If the artwork of Craig Davison doesn’t take you right back to childhood and have you getting covered in dust as you search the basement or attic for your old Kenner toys, I just don’t know what will. In fact, after perusing the 19 images, I ran right home and threw Star Wars: A New Hope into my DVD player before getting into a long discussion with my editor over whether I’m a fan of Star Wars itself or just the original trilogy. It was intense. We did not agree in the end. [Editor’s Note: No we did not, poser.]
Return of the Jedi was actually the very first movie I ever saw in the movie theater. I was seven. It took a lot of sibling argument and hunting through IMDb theater screening records to figure out that it was not, as I insisted for a long time when I was young and silly, an original release but the re-release in 1989. Thank you, older brother, for insisting on a movie birthday party. I was forever traumatized by Jabba the Hutt, but I came around and ended up more obsessed with the trilogy by the end of that summer than anyone else in the family. We had all the toys: the old gigantic Millennium Falcon, the AT-ATs, all the figures. And sure they were relegated to the basement at some point, but we never forgot them.
Davison’s art evokes both the charcoal and oil pastels I remember playing with in school, and the pure ’80s portrait style with photographers arranging two portraits of the same kid on one background in a very “look how adorable and sweet I am” kind of way. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just look for some Awkward Family Portraits and you’ll understand. He captures both the individuality of his subjects and the awesome things they are inspired by. On his site, you can see much more than his Star Wars inspiration with girls who dream of being animals and cowgirls, and boys who dream of Spartacus and cowboys.
This Star Wars gallery was posted on Imgur for us to find with the perfect title “A Long Time Ago, In A Cul-De-Sac Far Away”, and we’re so glad Davison has fans because his artwork is truly beautiful. Take a wander through these images and then go find some toys to play with.
