Robin Pronovost

Robin Pronovost was born in 1975, and their interest in Star Wars began in early childhood. They would play with their cousin's Star Wars toys such as C-3PO and saw Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back during its theatrical release. However, it was Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi and the Ewoks featured in the movie that turned them into a fan; they saw that film multiple times in theaters and would play being the Ewok Teebo with other children in their family. Pronovost considered becoming a veterinarian or an animator before becoming a primarily self-taught artist, eventually taking independent classes and going to school for graphic design. Although they are based in Canada, they have dual Canadian–Australian citizenship.

As an artist for Star Wars publications, Pronovost illustrated online features, magazine articles, and trading cards. In 1999, they began contributing artwork to two magazines that shared the title Star Wars Kids. Their first contribution was the art for the "Star Wars License Plate Game," which was written by Jef Czekaj and published in both the fifth issue of The Fan Club, Inc.'s series and the first issue of the Scholastic Inc. series launched that year. The game involved placing descriptive phrases for five characters on the blank license plates of their associated vehicle or creature, such as "JEDI NME#1" ("Jedi Enemy #1") for Darth Maul with his speeder bike. Along with Maul, Pronovost's cartoons depicted Anakin Skywalker in his podracer, a B1-Series battle droid riding a STAP, Jabba the Hutt by his sail barge, and a Jawa wrangling a dewback. In Scholastic's fourth issue, Pronovost contributed that issue's "Star Wars Funnies," with cartoons of Jar Jar Binks as "Tar Tar Binks" and Sebulba as "SeBULBa." They also contributed the "Star Wars Funnies" feature published in both The Fan Club's eighth and Scholastic's eighth issues, depicting "Lord Sidious" shopping at the "Darth Mall," "Leonard Neimoidian" performing a Vulcan salute, and a toddler "Mini Maul."

Beginning in 2005, several art tutorials created by Pronovost were published in the Star Wars Kids section of StarWars.com as "Learn to Draw" and "Star Wars Drawing" features. Their first tutorial was "Drawing Boga," the varactyl ridden by Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. They were also profiled as part of the site's "Artist Series," and they created a printable Boga mask for Halloween. Another art tutorial, "How to Draw Admiral Ackbar," was published in the "Padawan's Corner" section of the ninety-second issue of the Star Wars Insider magazine in 2007.

Pronovost was one of the artists who contributed Artist Sketch Cards to the Topps trading card set 2005 Topps Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. From 2007 to 2012, they contributed several hundred more Artist Sketch Cards for at least one Topps Star Wars trading card set per year. The base set of 2009 Topps Star Wars Galaxy Series 4 also included their artwork on the card "Night of the Red Ghost," which featured the Ewok Asha preparing to strike a Dulok with a slingshot. In Pronovost's quote on the card, they said, "I chose to show Asha protecting the woods from Dulok poachers. She is known as the 'Red Ghost' and is perceived by the Duloks as a forest spirit, rather than an Ewok, due to her ferocity. I really love Ewoks, and while the cartoon series was lighthearted for the most part, the Asha episode was serious and touching, for the most part."

In 2015, they produced a final sketch subset for 2015 Topps Star Wars Rebels. Since their last work for Star Wars, they have become a medical laboratory technologist.

While author Daniel Wallace was working on The Essential Guide to Episode I, an announced reference book that was in development from 1999 to 2000, he requested that Pronovost design the bursa species based on one of George Lucas's undeveloped notes that a past conflict between the Gungans and "bear-like creatures" may have led the Gungans to maintain an army. Pronovost also designed the Amaran species for the planned book when Wallace requested a fox alien species. The pair decided that this species should be called Amarans after "Amara," Pronovost's fox fursona that they had created as a university student and named after the character Amara from The New Mutants comic books.

The book was eventually cancelled, but Pronovost's work inspired the canonical Expanded Universe depictions of Amarans and bursas in The Wildlife of Star Wars: A Field Guide, a 2001 reference book which was illustrated and co-written by Terryl Whitlatch. Whitlatch's version of bursas also appeared in Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, a video game released in the same year. Pronovost later shared their original Amaran designs and non-canonical backstory on their blog for personal use in roleplaying games.

Although it was noted on the Wookieepedia article for Amarans that there appeared to be a connection between the species and Pronovost's character Amara Fox, the artist previously denied it and would claim that it was coincidental. Their denials were due to concerns that attitudes towards the furry fandom would result in negative impacts on their professional career. When this did not occur as they had feared, they subsequently shared the truth through a series of tweets.

Beginning in 2001, Pronovost and Wallace collaborated again on writing the article "Castaways of Endor," with Pronovost also providing illustrations for the story. The Ewoks cartoon was a favorite of both growing up, and they developed information and roleplaying details for several species, such as the Duloks, Jindas, dandelion warriors, and tree goats. The pair drew inspiration from the ongoing feature The University of Sanbra Guide to Intelligent Life in the magazine Star Wars Gamer. The article would be based on a theory originated by Pablo Hidalgo that the Forest Moon of Endor was a "shipwreck colony."

Pronovost was largely responsible for the sections on the Duloks and the Jindas. In researching the latter, Pronovost discovered that A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, Third Edition, Revised and Expanded, a 2000 reference book by Bill Slavicsek, had described the Jinda leader Bondo as an Ewok despite numerous visual differences between the two species in the Ewoks cartoon. Additionally, Jindas were depicted with Ewok models in the 2003 video game Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. The discrepancies were ultimately reconciled within the article by establishing that the Jindas seen in Ewoks were just one tribe out of several non-Endorian species that had been stranded on Endor, and that some stay-at-home Ewoks used the term "Jinda" as a disparaging term for Ewoks who were nomadic.

According to Wallace, the pair pitched the article for the Star Wars Insider and it was rejected, then it was repackaged for Star Wars Gamer prior to that magazine's cancellation; another Insider pitch was attempted before StarWars.com purchased it as a Hyperspace exclusive. "Castaways of Endor" was released on Hyperspace on December 1, 2008. In a StarWars.com blog post, Pronovost wrote that during the eight years it went unpublished, the article was in limbo in their e-mail archives and survived two hard drive crashes.