Artists, comic book creators, toy designers, and celebrity fans are getting out their markers, paint brushes and glue guns to transform blank Mighty Muggs into one-of-a-kind Star Wars art to be auctioned by The Make-A-Wish Foundation.
These highly-collectible urban vinyl toys have been available in a variety of characters from Star Wars and Indiana Jones, among other comic book and film franchises. For this special project, called The Empire Muggs Back, Lucasfilm asked popular artists, comics book creators, toy designers and celebrity fans to take blank Mighty Muggs (donated by Hasbro) and transform them into their favorite Star Wars characters, scenes, ships and more.
"Mighty Muggs have this wonderful humor to them, which is what I think makes them appealing to so many different fans, kids to adults," Star Wars artist Nicole Falk says. "This just takes it to the next level with all the artists' different styles. I am so excited myself just to see how interesting or intricate they will be and all in one place together! It's going to be a pretty amazing Star Wars experience."
"I've never customized a vinyl toy before, so I was excited to get out my paint brushes and work on a physical object," The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats comic book artist Adam Koford says. "So much of what I create nowadays is filtered through a computer that it's nice to rely on old fashioned, simple tools once in a while. I was tempted to actually blast a hole in Greedo, but since it was my first one I decided to save the experimentation for next time. Also my blaster's in the shop."
The final Mighty Muggs art pieces will be on display at San Diego Comic-Con and on StarWars.com. Each Mighty Mugg art piece will be auctioned off to raise money for The Make-A-Wish Foundation.
(A selection of the Star Wars Mighty Muggs art pieces created for The Empire Muggs Back.)
"StarWars.com wanted to show off the talents of artists and fans, who represent a wide-range of artistic disciplines, in an unique way while raising money for a good cause we have long supported," said Bill Gannon, Director of Online Operations at Lucasfilm Ltd.
"Fans are going to get a kick out of seeing all the custom Muggs from so many different artists," Star Wars artist Katie Cook says. "They're all going to be so different! I can't wait to see what characters some people picked and how they executed it in their own style. We all had the same blank bowl of ice cream to start with, now i want to see all the nerdy, nerdy toppings everyone came up with!"
Stay tuned to StarWars.com for in-depth Empire Muggs Back coverage, info on the online charity auction, Mighty Mugg crafting tips and artist profiles.
