In case you missed it, StarWarsShop recently posted the Jedi-Con exclusive Shadow Trooper 2-pack, which was originally announced in a story we ran here a couple months ago. StarWarsShop is now the only place to pick these sets up, unless you were lucky enough to have a contact attending the convention in Germany!

And since we're on the subject of the shadow trooper, we thought we'd share a piece of artwork we recently discovered that arguably places the black-clad trooper's design roots back in A New Hope's pre-production era.

The design, which appears to be by Ralph McQuarrie (Joe Johnston may have added the black shading), seems to be a Darth Vader/stormtrooper hybrid, with black armor, lightsaber, and cape. As we know from McQuarrie's early concept paintings, stormtroopers carried lightsabers in early versions of the script, but ultimately downgraded to the clumsy, random blaster.

It's not known if this costume was ever seriously considered for inclusion in the film, or if the artist(s) was simply playing with variations on a design. Imagine what a great addition this would have made to Hasbro's Ralph McQuarrie Signature Series figures.

Make sure to head over to StarWarsShop and pick up the exclusive Shadow Trooper 2-packs while they last!