Hugh Fleming Hugh Fleming is an Australian artist who produced cover art for a number of Dark Horse Comics ' Star Wars series in the 1990s . One of the company ' s major Star Wars cover artists of the time , his work includes covers for " " , " Splinter of the Mind ' s Eye " , " Shadows of the Empire " , and " " . Fleming was also artist of the " Star Wars Rocks ! " poster for The Star Wars Fan Club . His work with Dark Horse began through one of the company ' s other popular movie licenses , Indiana Jones . Known for his cinematic , photo - realistic , and poster - art style illustrations , Fleming ' s compositions often relied on rare or less - known photo - references from film production photos or stills to help create authentic yet still innovative illustrations for well - known media properties . Fleming took pride in creating scenes that did not look like they came from well - known photo references . In this period Fleming became one of a cadre of Dark Horse Star Wars cover painters including such noteworthy artists as Dave Dorman , Kilian Plunkett and Duncan Fegredo , who were following in the footsteps of original trilogy poster artist Drew Struzan and helped give the company ' s Star Wars line a reputation for consistently impressive poster - style cinematic cover art . Inspired by the first " Star Wars " and " Indiana Jones " films , Fleming wanted to go into filmmaking from a young age . He was basically self taught as an illustrator , with the only art school he attended being a commercial art course for five months in 1985 , just after leaving high school . Fleming ' s life as a painter in the comics field began when he went to the San Diego Comic Convention in the early 90 ' s and began to get some work painting cover art with a number of smaller comic book publishers . He first met editors from Dark Horse Comics at the 1993 San Diego Convention , when Fleming and his best friend , Pete Ford , took a proposal for a 4 - issue Indiana Jones mini - series , tentatively titled " Indiana Jones and the Lost Horizon " to the convention . Lifelong Indiana Jones fans , Fleming and Ford co - wrote the story - - which would have been a prequel faithfully depicting an Indy adventure with his mentor Abner Ravenswood - - and Fleming created color art for the document to sell it . Dark Horse picked up the mini - series and Fleming was set to provide interior artwork for the 96 page story . However , the mini - series was cancelled before they could begin work on it because of low sales on Indy comics at the time . While that project was still in development , though , Fleming was approached by his would - be editor , Ryder Windham to paint the cover for another Indy mini - series already being released by the company titled " Thunder in the Orient " . Thunder ' s first issue ' s cover had been done by popular 90s cover artist Dave Dorman , but Dorman was very in - demand at the time ( doing numerous Star Wars covers among other things ) , so Fleming was brought in to take over for expediency . Thus , Fleming became a regular cover artist for Dark Horse ' s Indiana Jones stories , first with " Thunder " and then followed by " Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny " in 1995 . Because he had demonstrated that he knew his way around the character with his initial Indy story proposal , Fleming was afforded a lot of creative freedom throughout the process of creating his covers . He would be provided with copies of interior art from the stories and then would work with Windham to select the most dramatic scene to illustrate for the cover . He would typically get around a month to complete a given cover . He mostly used his own supply of Indy paraphernalia and Harrison Ford books for photo - reference . The year after his first Indiana Jones work , Fleming would again succeed Dave Dorman as cover artist on one of the company ' s popular Lucasfilm license being edited by Ryder Windham , the most popular : Star Wars . In 1994 , Fleming illustrated the six covers for the second part of the " " epic , " " , continuing the story of ancient Jedi Knights Ulic Qel - Droma and Exar Kun . The covers would include such firsts as the first depiction of a double - bladed lightsaber . According to Fleming , Lucasfilm Licensing was far more generous when providing the artist with " Star Wars " reference materials , providing him directly with packages of color copies from the LFL stock library , and filling any requests he may have had . These covers were followed by work on the third " Tales of the Jedi " miniseries , " " , the following year - - firsts for these covers included the first painted image of Mandalore - - and then as cover artist for the miniseries adaptations of " Splinter of the Mind ' s Eye " , and " Shadows of the Empire " , through to the end of 1996 . One of the most unique non - comic cover pieces of Star Wars art came for Fleming in 1998 , when The Star Wars Fan Club presented an exclusive poster by the artist entitled " Star Wars Rocks ! " The poster featured an in - action image of the heroes of the Original Trilogy playing a rock concert , complete with instruments , pyrotechnic lights , smoke effects , a crowd of cheering fans , and Darth Vader descending by wires from above the stage . Fleming returned to Star Wars universe to paint covers for the 4 - part Dark Horse adaptation of in 1999 . As of December 2002 , Fleming had taken a break from illustration to focus on his writing and filmmaking ambitions , and was last mentioned as working on a number of lower profile TV and film projects in an online interview . However , in 2008 , he returned to illustrate the covers for the Dark Horse adaptation of " Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull " . As an illustrator , Fleming has also painted for DC Comics , on the titles Star Trek , Batman , Green Arrow / Green Lantern and others .