New Star Wars Poster Series from ACME Archives Celebrates Original Trilogy

For more than four decades, movie poster art has been a big part of what makes the Star Wars franchise so memorable and enduring in the collective pop culture landscape.

Today, StarWars.com revealed three new posters by artist Devin Schoeffler, designed for ACME Archives, that celebrate the original Star Wars trilogy with eye-catching designs highlighting many of the most iconic characters and moments from A Galaxy Far, Far Away.

What’s happening:

  • ACME Archives has released a series of three new posters with original artwork by artist Devin Schoeffler celebrating the original Star Wars trilogy.
  • The pieces are titled “The Fourth,” “The Fifth,” and “The Sixth,” reflecting the episode numbers of the original Star Wars film (AKA A New Hope), The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, respectively.
  • Schoeffler’s posters have been printed on pearlescent paper and are available from now through Monday at DarkInkArt.com.

What they’re saying:

  • Artist Devin Schoeffler: “My dad introduced me to Star Wars when I was a kid. I remember watching them on VHS on our small color TV. At the time I think the themes and plot were maybe a bit over my head, but I was definitely drawn to the overall aesthetic of the films. They just looked so cool. The films definitely made an impression on me and helped form my love for everything sci-fi and pop culture.”
  • “Once I decided on a direction, I started with a couple of quick sketches to figure out the types of compositions I thought would work. For A New Hope, I chose to feature C-3PO prominently because the highly reflective nature of the mask looked really interesting and detailed. Each of the masks were actually rendered in 3D then toned and re-drawn to give it a more graphical look.”
  • “On Empire Strikes Back, I initially thought about featuring a snow trooper, but I kept coming back to that classic trooper design. I do like how the bottom of the trooper’s mask helps form the snow banks for the AT-ATs. In each of the pieces, I had more going on in the negative space but ultimately decided to drop a lot of it to keep the compositions cleaner. Empire has so many more featured characters than A New Hope — it was tricky to fit them all in without it feeling too cluttered.”
  • “The most challenging part on the Return of the Jedi piece was figuring out a good highlight color. I started with green since that was the color of Luke’s new saber, but it just didn’t fit quite right. After some discussion with the folks over at Acme Archives Ltd., they suggested I try purple and I think it really fits well with the other two pieces.”
  • “For all of the pieces I use a variety of techniques to build out the final piece, including using 3D renders, hand-drawn elements, and photos all combined and unified digitally to give it [a] cohesive feel. I hope fans like the mix of nostalgia with the more highly stylized graphic-design spin. I really wanted to make something that was a balance of retro and modern design elements that could work on their own or together as a series.”

These three new Star Wars original trilogy posters are available from now through Monday, July 6 at 9:00 PM Pacific Time for $45 each or $125 for the set exclusively at DarkInkArt.com.