My Name is David O'Brien....my problem. I'm a massive Star Wars Fan.

Before the release of the Last Jedi and when all the filming had been done here in Ireland and particularly on Skellig Micheal I had a dream to one day meet Mark Hamill!

So based upon a few pictures and the poster for the Last Jedi I started to do a portrait bust of Mark as Luke Skywalker. Little did I know where this creative intuition lead to!

My line of work is creating bronze sculptures, plaques awards and movie props. I run Bronze Art Fine Art Foundry in Dublin Ireland and I was lucky enough to be able to make the Bust of Mark/Luke at the foundry purely as a pet project!

I had gone ahead and cast the bust I sculpted in bronze and had it lying around when I heard that Mark Hamill was to be the grand Marshall of the St Patricks Day Parade in Dublin. Through various contacts I have I was able to to blag my way into see Mark giving a presentation at the American Ambassadors residence in Phoenix Park where he spoke about the filming of the Force Awakens and the Last Jedi on Skellig and his time in Ireland.

I was able to side step him and show him the Bronze Bust I created and he was blown away by it and though DIsney Ireland it was eventually sent to him in the US.

This Project is basically part 2!

I don't want the fire and enthusiasm that these movies brought to Kerry to burn out and I have endeavoured through as many channels as possible to get people on board to help fund this project but after 7 years of trying it has come to nothing.

Go Fund Me seems the only avenue forward.

So what's the proposal?

A slightly larger than life size Bronze Sculpture of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker from the Last Jedi at the pier in Portmagee where the boats go out.

This would be a massive tourist attraction and would keep the interest in Star Wars in the Area alive. There are many tourists that come to see the sights that the Star Wars movies were filmed at but there is very little for them to see. There is the May the 4th Festival every year also which generate lots of interest but this sttue in place would cement Portmagee as the Centre for Star Wars Tourism in Kerry.

I have been asssured planning permission would not be an issue and the whole community in Portmagee are behind the project and I would hope would help push it over the line.

What will the funds be used for?

No.1 Finishing the sculpture ,making a mould of it and putting it through the lost wax process to cast it and finish it n Bronze. Ground works and stone work on the site of the pier.

No.2 Making a website dedicated to the making of the sculpture and promotion of the project world wide through social media.

Targets for the production of the sculpture:

No.1 Enough funding to finalise the sculpt of Luke itself.

Once that is done then I plan to get a Rubber mould made with Fibreglass Jackets.From this we would make a wax of the sculpture.

There is also a cloak needed to be made my idea is once the wax is made and complete to get the entire sculpture 3D scanned.

From this scan I would get the talented people at 3D printing Ireland to sculpt on the cloak and 3D print it.

Once it is fit to the sculpt it in turn would need to be moulded in rubber and fibreglass and then made in wax to be put through the lost wax process and ultimately cast in Bronze.