Artist Seamlessly Places Beloved Pop Culture Icons Into Old Military Paintings

Star Wars Digital Painting

Yoda

An Australian artist known as scadarts (aka mandal0re) creates stately portraits of characters from pop culture with a distinct twist. Each digital collage features the figure donning military attire and posing for a style of portrait formerly reserved for royalty. The images have a historical feel with a muted palette, strong lighting, and tempered brushstrokes that recall the work of the famed painter Caravaggio. But with the addition of Star Wars as well as the Marvel and DC comic universes (and beyond), there is now an air of subtle humor infused in each painting.

Scadarts began creating his cultural mashups in 2019. “The military portraits started with the Ewan McGregor ‘General Kenobi,’” he tells My Modern Met, “which was a play on the meme. It was later reposted which prompted me to make more of them and it’s just snowballed from there.” Scadarts shows no sign of stopping and has continued to consistently pay homage to Star Wars and his favorite movie series.

The mashups are part of a larger interest of the artist. He loves combining subjects that, on the surface, are dissimilar and have them make perfect sense. “I started Photoshopping things on my phone about three years ago as a part of Reddit photoshop battles,” he says. This led him to the pictures he creates now. “These portraits take on average around two to three hours to do. I make them on my iPhone with an app like Photoshop and involve a lot of work on texture layers and lighting to fit into the original pictures.”

Scadarts sells his work on t-shirts via Store Frontier.

The artist scadarts seamlessly integrates pop culture icons with old military portraits.

Star Wars Digital Painting

R2-D2

Star Wars Digital Painting

Anakin Skywalker

Star Wars Digital Painting

“General Solo”

Digital Pop Culture Mashup

Obi Wan Kenobi

Digital Pop Culture Mashup

Kylo Ren

Digital Pop Culture Mashup

Finn

Star Wars Digital Painting

C-3PO

Star Wars Digital Painting

Darth Vader

Star Wars Digital Painting

Mon Calamari dock worker

Digital Pop Culture Mashup

Greedo

Star Wars Digital Painting

“General Plo Koon”

While much of his work revolves around Star Wars, the artist is interested in pop culture at large.

Digital Pop Culture Mashup

Joker(s)

Star Wars Digital Painting

Thanos

Star Wars Digital Painting

“The First Avenger”

Digital Pop Culture Mashup

Digital Pop Culture Mashup

Scadarts: Instagram | Store Frontier

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Scadarts. 

Related Articles:

Amusing Mashups Imagine the Alternate Lives of Superhero Action Figures

Artist Secretly Replaces Framed Photos at Home With ‘Star Wars’ Art and His Wife Doesn’t Notice

Artist Transforms Victorian Portraits Into Modern Pop Culture Trading Cards

Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met, Manager of My Modern Met Store, and co-host of the My Modern Met Top Artist Podcast. As an illustrator and writer living in Seattle, she chronicles illustration, embroidery, and beyond through her blog Brown Paper Bag and Instagram @brwnpaperbag. She wrote a book about embroidery artist Sarah K. Benning titled 'Embroidered Life' that was published by Chronicle Books in 2019. Sara is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She earned her BFA in Illustration in 2008 and MFA in Illustration Practice in 2013.
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