Craig Burt has provided another outstanding new painting to the Featured Artist section! This time we have an Episode III rendition of Jedi on a Trade Federation ship entitled "Federation Folly." Thanks Craig! Also, be sure to see his outstanding gallery of work with Craig Burt's Paintings and also Craig Burt's Cartoons! You can find other great work at the Featured Artists section. Enjoy!

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The Official Star Wars Site has provided a look at what Dark Horse Comics has in store for Star Wars fans in March. Having failed to locate the Rebels' new base after the destruction of the Death Star, Vader sets out to redeem himself by strong-arming his underworld contacts for information about the Alliance. But other deeds from Vader's past return to haunt him as a group of aliens attempt to kill the Sith Lord as revenge for a slaughter he perpetrated on their home world.

Star Wars: Empire #19 "To the Last Man" is the final chapter of the three-part story. Fighting vengeful aliens is all in a day's work. The real challenge for Vader is coming to terms with the man he once was, and the "monster" he has become.

This story by Ron Marz and Brian Ching features cover art by Doug Wheatley. Star Wars: Empire #19 is scheduled for release March 3.

Before Luke Skywalker, the Rebel Alliance had another hero: Biggs Darklighter. For the first time, the full story of Luke's boyhood friend is revealed in Star Wars: Empire Volume 2 - Darklighter. Discover the story behind his departure from Tatooine to attend the Imperial Academy, to his decision to lead a mutiny against the Empire and join the Rebellion, to the fateful attack on the Death Star.

Writer Paul Chadwick has resurrected scenes that were shot for Star Wars: A New Hope, but which ended up on the cutting room floor, and extrapolated from them the life and times of Luke Skywalker's best friend; and artist Doug Wheatley has produced stunning artwork for one of the most acclaimed Star Wars comics stories ever.

Also included: "The Short, Happy Life of Roons Sewell," by Chadwick and artist Tomás Giorello. A revealing look at one of the early leaders of the Rebel Alliance; a man haunted by a dark past and driven to a heroic, but self-destructive fate.

Star Wars: Empire Volume 2 - Darklighter is scheduled for release March 3.

Jedi Quinlan Vos has taken a fateful step that may plunge him so far into darkness that he can never recover. His undercover mission for the Jedi Council has secured him a spot within Count Dooku's inner circle, but when Dooku reveals to Vos that there is a Sith Lord within the Senate, Vos forgets his mission and agrees to kill the man. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and the secrets Dooku has revealed to Vos may be enough to destroy a Jedi!

Star Wars: Republic #63 is written by John Ostrander with art from Jan Duursema and Dan Parsons, and cover art by Brian Ching. It is scheduled for release on March 17.

A hyperdrive malfunction sends the Millennium Falcon massively off course trapping Han Solo far away from his home system. Now stranded light years from everything he knows, Han must fight the life threatening hazards of the jungle filled world that has become his prison. Will he be able to fix the Falcon and return to all he knows and loves? Also in this issue, Scott "PvP" Kurtz's tells the tale of high-school angst-Star Wars style.

Contributors to Star Wars Tales #19 include Andrew Robinson, Scott Kurtz, Jim Royal,Sean Murphy, Jim Pascoe, Haden Blackman, Lucas Marangon and more. Cover art created by Andrew Robinson. Tales is scheduled for release on March 31.

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Starwars.com has a great new (free!) article on the animatics team of Episode III with intros and history of all of the major players. A few allusions to spoilers are present, but this is basically a who's who of the team. Here's a clip:

When George Lucas needed to visualize the movement of the storyboards for the Death Star assault sequence in Star Wars, he used 16mm camera plane footage from World War II to show the effects team the speeds and shot compositions he desired.

This use of animatics, or "moving storyboards," enabled effects artists to only create what Lucas wanted and would edit into the film. With production on each new film, the level of animatic sophistication increased. Everything from animations of crude sketches and improvised video footage to entire sequences created from computer-generated animatics using 3-dimentional modeling programs help Lucas determine which elements work and which scenes end up on the cutting room floor.

The Episode III Animatics Team is lead by the Pre-visualization Effects Supervisor Dan Gregoire. As one of the leaders for the animatics team that worked on Attack of the Clones, his team provided more than 4,000 animatic sequences. Gregoire and his crew of computer artists were responsible for pre-visualizing Episode III in a video-resolution computer-animated form before filming began in Australia.

Even though many members of his team are highly specialized in one area or another, everyone offers a lending hand in tasks that simply need to get done. "At this point everybody's a jack of all trades," Gregoire says. "Everybody's expected to do some modeling, texturing, set-up, and actually animating and composing their own shots."

Hit the link above for the full article.

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LucasArts has got to be proud of this title - LOTOR continues to rule the awards shows this year:

LucasArts is pleased to announce that Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic has received the "Best Fantasy Game" award at SpikeTV's first-ever Video Game Awards.

The VGA winners, officially chosen by online polling, were honored in a ceremony at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The award show was broadcast on SpikeTV tonight, December 4, at 9:00 PM, ET/PT. This VGA award comes on the heels of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic winning a Golden Joystick Award for the Xbox Game of the Year in the United Kingdom last week.

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, developed by BioWare Corp and published by LucasArts, is available for PC and Xbox.

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Galactic Voyage has selected the next "Site of the Month" winner! The winner for December, 2003 is Rebel Squadrons! Congratulations! I want to say thank you to all who applied. Don't worry if you were not chosen this month. Once you have applied, you will always be in the running!

Rebel Squadrons is an online club centered around the Star Wars Universe. They have members whose ages range from 8 to 40 years old, and higher and the membership comes from all over the globe. Rebel Squadrons plays Star Wars games both online and offline. They support just about any gaming platform you might want in their fleets. Here is a list of just a few games you may want to join in with... TIE Fighter, Galactic Battlegrounds/Clone Campaigns, Rebellion, Force Commander, X-Wing, Star Wars: Galaxies, Dark Forces, Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight/Mysteries of the Sith, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, X-Wing Alliance, and still others! If you have the game, they probably have a fleet for you!

If you would like to submit your site to be in the running for January, then apply here to be "Site of the Month!"

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