Inktober #27: Kylo Ren

Uploading a day early - we'll be at the Essen Games Fair tomorrow, and I don't think I'll have a chance to draw anything properly, so I've worked ahead a little!

Right, so I decided he had a space in my "heroes of page and screen". XD The new trailer makes me wonder whether there is a path back to the light for him. I'm really, really looking forward to December. <3

I had high-ish hopes for The Force Awakens. The new characters - Rey, Finn, Poe - looked nice, and I had a lot of confidence in J. J. Abrams, who has always had a knack to invest me in his characters (something that the prequels had utterly failed to do, even though I adore Ewan McGregor). 

I was so afraid that TFA might suck that I watched it with such apprehension that I barely took in any of it. I remember us - hubby and both kids, our first Star Wars outing - leaving the cinema saying aloud, with a slightly wondrous undertone, "I think that was pretty good." 

After that thought had had time to settle, we went twice more. Again, with the entire family. Once with my parents over Christmas, and then again on my birthday in February (with the kids dressed up as Stormtrooper and Rey). By then, the transformation was long complete - from "I think that totally didn't suck" to "OMG I FRIGGIN LOVE THIS FILM". 

What surprised me was that none of the wonderful, fantastic new heroes had made it for me - yes, Rey, Finn and Poe are all pure awesomeness, but I'd firmly fallen for the villain. That had never happened to me. There are a lot of women who love bad boys - I never did. I was always Luke, not Han; Thor, not Loki; John, not Sherlock; Remus, not Sirius. I thought I simply was that way. 

In the build-up of the film, I had completely overlooked Kylo Ren in his mask. I'd put him down as the generic villain, and rolled my eyes as I saw him on the first boys' pyjamas at C&A in November, my thoughts confirmed. I was totally surprised to see such a fleshed-out character in a Star Wars film, which had never been known for its deft handling of good and evil, especially not a mix thereof. It gives me high, high hopes for the conclusion of this trilogy. 

And then, of course, there's that face of Adam Driver's. What an incredibly dorky face that somehow manages to get handsome-ish in costume. It's so un-Hollywood, and such fun to draw.