StarWars.com takes a look inside the freshly released Rebel Starfighters Owners’ Workshop Manual, which we reviewed here on Fantha Tracks a couple of weeks ago, chatting with creatives Ryder Windham, Chris Reiff and Chris Trevas.
Ryder Windham: To illustrate how an X-wing’s Strike foils, or S-foils, unfold, I selected two sequential still frames from the original theatrical version of Star Wars [from 1977]. At George Lucas’s instruction, Industrial Light & Magic revised the special effects for this scene in [1997’s] Star Wars: Special Edition, and made the X-wings break out of formation while their wings unfolded. Because Lucasfilm considers the revised version “canon,” I didn’t know whether they’d allow Haynes to use the earlier still frames, but I’m glad that they did, simply because the original version more clearly illustrates the X-wing’s S-foils in operation.
Chris Trevas: It was important to us to include classic Star Wars model photos alongside newer digital imagery in page layouts. We really draw from all of Star Wars history including the scenes we grew up with to the newest movies and cartoons.
Chris Reiff: We talked for a while about how to handle the S-foils illustration in the books. For a time we were going to do big cut-away renderings of the actuator system itself in the T-65 complete with servos, hinges, etc. In the end though, we liked the continuity that the more diagrammatic S-Foils illustrations brought to the other vehicle sections of the book, and how the style of those pieces mirrors the combat maneuvers style illustrations from the TIE manual and the flight controls illustrations from the Falcon manual.
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