The latest Star Wars Insider special edition landed today in the form of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars – The Official Collector’s Edition and maquette sculptor Darren Marshall spoke to Insider about the creation of the maquettes that inform the animated versions of the characters we’ve got to know so well since the start of The Clone Wars.
Star Wars Insider: How long does it take to build each piece?
Darren Marshall: I’ll read a script, and then I’ll block out a head in a day or two. I’ll take a photograph of the head if Dave [Filoni]’s approved it, and then I’ll put it into Photoshop on my computer. Next I’ll draw a body and costume, and then paint the whole thing over the top of the pictures of the maquette head and the body for the finished design. Chewbacca took a fair bit longer because of the accuracy we were trying to go for on the fur.
Star Wars Insider: Was it a daunting prospect to recreate him?
Darren Marshall: It was, because he’s so recognizable, and all the fans are going to be scrutinizing him! There was a huge amount of pressure to get Chewie right. We don’t do realistic hair on the show, so we had to come up with a way of stylizing the fur. We went to the Lucasfilm Archives, where they had on of the old Chewbacca masks that had been used in Return of the Jedi. It was very old and crumbling at the front. They also had the Revenge of the Sith prequel costume. We noticed that the prequel fur was very straight and soft, but the original costume used yak fur, which had an extremely wavy shag to it. We responded to that because we thought we could stylize that better. The look of the character in The Clone Wars was based on A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, because of that yak fur. It’s very scrappy looking. It’s like one of those old 1970s rugs that your aunt used to have in her living room.
Exploring the galaxy since 1978, Mark wrote his first fan fiction in 1981 and been a presence online since his first webpage Fanta War in 1996. He currently contributes to Star Wars Insider, ILM.com, SkywalkerSound.com and Starburst Magazine, having previously written for StarWars.com, Star Wars Encyclopedia, Build The Millennium Falcon, Geeky Monkey, TV Film Memorabilia and Model and Collectors Mart.
He is a four-time Star Wars Celebration Stage host, the only podcaster to have appeared on every Celebration podcast stage since it began in 2015, the Daily Content Manager of Fantha Tracks and the co-host of Making Tracks, Canon Fodder and Start Your Engines on Fantha Tracks Radio.
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The latest Star Wars Insider special edition landed today in the form of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars – The Official Collector’s Edition and maquette sculptor Darren Marshall spoke to Insider about the creation of the maquettes that inform the animated versions of the characters we’ve got to know so well since the start of The Clone Wars.
Star Wars Insider: How long does it take to build each piece?
Darren Marshall: I’ll read a script, and then I’ll block out a head in a day or two. I’ll take a photograph of the head if Dave [Filoni]’s approved it, and then I’ll put it into Photoshop on my computer. Next I’ll draw a body and costume, and then paint the whole thing over the top of the pictures of the maquette head and the body for the finished design. Chewbacca took a fair bit longer because of the accuracy we were trying to go for on the fur.
Star Wars Insider: Was it a daunting prospect to recreate him?
Darren Marshall: It was, because he’s so recognizable, and all the fans are going to be scrutinizing him! There was a huge amount of pressure to get Chewie right. We don’t do realistic hair on the show, so we had to come up with a way of stylizing the fur. We went to the Lucasfilm Archives, where they had on of the old Chewbacca masks that had been used in Return of the Jedi. It was very old and crumbling at the front. They also had the Revenge of the Sith prequel costume. We noticed that the prequel fur was very straight and soft, but the original costume used yak fur, which had an extremely wavy shag to it. We responded to that because we thought we could stylize that better. The look of the character in The Clone Wars was based on A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, because of that yak fur. It’s very scrappy looking. It’s like one of those old 1970s rugs that your aunt used to have in her living room.
Exploring the galaxy since 1978, Mark wrote his first fan fiction in 1981 and been a presence online since his first webpage Fanta War in 1996. He currently contributes to Star Wars Insider, ILM.com, SkywalkerSound.com and Starburst Magazine, having previously written for StarWars.com, Star Wars Encyclopedia, Build The Millennium Falcon, Geeky Monkey, TV Film Memorabilia and Model and Collectors Mart.
He is a four-time Star Wars Celebration Stage host, the only podcaster to have appeared on every Celebration podcast stage since it began in 2015, the Daily Content Manager of Fantha Tracks and the co-host of Making Tracks, Canon Fodder and Start Your Engines on Fantha Tracks Radio.
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