Chris Trevas

Christopher J. Trevas has been an official Star Wars artist since 1995. He began as an illustrator for West End Games's Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, producing artwork for publications such as Heroes & Rogues, the Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook, Instant Adventures, and the Star Wars Adventure Journal. He has contributed to numerous other projects, including Wizards of the Coast's Arms & Equipment Guide and their Star Wars Miniatures line, for which he designed many of the figures as well as the packaging art.
Some of Trevas's other works include Priority: X from Star Wars Galaxy Magazine 12, the "Guide to the Grand Army of the Republic," and A Two-Edged Sword, as well as two children's books: Meltdown on Hoth and Anakin to the Rescue. He was the author of the recurring feature in Star Wars Insider magazine titled "Set Piece," which ran from issue 54 to issue 100. More recently, Trevas co-illustrated The New Essential Guide to Alien Species with William O'Connor, Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force with Tommy Lee Edwards, and Star Wars Blueprints: The Ultimate Collection. He has also illustrated the Legacy Era Campaign Guide by Wizards of the Coast and The Essential Atlas, where he cameos as a Human in a game of holochess.
==Biography==
===Early life===
Chris Trevas was three years old when he first saw Star Wars in 1977, but claims that he has more memories of playing with the toys than of the films themselves.
===A career in Star Wars===
In 1994, when Lucasfilm began recruiting artists for Episode I's art department, Trevas submitted a portfolio including various alien sketches, but he was not hired at that time. However, at a science-fiction convention in 1995 in Chicago, Illinois, he shared his portfolio with West End Games, who at the time held the Star Wars role-playing license, and was hired by them a few months later. Trevas produced interior artwork for numerous roleplaying game (RPG) books for them, including Heroes & Rogues, the Star Wars Adventure Journal, and supplements for The DarkStryder Campaign.
In 1996, Trevas graduated from college with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Illustration. He then became a full-time freelance artist, continuing to create interior art for West End's Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook, Shadows of the Empire Planets Guide, Instant Adventures, Star Wars Trilogy Sourcebook, Special Edition, as well as cover art for Wretched Hives of Scum & Villainy, The Black Sands of Socorro and Cracken's Threat Dossier. In 1997, the year before West End Games' collapse, Trevas began doing work for other Star Wars licensees, including Priority: X for Topps' Star Wars Galaxy magazine and became a regular artist for Scholastic's Star Wars Kids magazine. He continued to branch out to other companies, illustrating Meltdown on Hoth for Golden Books and "The Unseen Planets of Star Wars" for Star Wars Insider.
In 1998, Chris Trevas and Chris Reiff created an unofficial fan site called "The Parts of Star Wars," a guide explaining how many of the props in the Star Wars films were made and how they could be recreated. The next year, he illustrated Dig magazine's The Lost City of Tatooine and the Random House children's book Anakin to the Rescue. In 2001, Star Wars Insider called upon the expertise of Trevas and Reiff for a new section called "Set Piece," a recurring feature—beginning in issue 54—which takes a shot from one of the films and points out behind-the-scenes facts about props and sets; it also features line art by Trevas of selected props. He also illustrated "Unseen Planets of Episode I" in issue 56, a follow-up to the 1998 classic trilogy article.
For Star Wars 25th anniversary in 2002, Trevas wrote and illustrated "Star Wars Prop Art: Creating a Believable Universe" for the Celebration II souvenir book and created Star Wars art for Comic-Con's souvenir book. The same year, he began working for Wizards of the Coast, illustrating numerous weapons and technologies for their Arms & Equipment Guide. In 2003, he created the Jedi Temple computer screens that would appear in Inside the Worlds of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, published by Dorling Kindersley. In the following years, he would do more work for Wizards of the Coast: illustrations for Ultimate Adversaries and the Ultimate Missions series, for the latter of which he would design the accompanying figurines. Trevas was also one of the many artists who began drawing sketch cards for Topps, after a recommendation by his friend and fellow artist Joe Corroney.
In addition to his regular "Set Piece" feature, Trevas illustrated three articles for Insider in 2005: "The Unseen Planets of Episode II," "Guide to the Grand Army of the Republic," and the short story A Two-Edged Sword. For the story, which featured lightsaber-wielding stormtroopers, Trevas created a physical lightsaber prop to use as reference. He also created a work for Vader: The Ultimate Guide which shows Darth Vader ordering the execution of Owen and Beru Lars. For Celebration III that year, he created a piece called "The Circle is Now Complete." Trevas continued to contribute to the Wizards of the Coast RPG with either artwork or design sketches for their Champions of the Force, Bounty Hunters, and Starship Battles Miniatures series.
In 2006, Trevas received from Del Rey his biggest Star Wars project yet: The New Essential Guide to Alien Species. Trevas created fifty-three species images—half of the images in the book; the other half were done by William O'Connor. Trevas's illustrations included the acklay, bantha, dewback, Human (based on his own likeness), Kaleesh, rancor, Rodian, tauntaun, Twi'lek, and many others. Several of his aliens in the book were intended to be as-of-yet unnamed characters from his previous works. For the 30th anniversary of Star Wars in 2007, Trevas was one of almost fifty artists to create a work for Celebration IV. His piece, titled "Star Wars: 30 Years of the Force," celebrated A New Hope and was obviously inspired by an early promotional piece by Ralph McQuarrie. Prints of the work were sold in limited numbers at Celebration IV and Celebration Europe, both of which Trevas attended.
Trevas's most recent work is Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force. The book, written by Ryder Windham, is illustrated by Trevas and Tommy Lee Edwards. The two evenly split the workload of 120 illustrations. Trevas, who came onto the project in January 2007, created sixty pieces for the book, with pieces including the funeral of Mara Jade Skywalker, the Jedi Academy confronting the spirit of Exar Kun, Shmi and Anakin Skywalker arriving on Tatooine, Jedi historian Tionne Solusar, a young Palpatine with Darth Plagueis, and many others. One of his favorite pieces was of Obi-Wan Kenobi's Force ghost visiting Luke Skywalker on Hoth. Trevas again collaborated with Ryder Windham for Star Wars Blueprints: The Ultimate Collection, which was released in August 2008. In 2009, Trevas worked as one of the artists on The Essential Atlas, alongside Ian Fullwood, Modi, and Chris Reiff.
Trevas worked on the book From a Certain Point of View, providing illustrations for all of the short stories within, save for the story "Far Too Remote" by Jeffrey Brown.
==Style==
===Influences===
Both as a child and in his professional career, Trevas cites Star Wars conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie as one of his major influences. McQuarrie's work inspired him to concentrate on illustrating environments, not just characters. Another important influence, particularly because of his mixing of pencil and paint, was poster artist Drew Struzan. More recently, Trevas has looked to the work of digital artists such as Ryan Church and Craig Mullens.
===Technique===
The illustrative style of Chris Trevas has evolved over the years. While he used colored pencils during high school, he began to mix them with paint and eventually moved to using acrylic exclusively. Years later, Trevas switched to painting digitally in Adobe Photoshop via a Wacom drawing tablet. He also uses Adobe Illustrator for line art drawings.
==Star Wars works==
===West End Games===
Title 	Year	Contribution	Notes
Heroes & Rogues 	1995	Interior art	
The Kathol Outback 	1996	Interior art	
Do No Harm 	1996	Interior art	From Star Wars Adventure Journal 10
The Capture of Imperial Hazard 	1996	Interior art	From Star Wars Adventure Journal 10
The Kathol Rift 	1996	Interior art	
Endgame 	1996	Interior art	
The Farrimmer Cafe 	1996	Interior art	From Star Wars Adventure Journal 11
The Longest Fall 	1996	Interior art	From Star Wars Adventure Journal 11
Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook 	1996	Interior art	
Shadows of the Empire Planets Guide 	1996	Interior art	
Instant Adventures 	1997	Interior art	
Introductory Adventure Game 	1997	Interior art	
Mos Eisley Adventure Set 	1997	Interior art	
Conflict of Interest 	1997	Interior art	From Star Wars Adventure Journal 13
The Last Hand 	1997	Interior art	From Star Wars Adventure Journal 13
Wretched Hives of Scum & Villainy 	1997	Cover art 	
The Black Sands of Socorro 	1997	Cover art 	
Cracken's Threat Dossier 	1997	Cover art 	
Special Ops: Drop Points 	1997	Interior art	From Star Wars Adventure Journal 14
Star Wars Trilogy Sourcebook, Special Edition	1997	Interior art	
===Wizards of the Coast===
Title 	Year	Contribution
Arms & Equipment Guide 	2002	Interior art
Ultimate Adversaries 	2004	Interior art
Ultimate Missions: Rebel Storm 	2004	Interior art
Ultimate Missions: Clone Strike 	2005	Interior art
Ultimate Missions: Revenge of the Sith 	2005	Interior art & figure design
Star Wars Miniatures: Universe 	2005	Figure design
Star Wars Miniatures: Champions of the Force 	2006	Packging art & figure design
Bounty Hunters 	2006	Packging art & figure design
Starship Battles 	2006	Card art
Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition Core Rulebook	2007	Interior art
Star Wars Miniatures: The Force Unleashed 	2007	Packaging art
Scavenger's Guide to Droids 	2009	Interior art
===Star Wars Insider===
# 	Title 	Year	Contribution 	Notes
36 	"The Unseen Planets of Star Wars" 	1998	Illustrations 	
54 	"Set Piece: The Mos Eisley Cantina" 	2001	Writing and line art	Co-written by Chris Reiff
55 	"Set Piece: Hoth Echo Base Main Hangar" 	2001	Writing and line art	Co-written by Chris Reiff
56 	"Unseen Planets of Episode I" 	2001	Illustrations 	
56 	"Set Piece: The Palace of Jabba the Hutt" 	2001	Writing and line art	Co-written by Chris Reiff
57 	"Set Piece: Imperial Star Destroyer" 	2002	Writing and line art	Co-written by Chris Reiff
58 	"Set Piece: The Death Star Trash Compactor" 	2002	Writing and line art	Co-written by Chris Reiff
59 	"Set Piece: Rebel Alliance Briefing Room" 	2002	Writing and line art	Co-written by Chris Reiff
60 	"Set Piece: Theed Palace Hangar" 	2002	Writing and line art	Co-written by Chris Reiff
61 	"Set Piece: Cloud City Carbon-Freezing Chamber" 	2002	Writing and line art	Co-written by Chris Reiff
62 	"Set Piece: The Millennium Falcon" 	2002	Writing and line art	Co-written by Chris Reiff
63 	"Set Piece: Dagobah" 	2002	Writing and line art	Co-written by Chris Reiff
64 	"Set Piece: Ewok Village" 	2002	Writing and line art	
65 	"Set Piece: The Outlander Club" 	2002	Writing and line art	
66 	"Set Piece: Jedi Council Chamber" 	2003	Writing and line art	
67 	"Set Piece: Jabba's Sail Barge" 	2003	Writing and line art	
68 	"Set Piece: Mos Eisley Spaceport Docking Bay 94" 	2003	Writing and line art	
69 	"Set Piece: Wampa Ice Cave" 	2003	Writing and line art	
70 	"Set Piece: Padmé's Coruscant Apartment" 	2003	Writing and line art	
71 	"Set Piece: Anakin's Hovel" 	2003	Writing and line art	
72 	"Set Piece: Death Star II: Emperor's Throne Room" 	2003	Writing and line art	
73 	"Set Piece: Yavin IV Rebel Base: Main Hangar" 	2004	Writing and line art	
74 	"Set Piece: Geonosis Hidden Hangar" 	2004	Writing and line art	
75 	"Set Piece: Moon of Endor: Imperial Bunker" 	2004	Writing and line art	
76 	"Set Piece: Hoth Battlefront" 	2004	Writing and line art	
78 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Jawa Sandcrawler" 	2004	Writing and line art	
79 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Theed Royal Palace" 	2005	Writing and line art	
80 	"The Unseen Planets of Episode II" 	2005	Illustrations 	
80 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Jango Fett's Apartment" 	2005	Writing and line art	
81 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: A True Jedi Makes A Noble Sacrifice" 	2005	Writing and line art	
82 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Rebel Blockade Runner: Tantive IV" 	2005	Writing and line art	
83 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Mustafar: Main Control Room" 	2005	Writing and line art	
84 	"Guide to the Grand Army of the Republic" 	2005	Illustrations 	
84 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Geonosis Arena" 	2005	Writing and line art	
85 	"A Two-Edged Sword" 	2005	Illustrations 	
85 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Invisible Hand: Main Bridge" 	2005	Writing and line art	
86 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Chancellor's Holding Office And Senate Chamber"	2006	Writing and line art	
87 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Order 66" 	2006	Writing and line art	
88 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Death Star II Main Hangar" 	2006	Writing and line art	
89 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Escape From Cloud City" 	2006	Writing and line art	
90 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Luke's Landspeeder" 	2006	Writing and line art	
91 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: X-wing Starfighter" 	2006	Writing and line art	
92 	"Technical Readout: Set Piece: Rebel Snowspeeder" 	2007	Writing and line art	
93 	"Set Piece: Imperial TIE Fighter" 	2007	Writing and line art	
94 	"Set Piece: Naboo Royal Starship" 	2007	Writing and line art	
95 	"Set Piece: Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's Office" 	2007	Writing and line art	
96 	"Set Piece: Death Star Conference Room" 	2007	Writing and line art	
97 	"Set Piece: Kamino Platform" 	2007	Writing and line art	
98 	"Set Piece: Massassi Temple" 	2007	Writing and line art	
99 	"Set Piece: The Invisible Hand" 	2008	Writing and line art	
100	"Set Piece: Watto's Shop" 	2008	Writing and line art	
===Other works===
Title 	Year 	Contribution
Star Wars Galaxy Magazine 12: Priority: X 	1997 	Illustrations
Star Wars Kids 	1997–2000	Interior art
Meltdown on Hoth 	1998 	Illustrations
Star Wars: Behind the Magic 	1998 	Ord Mantell and Dantooine paintings
Dig: The Lost City of Tatooine 	1999 	Cover & illustrations
Anakin to the Rescue 	1999 	Illustrations
Celebration II Souvenir Book: "Star Wars Prop Art: Creating a Believable Universe"	2002 	Writing & line art
Comic-Con International Souvenir Book: Star Wars 25th Anniversary 	2002 	Interior illustration
Topps' Star Wars Heritage 	2004 	Sketch cards
Inside the Worlds of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones 	2005 	Illustrated endpapers and computer screens
Celebration III - "Star Wars: The Circle is Now Complete" 	2005 	Limited edition print
Topps' Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith 	2005 	Sketch cards
Vader: The Ultimate Guide 	2005 	Interior art
The New Essential Guide to Alien Species 	2006 	Illustrations
Celebration IV / Celebration Europe - "Star Wars: 30 Years of the Force" 	2007 	Limited edition print
Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force 	2007 	Illustrations
Star Wars Blueprints: The Ultimate Collection 	2008 	Illustrations
The Essential Atlas 	2009 	Illustrations
Star Wars Blueprints: Rebel Edition 	2010 	Illustrations
Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual 	2012 	Illustrations
Death Star Owner's Technical Manual 	2013 	Illustrations
YT-1300 Millennium Falcon Owners' Workshop Manual 	2018 	Illustrations
TIE Fighter Owners' Workshop Manual 	2019 	Illustrations
Rebel Starfighters Owners' Workshop Manual 	2019 	Illustrations
From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back 	2020 	Illustrations
Celebration Anaheim (2022) - "The Princess' Gambit" 	2022 	Limited edition print
==Sources==
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==Notes and references==
==External links==
*christrevas.com
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*The Parts of Star Wars
Category:Card game artists
Category:Cover artists
Category:Non-fiction authors
Category:Reference work artists
Category:Roleplaying game artists
Category:Short story artists