Back in 2018 Penny Skateboards of Australia released a line of classic skateboards featuring characters from the Original Trilogy (Darth Vader, Boba Fett, R2-D2, and Stormtrooper). Fortunately, these were pretty easy to source in New Zealand, even a couple of years down the line. This 27″ trooper board was a gift, and was, at the time, the first of what has become a collection of Star Wars-themed skateboards (currently clocking in at 2x display boards and 2x active boards).

Most of the Star Wars theming is on the underside, with an artistic representation (by cartoonist M. Wartella) of an Imperial Stormtrooper promo image, but each of the wheels bear the text “Stormtrooper” – because I don’t intend to use this particular board, the wheels will retain their translucency, and I’ll get it displayed on a wall hanger in the near future.

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A little while back I customised up the underside of my primary skateboard deck using vinyl Star Wars stickers. I like the result so much I was motivated to work up a similar project, but to keep it for display only. In that previous blog post, I talk about grabbing these cheap vinyl decals off eBay (affiliate link).

This one started off as a nice budget board that was a Christmas gift intended specifically for this project. A cheaper board is perfectly fine for this sort of custom graphics, but a little bit of work was necessary to prepare the surface so that all the stickers would adhere and lie nice and flat.

It took a good few hours to plan the layout so that everything was balanced in terms of spacing, colour, etc, and so that my fave graphics were central and not blocked. I started with a template traced around the curves of the ends of the deck so that I could plan and cut the sticker for those regions before adhering them. Really happy with the result, and looking forward to getting it on the wall (probably paired up with my other Star Wars display board, a Stormtrooper board by Penny Skateboards).

The 2 boards on the left in the pics below are display-only decks, while the 2 on the right are in regular use.

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My wife and my father-in-law are to thank for me having this cool Yoda-themed longboard in my Star Wars skateboard collection. The latter sourced it second-hand and cleaned it up into a nice blank wood finish. It was possibly (probably?) the green wheels and truck baseplate that inspired the choice of Yoda as the theme. Anaria has a knack for superbly fine detail painting, and literally cut out the Yoda stencil using a scalpel (from an image sourced online) before using it to hand-paint his classic Empire Strikes Back visage onto the centre of the underside of the deck.

At the time of writing I have 4 Star Wars skateboards in my collection – 2 are display boards, and 2, including this one, are for regular use. The Yoda board is great for downhill runs, and it’s a definite favourite, knowing that it is a truly unique piece.

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A new skateboard deck (and new wheels) means it’s time for a DIY Star Wars project – a vinyl Star Wars sticker montage for the underside of the skateboard (our daughter has inherited my previous board). Not a complex project, of course, but it’s hard to resist applying Star Wars deco to something like this.

The starting point is a 9.25″ deck with bold block colour, and minimal graphics. There are a good few options for bulk lots of vinyl, die-cut Star Wars stickers on eBay (affiliate link), all well priced given the expectation that they will inevitably suffer on the underside of a skateboard, and need re-doing or tidying up down the line. Overall, the amount of stickers needed to fill out the bottom of an adult-sized skateboard is less than $5, but I bought enough that I was able to separate the stickers out into duplicates and less favourite designs for the first, base layer of stickers, saving the more unique and interesting designs for the top, most visible layer.

The trick is really just to take your time, and work on maintaining a bit of symmetry – make sure the border of colour left around the stickers is fairly uniform. Plan the layout of the stickers in a stepwise manner (take photos with your phone for reference if needed), and then progressively apply them and make sure the edges all all smoothed down.

I’m really happy with the final look – it focuses on classic Star Wars logos, Original Trilogy graphics, and vintage comic art. It’s actually quite tempting to do another DIY Star Wars skateboard with similar colours and layout in order to keep it mint for display only.

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