Jay Manchand has produced some amazing artwork in recent years for Topps and personal commissions, so we gave our own Team Jedi News artist, Kat Rees- Jauke the chance to quiz Jay about his work for her first ever interview.
Hi Jay, welcome to Jedi News!
Hi! Thanks for having me!
How has lockdown been treating you over the last 6 months?
There’s been a lockdown? Haha, I guess the benefit of being an artist is that my life of working from home hasn’t changed all that much. I was kinda already geared up for not leaving the house. But seriously, it’s been a difficult time for a lot of people and I’m just grateful that I’ve been able to focus on my work.
So, let’s start at the beginning of your love for art. How long have you been drawing and painting for and was there someone in your family who encouraged your artistic ability from an early age?
I guess I’ve always loved drawing, from as early as I can remember…I have a couple of issues of the early Star Wars comics with my drawings published…I think I was 10?! I was always a bit of an introverted kid, I enjoyed drawing and being creative, my mum encouraged this as she is also very artistic.
Can I ask you about your beginnings with the Star Wars galaxy? What are your earliest and favourite memories of Star Wars?
I’d say my earliest memories are watching the Special Edition Star Wars movies, I was completely enthralled by the Cantina & Jabba’s palace scenes, I would pause those shaky VHS tapes desperately trying to capture glimpses of new aliens – I wanted to know all of them and their back stories. I began collecting the 90’s Power of the Force figures and have continued to this day. As a kid I dreamed of a Sail Barge, so to own it now as an adult is a huge nostalgic win for me.
Although most of your work is based on pop-culture, are there styles of art that have inspired your own work?
Oh absolutely, I studied fine art at Degree & Masters level, so I appreciate a huge variety of art forms, predominantly painting styles. Of course, major influences and inspiration come from the geniuses that brought the Star Wars universe to life – Ralph McQuarrie, Doug Chiang & Ron Cobb. We wouldn’t have such a rich and diverse universe if it wasn’t for their vision.
Music is often very inspiring and classical music has been found to help the right side of the brain, which controls creativity; do you listen to music while creating your art?
Yeah totally, I actually have a little ritual on each new project – I listen to the soundtrack to get me inspired, so for my Rittenhouse Game of Thrones sketchcard’s I listened to Ramin Djawadi’s entire Game of Thrones score throughout. With over 20 licensed Star Wars sketch card projects I’ve completed, you can probably guess how much John Williams has accompanied my work.
Many of your compositions are amazingly complex, including multiple characters in a single image. Do you sketch each element out individually or plan out the full composition?
Generally speaking, I do a rough sketch of all the characters appearing on that piece, I like to have a fully sketched composition before I go into the details. That said, I created 3 individual pieces that featured aliens from the Cantina, Jabba’s Palace & Maz Kanata’s castle – for this series I didn’t plan who, what or where characters would be placed, the fun part was deciding which character would slot in and which colours would work well together. I wanted it these pieces to be a mess of characters that pretty much fall together on the page, pretty much how they all sort of fall together in these scenes.
It’s fair to say that your style is photorealistic, from human portraits to alien characters. Do you use many reference photos?
I always use a photo for reference, I have to have to have something in front of me to look at for accuracy (usually just blown up on my computer screen). I don’t use any drawing aid such as lightbox, tracing etc – not that I have a problem with it, I just want to always improve my craft and forcing myself to work a piece until it looks right helps me learn from mistakes. Of course when you’re subject is from the Expanded Universe, it’s hard to find unique ways of creating those characters without basing it on someone else’s art – I was recently commissioned a Darth Revan cover and I had great fun sourcing an incredible cosplayer and gained their permission to use their photos as a source of reference.
Your Star Wars art features a huge range of characters from across the canon timeline and the Expanded Universe. Do you find inspiration from Star Wars literature as well as the films?
I really do, I’m just in love with the entire Star Wars universe – I love to learn about different eras, characters etc and the older books such as Heir to the Empire, Tales from Jabba’s Palace, Shadows of the Empire & the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy were instrumental in creating the love of the Star Wars universe that became the driving force of the passion behind the work I create.
When you’re not drawing or painting, what hobbies do you enjoy?
So hobbies…I like to…draw & paint? Haha, strange as it sounds, sometimes I like to create just for me, outside of commissions and licensed sketch card work. It helps my creativity to not feel forced, a day where I just draw something I love, is a day off for me. Aside from that, I am a huge Star Wars figure collector, from the modern The Vintage Collection line, to Black Series and older collections such as The Legacy Collection & 30TH Anniversary. I’m rapidly running out of room, and the ‘nerd cave’ is also my studio so it’s great fun being surrounded by the things I love whilst I work. I also do regular things like socialise with friends (when we are allowed to), binge Netflix shows and oh, I have a keen interest in Reptiles and keep a few which are great unusual pets.
As an artist is there anything you find difficult to draw or don’t enjoy drawing?
REY! Haha, don’t get me wrong I love drawing Rey, but she has an extremely difficult face to get right. She’s got such a subtle beauty, there aren’t many distinguishing features – not like drawing a snotty Gamorrean who is all snout, teeth and jowls. Human likeness is always more work, one minor mistake or misplaced detail can make the entire character look off. I’d say that’s the area I am always working hard to develop and improve. Also, drawing/painting likeness from scratch on a 2.5×3.5” sketch card can be extremely challenging as some of my fellow Topps artists would probably agree.
You mainly use traditional media, including coloured pencils and acrylics. Do you choose a specific medium depending on subject matter?
I try to keep the medium for a specific body of work, for example I love the way Acrylic Gouache & Acrylic Ink work together so coherently on the Marvel Variant Blank covers, so I always stick to those paints for blank cover work. I’ve recently started exploring Oil paints, it’s such a different way of working, I’ve found myself frustratingly throwing paint at the canvas in the same way I would with acrylic and it just doesn’t work. There’s a real method to it, I’m loving the challenge and recently created a piece of work in Oils that hopefully I can share soon – It’s one of my best creations to date!
For those who don’t know there are two types of coloured pencil, wax-based which are softer and oil-based that are a lot harder. Do you prefer either of these types?
Mostly oil based. I actually like to use a mix of 3 brands (Can I say brands? Delete if necessary – Faber Castell Polychromos, Caran D’ache Luminance & Prismacolor Premiere). The 3 types I use all have different uses, one type has a harder lead and is great for sharp lines, another for blending and the other for portraiture.
A lot of your work is done on toned-tan or toned-gray paper, instead of regular white paper. How does a coloured base help?
There’s something incredibly daunting about a white canvas, and the contrast of a harsh white background doesn’t help me bring the highlights of areas of the work to life in their initial stages. I find working on tanned paper, the whites look whiter. I often draw helmets with lots of reflected light – Captain Phasma, Boba Fett & Din Djarin are great examples and the realism in those pieces comes from the contrast of metallic light reflections which is achieved nicely against a coloured background.
When sketching, do you ever set yourself a time-limit, e.g. 15 minutes, so that you don’t overwork a piece?
For the Topps sketch cards absolutely, when I have a short deadline and large quantities of card art to complete, I can’t be spending a whole day on 1 card – as some take longer than others, I try to juggle a mix of ‘quicker’ characters or scenes amongst more complex cards. I usually try to achieve 6 cards per day in a 10-hour period. With commissions I never set a limit, but I sort of know my speed, I can usually achieve a comic blank in 1.5 days and larger drawings 2+ depending on the size.
All of us here at team Jedi News love so many pieces of your artwork, but one of my particular favourites is your commission cover for Phasma because of the reflections you achieved on the chrome. Is that a difficult effect to achieve?
Do you know, that is one of my favourite covers of all time, and I wasn’t even doing it for a commission – remember me saying about art for my own pleasure? This is a perfect example, I don’t often use markers and wanting to have a play with them, it was super intricate but the variety of colours and lines on the reference meant that I couldn’t really go wrong. I couldn’t believe how popular it was! I think it sold within about half an hour of posting it.
As an official Topps Trading Cards artist, you have to create a masterpiece in miniature. Topps cards are only 2.5 x 3.5 inches (approx. 6.4 x 8.9cm) in size. Is it a challenge or do you like focusing on something so small?
I love doing them, not only for the fact that I am living the dream making Lucasfilm approved licensed art for a Star Wars product – but because I get to explore all of the greatest moments and characters on screen. Sure, they can be a challenge but I started producing art for Topps 3 years ago and drawing/painting on that scale has taught me more about refining a skill than anything else. I like to set a theme for the non-specific subject themed sets like Masterwork & Galaxy, it gives collectors a chance to hunt down several of my cards – from Prequel Landscapes to a pop art style Rebels collection with various coloured backgrounds.
Your commission work on blank Marvel Comics covers is incredible and I know that many of the Jedi News team members are considering getting their own created by you. Would you like to do an official Marvel Star Wars cover variant and if you got the chance, which series would you like to make one for?
Thank you! That means a lot. Oh wow, an actual official variant cover for Marvel? That is up there with lifetime goals. The thought of walking into a comic bookstore and seeing my work on a shelf would be incredibly special achievement. I love Ethan Sacks’ new Bounty Hunter Series, I’m a huge Fett fan so I really would love to work on that product. Definitely something to something to strive for. Of course, if there’s a Mandalorian comic in the pipeline, well who wouldn’t want to work on that?
One of our new questions here at Jedi News is based on a conversation our Literature Team had in their WhatsApp group about our favourite new canon era novels (Post 2015 timeline reset). Are you a reader of these books and if so, what would be your current top 5?
Not so much of the recent novels, simply due to lack of time, I’ve read E.K.Johnston’s Ashoka and thought it was just perfect, it really did the character justice and really felt like a pivotal bridge of her arc between The Clone Wars & Rebels. I read the first of the Aftermath series, I still need to get around to finishing the other two. Oh, and the Thrawn series is on the list!
You often post progress shots onto your Twitter feed. Do you think you might consider doing time-lapse videos or something similar on YouTube, so your fans can see more of your creative process?
This is something I’m working on, I recently started up a YouTube channel with my first time-lapse video & an interview I did for a Topps Card Collector group ‘Virtual Con’. Being the typical introverted artist, I shy away from the camera and get incredibly nervous. I’m trying to break through that, so its baby steps right now.
It’s a bit of an understatement that 2020 has been an unusual year. How has it affected your work?
Yeah you could say that! It has been a crucial year for my work. Up until this Pandemic, I have had a part time job to supplement my income, one I’ve pretty much been waiting to shake so I can dedicate all of my time to my art. I was furloughed and found myself working harder than ever on my art, when they un-furloughed me I requested another member of staff take my place, to give them the opportunity to take my place and for me to be made redundant. It was a huge leap of faith and being reliant solely on the art income is both exciting and terrifying, but this opportunity would never have come around and I’m glad I made the jump.
Obviously the lack of conventions have affected potential new clients, exposure and sales – not only that, but as someone who spends all day at home, these social events are important to interact with fans, fellow artists and without them it can be pretty lonely.
Is there any character, Star Wars or otherwise, that you haven’t yet drawn but want to in future? – I love the Old Republic era, I’ve just landed a variant cover commission that explores Darth Malgus & Shae Vizla, these are awesome characters so I can’t wait to get started. Other than that, there’s another franchise that I’ve always wanted to do licensed sketch card art for, I’m currently working on those and whilst I can’t say any more about it, I’m extremely excited to be working on those product and can’t wait to show you all what I’ve done for this series!
If our readers want to reach out to you via social media or directly, how is the best way to get in touch?
Messaging through social media is the most common point of contact, either Instagram, Twitter or my Facebook page, but email works for me too – jaymanchandart@gmail.com
That’s brilliant Jay! I want to say a huge thank you on behalf of the team here at Jedi News for your time, we wish you every success in the future and hope that we will see you again soon in person on the convention circuit sometime soon. Thank you!
Thank you so much for having me, it really was a pleasure, I’m forever grateful for all the support Jedi News shows for my work, in the form of comments and shares so it was great to chat directly to you about what I do. Again, thank you and hope yourselves and your readers are all keeping safe & well.
