Discover Topps Artist Carlos Cabaleiro
Carlos Cabaleiro has had a rollercoaster relationship with Star Wars throughout his life.
As a kid, Cabaleiro loved the original trilogy. However, when he became an adult, he lost interest. When The Force Awakens was released in 2015, it reopened his eyes to the importance of George Lucas’ mega-franchise. Cabaleiro’s fascination returned in large part because he became an integral member in creating cards for Topps’ The Force Awakens set.
“I was one of maybe two dozen artists that Lucasfilm hand-selected to work on Force Awakens,” Cabaleiro said. “So that was kind of neat.”
Cabaleiro has been working as an artist for Topps for 10 years. Producing Star Wars sketch cards has become one of Cabaleiro’s main projects.
The final Star Wars trilogy, released when Cabaleiro was in his early 40s, brought him back to his childhood and the captivating original trilogy.
The Force is Strong
When Return of the Jedi hit the big screen in 1983, a young Cabaleiro chased the fandom by collecting all the cards from 1983 Topps Return of the Jedi set.
In the early 1990s, Cabaleiro turned his attention to collecting baseball cards of players such as Ken Griffey Jr. and Jose Canseco; he also dabbled in picking up football cards.
But his collecting habits always returned to more non-sports cards, especially Star Wars. So when Cabaleiro was asked to work on Topps Star Wars Illustrated: Empire Strikes Back as his inaugural set for Topps in 2015, he couldn’t say yes fast enough.
A big highlight of Cabaleiro’s first set was the chance to work on sketchagraphs: sketch cards by an artist of an actor accompanied by the actor’s autograph.
“The way they’re done now is you do the artwork then they send it off to the actor,” Cabaleiro said. “I was getting already signed cards. So you better not screw that up. There was a lot of pressure there. It was Ian McDiarmid. It’s Billy Dee Williams. It’s Anthony Daniels. So that’s when you have a moment where it’s like, ‘Wow. These guys touched this stuff. This is kind of cool and crazy.’ That was my introduction to Star Wars at Topps, so it was pretty awesome.”
After that Empire Strikes Back card release, Cabaleiro — who is a full-time freelance illustrator — became a regular artist on every Star Wars set up until 2021.
Cabaleiro got his biggest shot as an illustrator that same year when he was asked to work on Topps’ Star Wars Living Set. The print-on-demand product featured one card per week of a current or former Star Wars actor or character. It ran from 2019-24, with Kris Penix and Cabaleiro being the only two illustrators on the project.
During Cabaleiro’s three years contributing to the Star Wars Living Set — the product was discontinued this year — he had 138 published paintings and 299 total pieces.
“On the Living Set, you get one chance to immortalize a character/creature/ship from a specific film or series,” Cabaleiro said. “That’s what weighs on me the most when I begin to figure out that subject. How can I tell this subject’s story in one image that will be reproduced to fit on a two and a half by three and a half card?”
Seeing His Artwork
Along with his sketches for Star Wars sets, Cabaleiro has worked on baseball products, including Museum Collection, Gallery, and Flagship.
Cabaleiro, who is 48 years old and resides with his wife, Kristina, in Orlando, doesn’t think he really has a style as an artist. He just wants to convey a story to the audience.
“The challenge is to try to tell that story in that one image,” Cabaleiro said. “I think that’s something I really enjoyed about the Living Set was that I had to capture Luke Skywalker from The Mandalorian in one image. Which is the one that’s iconic? What’s the one that’s going to tell his story? And how do I do that? I’ve got Kylo Ren. What do I think of when I think about Kyle Ren? I think about rage. I need to find the reference where it’s just going to express that. Now, how do I capture that? That’s where the composition, and the color, and the mood, and the lighting, all of that has to factor in.”
Cabaleiro loves to see the final product of his cards and the excitement from collectors when they pull one of his cool sketches.
“It’s probably the most satisfying part of that is when people tag me on socials on a break and I get to watch and see the reaction,” Cabaleiro said. With the Living Set, one thing that was really cool for me, and it became like a little niche for collectors, was they were taking the cards and having them signed at conventions by the actors. I’d get tagged every time. It was just neat to see that ‘Mark Hamill saw my painting of Mark Hamill.’ He signed it. That’s kind of cool.”
