Star Wars Make and Do by Katrina Pallant and Kate Rhodes
| Star Wars Make and Do by Katrina Pallant and Kate Rhodes | |
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| Category: Crafts | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: A long time engaged with these crafting and drawing projects awaits, but brilliant results predict I cannot. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Maybe |
| Pages: 96 | Date: March 2017 |
| Publisher: Egmont | |
| ISBN: 9781405279970 | |
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For the right young mind, their favourite franchises just don't end with watching them once or twice and that's it. Given great characters they will want to write them into their own stories, or re-enact their dramas in the playground. If things get a bit more sedate, some of them can be convinced to sit diligently working on craft projects, which is where this book comes in. It latches on to the biggest names in the Star Wars universe, and allows you to either draw or create them, or both. But while the 'why don't you?' spirit is strong with this one, I remain unconvinced the results will please everyone.
What you get is a large format square book, stuck into a hardback folder alongside a second block of paper, which is mostly blank for your artwork, but also contains a sheet relevant to one of the tasks, and a bonus page of colourful stickers. It's those tasks in that main book that are of note. We start with a Wookie hand puppet to make, and immediately I raise my eyebrows, when the results in their own photo makes me think more of the Muppet's Animal. There is a spread for a finger puppet Yoda, which comes in felt patches you've created yourself, and looks like the Jedi master's South Park cameo. We use a balloon, not a cast of our own head, for a papier mache Stormtrooper mask, card of various thicknesses and used craft pens for an X-Wing, a design we have to trace and then paint onto a blank T-shirt to have Darth Maul across our chest, and more.
We then have guidelines for how to draw the heroes and baddies we all know and love, from Old Ben up to BB-8. But I didn't get anything convincing from these – you're just instructed to 'now draw his face', and characters like this need the specific, er, character about them. Heck, I struggled with the perspective to get my X-Wing engines in the right line. I always was hopeless, but I can see many more like me needing more conviction, more detail and so on in the directions given.
So you would need some diligent expertise, the likes of which I cannot provide. But you also need a herculean patience with the product as well – open the activity book to see the left hand page of one of its spreads and you have a whopping 27" long item to stand up, or keep still and protected, before you can remove your hands and get stuck in with anything. I have no idea how much detachable, ring-bound pages for each project would have cost the publishers, but I can imagine many copies of this as it is being damaged, flattened, or indeed pulled apart for people to have an easy time of it. It doesn't serve small hands at all, even if the clarity and font of the numbered instructions are perfect for their owners. So while the advice to read before beginning is salient and clear, I think it's missing a further step – first buy your book-friendly workbench clamps…
I must still thank the publishers for my review copy.
Star Wars Rogue One Book and Model: Make Your Own U-wing (Star Wars Construction Books) by Katrina Pallant and Neal Manning is a self-explanatory product to get one decent model on your shelf.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Star Wars Make and Do by Katrina Pallant and Kate Rhodes at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Star Wars Make and Do by Katrina Pallant and Kate Rhodes at Amazon.com.
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