Estevan – You think you are a Star Wars fan? You’ve got nothing on Wade Baldwin.
The operations manager for Import Tool in Estevan started getting his back tattooed in a Star Wars theme two years ago.
“It’s been done a year. It took a year to get done,” he said.
Baldwin appeared in Pipeline News about five years ago, when he was active in mixed martial arts. He doesn’t do that anymore, but still works out. His broad back made for quite the canvas.
The tattoo, done by Adrenne Ray of Ace of Swords in Regina, took 57 hours to do, at $120 an hour.
Between his shoulder-blades is the Death Star II, under construction, as in the Return of the Jedi. His left shoulder blade features the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, the Millennium Falcon. Four TIE fighters are flying about. Below that, on his left side of his back is the bounty hunter, Boba Fett, levelling his blaster. Opposite of him is a storm trooper in dessert gear.
The centre of his spine has Darth Vader crossing lightsabers with Obi-Wan Kenobi from A New Hope.
Just above the waist on the left side is Yoda in a solemn pose from The Empire Strikes Back. Chewbacca is growling on the opposite side. A formation of eight Stormtroopers are standing in formation between them.
Finally, the base of his spine is dominated by Darth Vader’s face mask.
Between all this all the space (as in “outer space) is filled in black.
But that’s not even the most impressive part. It’s the baby in his arms, borne a week earlier. She’s named Rey, and in “Rey,” the heroine in the new movies, Star Wars The Force Awakens.
Eight days old when the picture was taken, she was originally due Dec. 11, just a week before the new movie’s premiere.
Wade’s wife Karissa is okay with all of this, including naming their daughter after a movie character. “I wasn’t going to let him name her Padme,” she added.
