So, being quite anal retentive, I just had to run down the source of the art for "Trust Your Feelings," since I knew it was from Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force. After talking with the artist, Chris Trevas, about it, he noted that anything in the LFL archives is fair game for FFG, though at least one individual who approached FFG about providing art was told that it was basically an in-house team doing most or all of it.

Thus, I decided to go through the Edge of the Empire beta book, all parts of the EOTE Beginner Game, all of the current cards (plus rules, inserts, etc.) for the LCG Core Set, and all but the literal box for X-wing (of the core set and Wave 1 materials).

Having done so, I found that there were only two instances so far of art being used for all three lines (LCG, RPG, and Minis). Those were a TIE fighter with an explosion behind it (TIE Fighter in the LCG, Dark Curse in X-wing, and EOTE Beginner Game Rulebook p. 39) and another TIE fighter (Winged Gundark in X-wing, the EOTE Beginner Gamev vehicle token for a TIE fighter, and animage in the LCG Core Set Rulebook on p. 9).

On the other hand, a full 16 of the current pilot and upgarde cards for X-wing have repeats in the LCG:

(LCG / XW)

Target of Opportunity (Dark Side) / Cluster Missiles

Vader's TIE Advanced / Darth vader

TIE Advanced / Tempst Squadron Pilot

I'm on the Leader / Maarek Steele

A Disturbance in the Force / Determination

TIE Fighter / Dark Curse

Backstabber / Backstabber (the ONLY one with the same name in both games)

Astromech Droid Upgrade / R5-K6

Emergency Repair / R2-D2

Red Two / Red Squadron Pilot (art reversed)

Y-wing / Gold Squadron Pilot (art rotated)

Draw Their Fire / Marksmanship

X-wing Escort / Wedge Antilles & Academy Pilot (One bigger image that is the same as the X-wing cover art gets split into two different pilot cards.)

Mobilize the Squadrons / Garven Dreis (just the bottom left X-wing from the LCG card)

Rebel Assault / Biggs Darklighter

Target of Opportunity (Light Side) / Ion Cannon Turret

I also found that if you check out the character and vehicle tokens in the EOTE: Beginner game,

X-wing's Winged Gundark = TIE Fighter token

LCG's Rancor = Rancor token

LCG's Heavy Stormtrooper Squad = Stormtrooper token (with art significatntly darkened and reversed, as you can tell by the blaster bolts on the token being purple, rather than red)

LCG's Imperial Officer = Imperial Officer token

LCG's Outer Rim Hunter = Aqualish token

There are also a few times the LCG art shows up expanded in the EOTE materials, such as Believer in the Old Ways, Twi'lek Smuggler, Dark Alliance, Corellian Engineer, The Hand's Blessing, Questionable Contacts, Secret Informant, and Intimidated .

That is not to mention the various times that the LCG borrows from its cards for its rulebook (which makes perfect sense), the times that the different Edge of the Empire items (Beginner Game Rulebook, Beginner Game Adventure Book, Beta Rulebook, etc.) tend to repeat each other's artwork. They also sometimes repeat the same non-FFG concept artwork, though only once have I realized I was looking at something from a different Expanded Universe book (the "Trust Your Feelings" Trevas art from JvS:tEGttF).

Obviously, sharing artwork between product lines makes sense for FFG from a financial and resource standpoint, but I'm curious what others think of this. I am also going to link to the PDF of my current list, so that those who are curious can check out specific examples and perhaps provide some where I have failed to recognize soemthing from another EU source or from the games themselves.

My current list is here: http://www.starwarsfanworks.com/temp/FFGRepeatedArtwork.pdf

Reusing artwork doesn't bother me a bit as long as it's not reused in the same game.

Actually, there's some artwork I like to see again and again.

I couldn't care less if artwork is reused between the various Star Wars games that FFG is making. I would be more surprised if it was not but for me it is not anywhere near an issue.

I don't think you're complaining about this. I want to state that firstly.

Moving on. I think that anyone who complains about this is being extremely petty. If they are able to use higher quality art and use this higher quality art across all of their game lines, I'm perfectly okay with that. Art is expensive and making it less expensive on a per game basis is great for FFG and great for the consumer, as we get great art.

There were two Star Wars games that reused the same screen captures (CCG and TCG), not to mention decipher used the same art on several cards in its Jedi Knight TCG (Quick Draw characters). It's expected, and while I might not like it, it doesn't bother me much.

Ulairi said:

Oh yeah, definitely not complaining. The quality of the artwork with the FFG stuff so far has been outstanding, all up there with the level of work we get out of people like Chris Trevas and Chris Scalf these days in other Star Wars products.

I expected plenty of repeating artwork. I'm more just interested in what I've missed, if anything, and where we might see certain other art pop up. For instance, there are plenty of starfighters in art for the X-wing game's pilot cards that have not yet shown up in the LCG, which certainly suggests that they might be used for starfighter unit art in future Force Packs.

My only concern would be if they at some point used lesser quality art that was repeated over and over again, or just the same ol' still images from the films that we have all seen ad nauseum.

That being said, I am probably most interesetd in which art is being reused from something that was NOT from FFG. I'm curious because basically once something is created for Star Wars, it enters LFL's "archives" and can be used as a resource later. For instance, I wrote a story for Star Wars Tales #21 when Dark Horse was still putting out that series. Sure enough, a few years later, Hasbro put it out as a comic pack with action figures, but there was never any form of official contact to let me know this at all. I found out the way everyone else did (online) and had to get my comic pack(s) the same way everyone else did (excruciatingly slowly through Ebay and online toy retailers). Chris Trevas, meanwhile, is unaware (at present) of any other artwork of his that is being used in the LCG, though he did already know about "Trust Your Feelings" when I messaged him about it. How many other "archival" Star Wars items are being reused within FFG's materials? It's not a bad thing, nor an inappropriate thing, but something that I find particularly interesting as someone who follows those other materials.

This is nothing new for FFG. All the same licenses share artwork from what I've seen. Arkham Horror, Elder Sign, and the Call of Cthulhu LCG share artwork. The 3 Android games do, as do the Game of Thrones games they put out. What I'm saying is that, yeah, it may be a bit cheap/lazy, but it's something long time FFG players have gotten used to.

I may be a little bit off topic here, but your post got me a little concerned about the possibility of alternative art on cards.

I find it hard to believe that I won't see some of the major characters reappear in new expansion sets (e.g. Han Solo in the large expansion dedicated to Smugglers and Scum). If we're going to get see these characters in different objective sets, wouldn't it be nice to have some alternative art present (at least for the major players in the Star Wars universe, who are easily recognized by everybody. I would love to see different instances of Vader and Luke)?

If FFG is keen on reusing art, that's okay in most cases, but would bother me a bit in the instances I mentioned above.

SW:LCG and any artwork used in creating it has been awesome. If some artwork has been reused, who cares; the game is a ton of fun!

Rozgutt said:

A Game of Thrones has multiple versions of the major characters throughout the sets (with different art), so there's no reason to believe that Star Wars won't either. The reused art is spread among the multiple games they license (card, RPG, and minis game), not so much within the same game itself.

AlKusanagi said:

That's good to hear! Thank you for clarifying.

Call of Cthulhu has had variants of characters as well. However, not just the artwork varied; the cards' abilities (and sometimes factions) also varied.

I hope to see variants like this popping up in Star Wars as well. I'd love to see a young Obi-Wan, for instance, because he was slightly more reckless than old Obi-Wan.

Luke would be the most obvious character to exist across multiple factions: I very much hope that we eventually see Luke (and Red Five) show up as Rebel Alliance units. I wonder if there're any characters that might make sense to exist as versions on the other side. If we ever start dipping into the Prequel material, we might see Anakin for Jedi, or perhaps some of elements of the Smugglers and the Scum affiliations could work for both the Light and the Dark; Lando is obviously bound to show up in Smugglers, but perhaps his role as unwitting colloborator could land another version of him on the Dark Side.

I'm sure we'll see the characters change factions. Commander Skywalker is going to happen.

Ulairi said:

General Solo will be the Rebel's version of Han and I'm sure that Lando will be in the Smuggler's faction while General Calrissian will be in the Rebel faction.