Jedi Concept Art

Started working on visual effects for Alan Winston’s Jedi6 project again recently. Briefly obsessed over the idea of designing all CGI objects with elements from the old KBVRtv studio. Which led to these quick concept sketches.

The idea is that the viewer might unconsciously spot small details and it’ll either feel “somehow right,” or the design will get a little boost from the designs that real world items overcame, or it’ll offer a little Hardware Wars style puzzle that might make them smile. Here are the ideas so far:

1. Probe Droid Pod
One sequence begins with a probe droid landing on a desolate planet. The probe droid “pod” in Empire Strikes Back is basically a beer can with some vertical strips and a thruster.

I thought you could evoke this with A SVHS tape that had been duplicated and rotated repeatedly (10 copies, each rotated 30 degrees around y axis in the rough example at right). Somehow re-purposing an eyepiece to emit hot fiery exhaust just feels right.

2. Probe Droids(s)

Wasn’t clear if we want to go with the OT imperial design, or the prequel sith ball design. Possible we can use both, for different scenes.

– For the imperial version, the idea was to focus on the tape decks, but again rotate and combine them to create a less familiar industrial shape.T Then have tripod legs and cables dangling below, instead of articulated claws.
– For the sith ball version I thought it’d be cool to focus purely on the old edit board controls. Need to dig up a photo reference for this.

3. Geonosian Fighter
At one point we discussed having a fleet of these rarely seen Geonosian fighter ships show up during a big fire fight.

Shot some optional footage to include them. We were shooting “in the desert” so it made sense to lean towards the Geonosian designs. but. they’re also weirdly close to the Cloud City design? kinda? and just weird. I dunno. And I forgot that the Geonosian fighters had a ball in the middle with a cannon on it. oop.

3B. Droid with STAP
While drawing these up, I thought it’d be cool to incorporate the studio monitors we used to shoot live shows at KBVRtv somehow.
Their little handle bars reminded me of the prequels’ STAP ships. Was trying to think of an interesting object to add to the studio monitor that could support the feet, and eventually figured giant headphones would be cool. Which makes the previous Geonosian Fighter seem unnecessary.

Need to discuss this with Alan. Might make more sense to have little STAPs in the big sequence we discussed, with storm troopers riding instead of droids. It’d just feel like a smaller threat than full on fighter ships. More in tune with the scale of the fight.

Thought it might be funny to put this old black cap gun we used in various shorts in the place of a laser cannon. Maybe that’s too cheesy. maybe just use the cap gun’s odd barrel?

Or maybe it’d be cooler to ditch this angle, and use the studio monitors for a different sequence that involve’s anakin’s speeder bike. hmm. slash pod racer?

4. Other Ships

I think we need to create a sith ship to match Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator ship (the “Scimitar”?). Thought it would be cool to use the old DV100 mounted mic as front piece. Couldn’t think of a ball shape to really justify the main ball area.

Also couldn’t figure out how to incorporate the fairly unique rippled shape of the light kits we used to check out. figured Maybe I could work that, plus the batter chargers and a boom pole wrapped with XLR cable into the existing Jedi Starship design for a different sequence. dunno. hmmmz.