With Star Wars sweeping the international box office, a small piece of downtown Bradenton is getting its own galactic makeover thanks to street artists Richie Brasil and Eddie Rivera, who since late November have transformed three of the four community walls outside Keeton’s Office and Art Supply into a vibrant mural tribute to some of the films’ most colorful characters. First meeting at these same walls two years ago for Keeton’s annual spray paint festival, Can Jam, the artists long talked about tackling a project of this magnitude, but with Star Wars presenting a united front, “now was the time,” said Brasil. But not everyone agreed.

The walls at Keeton’s are designated community walls, meaning that any artist can use them as their creative canvas, and over the years countless tags, sketches, scenes and screeds have accumulated. Commandeering the three best walls for two artists and one project was something new. “We got dissed twice,” said Brasil, with one coming the very first night, when he and Rivera primed the walls, essentially painting over all previous work, and sketched their outline. “The next day, it was all tagged over,” laughs Rivera. The pair took a week to let things cool, then returned stronger than ever. “We’d invested so much it was a shame to call it quits,” said Brasil.

Coming back, Rivera and Brasil opted for the ‘shock and awe’ approach, finishing an entire wall in one marathon effort, “and hopefully people will see that this is really something,” recalled Rivera. Unveiling a completed wall featuring the iconic Millennium Falcon and cult favorite bounty hunter Boba Fett imposing in full color silenced the doubters and work continued according to the master plan. Or not.

“You’ve just got to go to the wall and mess around and see what happens,” said Rivera as to the pair’s planning process. “We got together the night before,” he offers. Despite the complicated nature of the murals, overlapping multiple figures at differing scales and integrating ship and design elements from the franchise into one coherent and massive image, the planning remains almost as nonexistent as back in the two’s graffiti days. The biggest part of planning is affording the spray paint to finish. “That’s the important part and really the only part we take time to consider,” said Brasil. “As far as drawing and stuff goes, there’s a magic that happens when you hit the wall that can’t happen in a sketchbook.”

Minus one further instance of ‘disrespect’ from another tagger (which Brasil corrected in about 10 minutes), the project continued unhampered, with heroes like Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie rising to lead the Rebel Alliance from one wall while franchise villains such as Darth Vader and Darth Maul glower from the other. About 90% complete, Brasil and Rivera are taking the week for the holidays and to recuperate, but plan to return for some detailing and maybe even to add a couple characters. “The droids need a little love,” said Brasil.