If there is one thing in this world that is more difficult than trying to master Eddie Van Halen's Eruption on electric guitar it is surely teaching a Jawa how to play it.
But that is what stop-motion animator Thomas J Yagodinski has just done. Using a 16-inch Frankenstrat replica and a model Jawa he created himself, Yagodinski has paid the late guitar maestro the ultimate tribute, and perhaps given us a taste of what it might be like to hear a Van Halen covers band play Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina at Mos Eisley.
Stop-motion animation is a painstaking affair, a process of taking it one frame at a time, editing the still photography together and syncing it with audio. Here, Yagodinski even has the fingering down to a T.
Check out Yagodinski's Instagram page for more pics and see below for some behind-the-scenes footage from the project.
This is not the first time since the world of Van Halen and Star Wars has collided. In Back To The Future, Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) famously dresses in a radiation suit, visits his future father (played by Crispin Glover) in the 1950s, announces himself as Darth Vader (from the planet Vulcan) before playing him some of Eddie's volcanic guitar noise through a Sony Walkman. But Yagodinski's might just be the best.
