(Click for larger)

I felt like drawing Murlesson, my Sith boy, for Christmas cards, and what better Star Wars inspiration to use than my holiday-themed fanfic The Devil’s Holiday Special? In this story my young Sith goes to a holiday party, but he misses his Jedi girlfriend who has gone on her own adventures. But then she texts him to wish him well for the holiday, so he cheers up again.

Life Day is the name of the Star Wars holiday that was substituted for the northern-hemisphere winter celebrations (actually possibly more related to American Thanksgiving? hence why there is no gift-giving ritual? Though there is a special tree decorated with lights.) It was first introduced in the terribad Star Wars: A Holiday Special, but has grown beyond it to become a perfectly normal part of the Star Wars universe. (Sith are the bad guys who probably wouldn’t celebrate Life Day normally since they’re too busy being Dark Lords of Evil, but he felt like he was obligated to.)

I used a stock photo for reference for Murlesson’s pose, though I couldn’t say which one it is now since I actually attempted to start drawing this picture last year around the time that I was finishing the story. But I didn’t get very far. One inaccuracy to the story is that he’s wearing his coat, in the story he couldn’t find it again, but that’s a minor detail. Murlesson is one of my characters from the online game Star Wars: The Old Republic (aka SWTOR), which is not a great game but the voice actor for the character is absolutely delightful. He’s a Zabrak like Darth Maul from Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, which is not a great movie but it’s better than the Holiday Special at least it gave us Darth Maul’s cool character design to riff off of with the horns and the tattoos and all. I used a screenshot from the game to help me with his face.

Drawing the background was the most intimidating part, and tbh the main reason why I’m only finished this picture now, less than a week before Christmas (the other reason is that with Canada Post on strike, there wasn’t much point in making physical cards to mail). But eventually I decided that an Imperial suburb would look like “bunkers with bay windows” so I aimed for that. And this is a rich-people suburb, so some of the speeder driveways have laser gates because why not. It’s actually not quite what I have in my mind’s eye, but I am not a very good artist so I will take “inaccurate but looks decent” over “accurate but looks like a wonky off-kilter Escher reject”.

I think I’d still like to print a few, we’ll see if I have time in between all my other holiday preparations.

Here’s the chibis for the inside of the card! Ashara texts Murlesson to wish him well, and he is thrilled to hear from her. I did not draw their legs because I thought it would make them less cute.