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In The 90s, Two Middle Schoolers Created A Massive Body Of Star Wars Pixel Art

These digital designers spent their middle school days creating super-detailed pixel art from the Star Wars universe.

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A long, long time ago (the late 90's) in a middle school far, far away (Connecticut) twins Robert and James Dastoli were just two youngsters with Microsoft Paintbrush on Windows 3.1, a bona fide sci-fi obsession, and a whole lot of time. Creating a prolific body of Star Wars pixel art, the future founders of the Dastoli Digital animation house covered every corner of George Lucas' fictional galaxy—from Luke Skywalker's childhood moisture farm to the Death Star orbiting the moon of Endor—and beyond. “My brother and I would spend hours working on each of them and many of them have an impressive level of detail and accuracy” Robert comments, in an article by Juxtapoz, “Most importantly though, they serve as a charming reminder of the power of our fandom.”

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The boys' recreations are from Star Wars comics, Star Wars magazines, Star Wars promotional images—even the disastrous Star Wars Christmas Special. A concise compendium of fan art, one can trace the brothers' development in pixel-pushing prowess between their early Microsoft Paintings and their advanced ones. According to a comment on one Star Wars Paintbrush post, only a few works were saved onto floppy drives, with their original data, and original resolutions in tact. Many of the images today take on embroidery-like textures due to degradations that developed through the complex printing and re-scanning processes required to digitize the collection.

The pure volume of this project is impressive, and as such they are releasing one image a day on the Tumblr StarWarsPaintbrush until Episode VI comes out on December 18, 2015. That means 462 more days—and 462 more artworks—from the Dastoli brothers. While it might seem like a long wait, with this kind of inspiring fan art to satisfy our Force-driven cravings, we just might make it.

Below, some of our favorite pieces on StarWarsPaintbrush:

To keep up with galactic deluge of Star Wars pixel art as it's unleashed, follow the Star Wars Paintbrush Tumblr hereh/t Juxtapoz

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