lost, together with his hands, down an endless shaft at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.

The fact that he was sporting a brand new lightsaber at the beginning of Return of the Jedi didn’t go unnoticed to me back then. I clearly remember thinking “where does that come from?”.

Well, from a deleted scene!

I have to warn you, NERD INTENSIFICATION AHEAD.

Lightsabers were powered by what were called Kyber crystals, or Kaiburr crystals.

Building their own lightsaber was a crucial part of a Jedi’s training. When the time came, a young Jedi went to a temple on the planet Ilum, summoned somehow a Kyber crystal (which was made by organic and inorganic materials sensitive to the Force) and then used it to forge their own weapon following their own design and preferences.

After “Order 55”, Palpatine and Darth Vader destroyed all known crystals, and shut down all sites known to contain them. For this reason, while one the verge on completing his training, Luke found himself in the uncomfortable position of being without the main component to build his own lightsaber.

Eventually he found some schematics and instructions in Yoda’s hut, which allowed him to make a synthetic crystal, and assemble the rest with parts scrapped together in the city of Mos Eisley.

So that’s why he’ll later ask Yoda if “he’s a Jedi now”: he has indeed successfully completed one of the milestones in the Jedi’s training.

Despite Yoda’s snarky reply, when Luke shows up at Jabba’s court he is no student in training. He’s confident and powerful, and he has had countless adventures between the moment he was defeated by Darth Vader and when he finally moves to free Han Solo.

I still think that Mark Hamill was GREAT at conveying all of Luke’s newly acquired confidence, so this is definitely one of my favorite moments in the whole first trilogy.

I mean, wasn’t he majestic in this scene?

Despite Jedi Cloak being quite straightforward as far as illustrations go, getting it right did take some rounds of feedback.

The fabric had to feel thick and heavy, and the texture rough enough. So I went back and forth smoothing out creases, adding imperfections and things like that.

I have to say I’m quite happy with the final result, even if I say so myself:)

by Paolo Puggioni