James Haggerty spends months painstakingly punching staples on a painted board

May 5, 2014 08:17 GMT  ·  By

Star Wars has intrigued and fascinated many people ever since the first movie was released in 1977, but the iconic sci-fi series has also been a significant source of inspiration for many artistic creations.

A talented New York City artist has had the patience to create an impressive series of incredibly detailed Star Wars character mosaics using nothing else by multicolored staples.

James Haggerty, from Brooklyn, has combined his love for staples and Star Wars to create these amazing works of art that depict iconic characters from the epic space opera franchise centered on the film series created by George Lucas. He says he realized the potential of using staples in art while playing with an old stapler.

“I discovered the potential of using staples to create works of art by daydreaming and playing around with an old stapler. Staples, just like an etched line, can be bold and graphic or soft and subdued. When I use colored staples, each one acts like a dash of paint in a painting and when viewed from only a few steps back is optically mixed,” Haggerty said.

With unearthly patience and meticulously organized patterns, the 40-year-old artist merges tens of thousands of multicolored staples to form the faces of Darth Vader (10,496 staples), bounty hunter Greedo (21,458 staples), and C-3PO (33,580 staples) on painted boards of about 40 x 32 inches (100 x 80 cm) in size.

The creation process is more complex than you think, Oddity Central explains. The artist begins by creating five to ten ink drawings and picking his favorite one. He then transfers the selected drawing onto a painted board and meticulously punches each staple on that board.

He relies on the dark background to fill in some of the negative spaces, while the small metal pieces form the highlights, adding detailed depth and shine to each portrait.

Each portrait takes more than six months and up to 33,000 individual staples to complete. Haggerty says he created the portraits as a hobby, but if he were commissioned he would charge $10,000 (€7,200) per piece, taking into consideration the amount of time necessary to complete them.

Talking about his fascination with the Star Wars universe, the artist said, “My affinity with the Star Wars universe all goes back to my childhood. I was hooked after the first few minutes of the first movie – they captured my imagination as a child and have continued to live on.”

Check out his amazing staple mosaics in the photo gallery below.

Star Wars Staple Mosaics (3 Images)

Darth Varder portrait made out of multicolored staples
Bounty hunter Greedo portrait made out of thousands of staplesC-3PO portrait made out of multicolored staples
Open gallery