I know what you’re thinking – Star Wars and bugs? But bear with me here, it’s gonna be good. Illustrator Richard Wilkinson , hailing from the far away country of the United Kingdom, has an art series called Insects From A Far Away Galaxy (I know it should’ve been “A Galaxy Far, Far Away” but it’s not). In that series he re-imagines iconic Star Wars characters as bugs and even goes the extra mile to scientifically name them with Latin roots.
He’s about to launch a book that’ll have more of these series in it, along with loads of other pop culture characters. Think Marvel, Disney, Pokémon… You name it. The artist chose bugs because he’s a fan of natural history and it’s just one of those things that you classify and collect. The characters from Star Wars share a simple trait with most bugs: they’re fairly alien-looking and they’re made memorable because of some very simple and distinctive details. The best way to show this is to take those characters we all grew up with and transplant them onto another medium, bugs in this case.
The method of classification he uses very much mimics actual classification systems. He breaks down the characters into families and takes it from there. For example, all troopers would be based on wasps with minor differences between them depending on which type of trooper they’re trying to depict. Richard wants his viewers to put a little effort into recognizing the Star Wars character he’s trying to portray as a bug. The general idea is that the subject is hidden at first, slowly revealing itself after a while.
Richard’s motivation rides mainly on the fact that he thinks bugs are unloved. While it’s certainly not hard to imagine someone not loving bugs, these guys are completely different. If you care about Richard’s work and want to keep up with everything that’s going on in that part of his life, be sure to follow his Instagram page . He even has a shop where you can buy limited edition prints and other buggy paraphernalia .
