High Republic - Tumblr Posts

ok so i haven’t read any star wars books but i want to try to find some to start reading so does anyone have any recommendations on some good ones?

was thinking of getting the first high republic book which i know i’ll probably have to take a second to get used to since it’s 200 years before any of the trilogy takes place but the concept peaked my internet.

Racists will always be mad. But now an entire new generation of black kids get to grow up with black Jedi that aren't just Mace Windu. Bell Zettifar. Kai Brightstar. Yord Fandar. Mae Aniseya. Kelleran Beq. This isn't even all of them but they are in the biggest medias.

I was scrolling through merch and saw kids Kai Brightstar costumes for halloween and my heart exploded remembering when I was in a walmart years ago near halloween and a little black boy ran past me to scream at his mom that he could be Falcon for Halloween. When I was baby sitting my chinese friends little brother and showed him Keenan Kong Chinas Superman and he said "So I can be Superman for Halloween?" Like he at age 10 already thought he couldn't be.

This matters. All the negativity doesn't matter because so many star wars loving families and kids are getting to tune in and for the first time in their lives see so many people reflecting them. Their hair being celebrated and styled completely casually on TV. Their softness and power. Their importance and impact.

Even in Young Jedi Adventures Bell Zettifar spends the episode with Kai teaching him about patience and not being reckless. Bonding together and being a positive almost sibling like relationship. There's a black Princess in the show as well.

Regardless of all the hate and negativity this is so so so important and I tear up thinking about all the little kids and older fans finally seeing this because I know its already brought me to tears

I've been wondering for a while how to put everything I've seen about the acolyte finale into words and this is it here, plain and simple. it was an amazing finale.

The Acolyte spoilers:

It’s wild to me how much discourse there is about points from The Acolyte that I think were pretty obvious lol

People arguing about Qimir being a Sith or not. He explicitly said he was looking for an acolyte. An acolyte is an apprentice to the apprentice of the Sith master. Then Qimir said he wanted the power of two. I mean what more evidence do we need lol

Also about Plagueis being his master. I’m not 100% sure, but I’m 99% sure he is lol my theory is, is that Plagueis has heard about these twins and has ordered Qimir to train one or Qimir is doing all this on his own cause eventually he needs to overthrow his master (we know the future, this won’t happen).

The bleeding crystal. The argument is “but anakins lightsaber didn’t bleed!$&&/“ yeah because his crystal wasn’t exposed. Did we miss the multiple shots of Sols exposed lightsaber and the blue crystal????? Osha bled the crystal cause she was touching it.

Was it romantic at the end? YES.

Anyway just needed to get this off my chest or hands whatever lol cause I’m seeing too many people not get this

Surprise!!!

I actually haven't gotten over them yet. :D

I miss my girls!🧡🤍

jedi and fatness in the high republic era

so. high republic media has given us so much in terms of characters that are not white, are not straight, are not cis etc. … but what i expected the least was that they gave us jedi who literally don’t fit into the ~ideal~ body type that jedi typically have - slim, athletic, muscular. the #1 argument against jedi being fat is always: they need to be physically fit. they need to be disciplined. they need to be fast, and proficient in combat. disregarding the stereotypes that fat people aren’t disciplined etc. i just… i never got it because: you can be fit without being straight-sized. you can be proficient in combat. you can train to run fast. and jedi? jedi have the force to support them. and even if they aren’t all of those things they “need” to be - there’s always jedi librarians. healers. teachers. explorers. but i digress. let’s get back to the high republic!

there are two jedi padawans that are fat or fat-adjacent in high republic media: imri cantaros and ram jomaram. and they’re written in such a loving, respectful way i cry when i think about it.

i don’t want to make a huge analysis or anything, but i’d really like to share a couple of my oh-my-god-this-character-is-fat-and-i-love-them-so-much moments.

that’s ram, who has appearances in: the rising storm, race to crashpoint tower, high republic adventures, trail of shadows (in one panel lmao), midnight horizon.

Ram hated fighting. Well–he’d never done it, but he hated the idea of it. It felt like his body refused to cooperate any time even a practice battle was called for. Lightsaber training and Jedi combat maneuvers were his two worst areas, and the very thought of going face to face with an enemy made him jittery. (race to crashpoint tower)

but even though he says he hates it or can’t do it, he’s good at it!

and pls look at him go in this panel in trail of shadows #3:

and one quote from midnight horizon that i love love LOVE:

“Absolutely,” Reath said, lighting his own green one and standing at the ready. “What were you going to ask me?“ Their sabers met with a jangly surge of power. Reath was careful to move slow, telegraphing his every move so Ram would see it coming and block. "Oh.” Ram said, easily swiping away Reath’s sizzing blade and then shoving him clean across the room with the Force. “Never mind.” Reath sat up with a huge grin plastered across his face. “It’s like that, huh?” He stood, cracking his neck the way his master had. “Game on!”

reath like “i’ll go easy on this little dude” and ram just obliterates him. 😌

that’s imri! he has major appearances in: a test of courage, out of the shadows, mission to disaster. he’s not as explicitly fat as ram (and for some reason his depiction in the high republic comic is… not the way he’s described in the novels lol) but i’m absolutely counting him.

Imri was tall and broad-shouldered and his hefty frame was a perfect match for his master’s. He had pale skin, a mop of golden hair, kind brown eyes, and an uncanny knack for perceiving the feelings and thoughts of those around him. (out of the shadows)

and:

Imri was relieved to see that there were no durga berries today. They were delicious, but Master Nyla had been hard pressed to find a tabard in his size, and he didn’t want to tempt disaster by eating another one. (mission to disaster)

also, in mission to disaster he’s constantly eating or talking about food and it’s so incredibly delightful.

i love these two boys so much and it’s just really, really neat that the high republic writers are giving us at least crumbs of diverse body types on top of everything else.

EDIT: OH!! very important addition by @cohborikardok:

yes!!! thank you!

Reath's my favourite character from the high republic so of course I had to make his lightsaber hilt. Made with birch, tulip, panga panga, and xylia. This is only the second hilt I've made and there's some parts that don't quite fit together but I'm still pretty proud of it.

Stellan’s lightsaber hilt has got to be one of the prettiest lightsabers in Star Wars, so I wanted to see if I could replicate it. This hilt is made with cedar, chamfuta, purple heart, and padauk. I turned the main shaft of the hilt on the lathe, and used the scroll saw with various sanders, hand files, and chisels to make the cross guards and details. I also used one of the chisels to accidentally stab my finger which was fun… As with the others, some of the joins still aren’t quite perfect but this is still one of my favourite things I’ve made.

I think it is. The official art seems to show a lightsaber in the back of the shield, which is in turn powered by kyber. I’m not sure if it officially says that anywhere though. Wookiepedia describes it as a plasma shield, and also describes lightsabers as having a plasma blade so you could assume they’re powered the same way.

Do we know that Silandra's shield is powered by Kyber, same as a lightsaber? I love the notion but my memory is fuzzy

Had me some top surgery recently so I haven’t been able to I haven’t been able to do anything particularly physical for a few weeks. I haven’t actually drawn for the sake of drawing for a while and also have limited experience with markers so there’s definitely space to improve. Reath and Ram’s shenanigans in Midnight Horizon might just be my favourite thing.

Burry lives! I definitely still need more marker practice but it’s getting better I think, maybe. Also I know he is off centre and no I did not realise until after it was finished but I also can’t be bothered to fix it so… Tales of Light and Life was so good I need more high republic to consume now pls

So this took longer than I expected, and some of the colours and lighting might be a bit off, but it was still really fun. I don’t do a lot of painting just to make a painting so this was fun. Also I don’t know where she’s supposed to be here, I kind of just made it up, a waterfall felt appropriate.

I finally committed to painting my phase 1 box set.

I had to put Starlight Beacon on there and the Vessel is similarly iconic. I tried to match the background to the cover art as much as possible. My airbrush is officially dead so I used a sponge instead but I think it came out pretty good. I think there’s still something to this I haven’t quite worked out because I still had issues with some of the paint cracking off and I had to go back and fix it but I think it looks okay, just a little faded. The paint’s probably on too thick but I forget how much is already on there.

Honestly, these are some of my favourite books (not that I read much else). I am perhaps a little obsessed.

In honour of more Avar content, I made Avar Kriss’s lightsaber, with cedar and gonçalo alves with a spalted, erm… wood, stand (I don’t know what kind of wood that is it wasn’t labelled when I bought it).

Avar’s hilt is a little less complicated than Stellan’s, this one took around a week compared to about 2 weeks for Stellan’s, but it’s still a great design even among high republic lightsabers. I still haven’t quite figured out how to make things fit completely perfectly but generally the gaps are small enough to just fill in. I also ran into a small wormhole in the gonçalo alves I had to fill in which I’m hoping isn’t that noticeable.

The Eye of Darkness was everything I needed. My boy Reath got 4 whole mentions, including one physical appearance (yes I was counting, don’t judge me). Also Burryaga just allowing Ember to burn his fur so he could give her pets is so cute.

My lightsaber shelf is getting full, however, I do not care. Here’s Bell Zettifar’s lightsaber, made with palm, olive, and sycamore, with a cherry stand.

This was the first thing I’ve used sanding sealer for as the black grain in the palm is very hard and splinters out while turning so it’s difficult to get a smooth finish. I’m not sure if it’s done anything but it’s not splintery so I think it’s okay.

Bell’s lightsaber is much simpler than some others I’ve made. It only took me 3-4 days as it doesn’t have many extra parts that aren’t part of the main turned core part of the hilt, and those that there were were very simple, I didn’t even need the scroll saw.

New lightsaber just dropped, and this one stabbed me personally multiple times. Those spikes are, in fact, spiky.

Ty Yorrick’s lightsaber, made with leadwood, mango, sycamore, and a tiny piece of redheart, with a beech(?) stand.

The mango looks really nice but the piece was full of fine cracks which did make it difficult to work with, especially the spike pieces which kept breaking. The sanding on the spikes probably could’ve been a little neater but if you don’t look too closely you can’t really tell.

Ty’s such a cool character, I hope we get more of her in phase 3

Wooden Jedi vector, made with cedar, panga panga, redheart, and lacewood, with a cherry stand.

This was quite awkward to figure out because there isn’t one specific way a vector should look. All the official art is very slightly different so I had to figure out the right shapes and proportions for everything so it still looked enough like a vector. It’s not massively symmetrical but the Art of the High Republic book mentions that ship models for Star Wars actually have built in asymmetry to make it look more lifelike, so yeah that’s all definitely intentional I did that on purpose, definitely…

The joints on this could definitely be stronger, it’s literally just held together with glue, but as long as you don’t swoosh it too hard it does hold itself together.

Some fore edge paintings of the phase 3 books. I wasn’t quite sure on the design for these but I think I kind of got what I was going for. I didn’t have too much of an issue with the paint cracking either, or at least not too much of an issue I couldn’t fix later. The pages curled up quite a bit on Escape from Valo so I’ve had it in the clamp for a few days, hopefully the pages have flattened out a bit.

These books keep getting gayer and gayer and I’m very much here for it. Escape from Valo was so fun, all of the younglings were adorable and I would die for them

Orla Jareni’s lightsaber, made with maple, leopard wood, and Indian rosewood, with a spalted (beech?) stand.

Besides the hinge part, this one was pretty simple to put together, though the hinge was quite simple once I figured it out. I decided to put magnets in the bottom so it would lock itself in the long, staff form. The magnets I had aren’t very strong but it’s just about enough to hold it.

I finished it with citrus oil instead of lemon oil this time. Partially because there’s no small, fragile parts that might break off if I buff it with the wheel, but also because it has a stronger smell, as Indian rosewood has a very, distinct smell kind of like old piss which was not being covered up with lemon oil. Even the citrus oil only covered it up for about a day. It does give a shinier finish than usual though.

Orla was always a really interesting character with how she doubted the ways of the Jedi but still staying firmly in the light

Porter Engle’s lightsaber, made with cherry, mopane, spalted lime, and redheart on a beech(?) stand.

This one was a lot of carving and not that much turning. It’s also one with a lot of art and comic book depictions, but with comic book lightsaber depictions, the exact shape isn’t generally consistent so it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with the curved guard part. This was a fun one though.

Manifesting alive Porter for Temptation of the Force. He’s not dead you can’t convince me.