Star Wars has unveiled Alice X. Zhang’s art for the Celebration 2023 badges, designed for attendees to take away as souvenirs.
Each year, the badges that allow access to the Star Wars Celebration act as keep-sake souvenirs for attendees – and for a good reason. Lucasfilm has an ongoing tradition of commissioning artists to create original badge art for Star Wars Celebration.
Previews of the art for this year’s even has just been revealed on StarWars.com, showcasing the talent of digital artist, Alice X. Zhang. She has worked on a stunning collection of character portraits, pictured below.
“Well, it has absolutely been a huge honour!” said Zhang in an interview with StarWars.com. “I have never been to a Celebration, but when I was first approached and researched the history of Celebration badges, I was immediately inspired – not to mention, portraits are my favourite illustration subject.”
“It was exciting for me to take this on, and I really wanted to do a memorable job,” she concluded.
There are nineteen characters featured, covering both TV shows and film, animated and live-action. The different badges are designed to fit together, much like a puzzle, to create one overarching image of all the characters.
“I knew that Celebration has had a long tradition of commissioning a single illustrator to create the art on each badge, and that many collect the badges,” Zhang said. “I wanted to do something unique to ‘link’ the set together, like an Easter egg for those collectors!”
While Zhang herself doesn’t have a favourite image, apparently Dave Filoni personally complimented the Ahsoka image.
Star Wars Celebration Europe will take place between April 7 and 10, with some streaming options available for those who can’t attend.
Images: StarWars.com
