An Oscar-winning model maker behind many of ILM’s best-loved vehicles and location is involved in the new animated series Star Wars Resistance. Speaking with Bryan Young over at SlashFilm, George discussed his career so far and why (and how) he’s involved in the new animated series which launches tomorrow night.
How did Dave Filoni approach you into making models for Resistance?
He didn’t! We were having lunch and he mentioned that he had always wondered what a Corsair version of the X-Wing would have looked like. That night, I went home and ordered a Corsair model kit. When the kit arrived, I “kit bashed” a design based on the plane’s main fuselage and distinctive wings. When I presented it to Dave and he exclaimed, “That’s going in the new show!” I thought it would be used as a background ship. I was shocked to find out it’s the ship belonging to the main character.
Talk to me about what you were going for with the Colossus and the Fireball? Did the team point you to any inspirations?
Dave [Filoni] and [Art director] Amy Beth Christensen came to me a bit later about designing the Colossus. They laid out how it related to the story, as well as its purpose and history. They also turned over a huge amount of “scrap”- images showing details of things like oil derricks that they liked. Then they sent me away to design and build the model. Dave had explained that it was an Imperial design and so I used the classic Star Destroyer as my main design influence. He stated that it was like an aircraft carrier only the landing and launch areas were on the underside of it. It was also explained to me that, like a luxury liner, there were different “classes” of people who resided there. That drove me to try and isolate out the “first class” area high in the center and have negative space between it and the surrounding industrial area. Like the original Star Destroyer model, I used a lot of battleship model kit details in the design.
